But today, fourth-generation farmer June Provost and his wife Angie are among the very last of Louisiana’s black sugarcane farmers — and they’re fighting desperately to retain their land and livelihood. (Months of interviews and research became a feature story I published last October in the Guardian.)

After June was driven out of business in 2015, and then Angie in 2017, the Provosts alleged discrimination and wrongdoing by local agricultural lenders, a local sugar mill, and county U.S. Department of Agriculture officials, and they’ve brought multiple lawsuits to prove they were treated differently than white farmers. June and Angie say the tactics used to force them from their land — including vandalism, intimidation, and contract and lending discrimination — have been widely deployed by various institutions to topple the entire black farming community.

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The agriculture industry is awash in such discrimination, with slavery as the original and most horrifying sin. In 1982, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights predicted that by 2000, there would be no remaining black farmers in the United States (today, fewer than 2 percent of U.S. farmers are black), and a 1997 USDA internal audit showed that loan applications for black farmers took three times longer than white farmers to be processed. The Pigford lawsuits of the 1990s and 2000s found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had consistently discriminated against black farmers during the loan process, and resulted in pay-outs (most of them $50,000) for thousands of victims.

As a country, we are long overdue to atone for the unpaid labor, trauma, and harm inflicted upon enslaved Africans — as well as for decades of Jim Crow policies, which widely placed black Americans and their descendants at a stark economic disadvantage. Today, the call for reparations is gaining momentum. Many key Democrats have expressed support for legislation sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), which would establish a commission to study the feasibility of reparations.

The first attempt at reparations came on the heels of the Civil War, when General Sherman ordered a sweeping redistribution of land across the U.S. South. Up to 400,000 acres of formerly Confederate-owned land was to be divided into 40-acre parcels and given to newly-freed slaves. But just months later, President Andrew Johnson overturned the order, and black families were evicted from their new acreage. “Forty acres and a mule” became one of many broken promises by the U.S. government to black America.

During slavery, the Louisiana sugar barons were among the most brutal perpetrators, using the bodies of enslaved black people to build and work their plantations. Such plantations produced the products that would prop up the early U.S. economy. Angie Provost’s ancestors were stolen from their home in Cameroon and forced onto slave ships bound for Louisiana sugar plantations.

Even after slavery was outlawed, many black workers were imprisoned as indentured servants under a legal system of debt peonage. Laborers worked off debt in the fields for free, but were kept perpetually in debt, forever bound to work without pay. Just as wealth, opportunity, and the institution of racism was passed to the children of white plantation owners, imprisonment by debt was often transferred to the next generation of black laborers.

In her book, Farming While Black, farmer and food sovereignty activist Leah Penniman wrote, “If African American people were paid $20 per week for our agricultural labor rather than enslaved, we would have $6.4 trillion in today’s dollars in the bank right now. This figure does not include reparations for denied credit and homeownership opportunities, exclusion from the social safety net and education, or property theft and destruction.”

But reparations aren’t only about the past. A recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies found that “between 1983 and 2016, the median black family saw their wealth drop by more than half after adjusting for inflation, compared to a 33 percent increase for the median white household.” Today, reads the report, “the median black family today owns $3,600 — just 2 percent of the $147,000 of wealth the median white family owns.”

A similar disparity exists in land ownership. In the United States, white landowners own 98 percent of rural acreage (worth over $1 trillion), while black landowners own less than one percent (worth approximately $14 billion).

Last year, during an interview with Hank Sanders, one of the lead attorneys for the Pigford case, I asked him if he felt that the $50,000 pay-outs that black farmers received constituted justice. “I feel like we did the best we could do, but I don’t think that was justice,” he said. “When you take a farm away from people, you not only take away a way of earning a living, you also take away a lifestyle. Money can’t replace that.”

But, he said, it was a start. It was also proof of the widespread racism within the department, and the significant harm done to black farmers at the hands of the government.

“Pigford was meant to right the wrongs of discrimination, but most of the claimants awarded are out of business,” said Angie. This now includes June, who received a pay-out as a Pigford claimant, along with his father and brothers, leading Angie to believe that reparations should also include policy changes, “including extending legal limits for retaliation.”

“Those of us discriminated against — whether it’s racism or sexism — rarely speak up or fight back based on the fear of being eliminated or devalued further,” said Angie. “Taking away that fear is part of reparations.”

This resistance extends beyond the nucleus of individuals organizing: Entire cities like Philadelphia are confronting threats to racial and socioeconomic justice, and showing us what bolder movements to end poverty, water insecurity, and mass incarceration look like at the local level.

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I spoke with Councilmember At-Large Helen Gym, one of Philadelphia’s vanguard leaders in the city’s social justice movement, to learn more about her work.

Rejane Frederick: What does it mean to be a social justice legislator, especially in a nation that is struggling to find its moral footing?

Councilmember Helen Gym: I come out of immigrant rights work and public education work, and an Asian American movement that tried to center multi-racial coalition building. What we’re seeing right now is a merging of a lot of issues that are bringing a lot of different groups of people together—connecting interwoven systems that bring together housing, schools, criminal justice, immigrant rights, women’s issues.

For me, what it means in this moment is not that our work has changed or that the issues have changed. They’ve become more heightened. And the failure to unify across many different coalitions will be the progressive movement’s failure to win in a moment when we should unite. But we can’t do it if we are siloed, if we don’t build these multi-racial coalitions.

RF: Regarding unifying across coalitions, in 2016 you said, “Poverty and inequality are the crippling injustices that lie at the heart of the justice struggle.” Can you say more about that?

HG: For me, the indifference to poverty is incredibly profound. It’s deeply rooted in racism. It’s deeply rooted in othering. It’s deeply rooted in judgment and condemnation. And it’s deeply rooted in America’s tendency to be hyper-individualized, to focus on individual people’s problems, and not look at the broader systems that profit from poverty—not just allow poverty to continue, but actually profit from it. When we keep schools down and we fund other schools to excess. When we fail to invest in housing, when we abandon public spaces and we keep our minimum wage at their lowest levels. When we don’t fight to diversify our unions and the few paths that people of color have to living wages, all those kinds of things.

Of course, when you deal with poverty and inequality, you’re dealing with people who are in desperate circumstances. They’re going to lose their school. They’re going to lose their home. They could lose their children. These are not people who have the luxury of saying “I’ll fix this in 10 years.” You’ve got to be there in a moment of crisis and we’ve got to move people through a moment of crisis and then build for broader things.

Since I come out of grassroots movements I feel strongly about people’s development. My hope is that I pass the torch. That is the goal. To build and strengthen a bigger, broader movement. You take and occupy a moment in time, in political office—it is one lever, but not the ultimate lever.

It’s great to see people being excited about elected office, but I need to know what you’re going to do when you get in there. Who are you going to bring in there with you? What are you going to champion, and how will communities be better off when you leave?

I’m interested in how we move systems toward significant change. You’re just one small piece, and the power really lies in the grassroots movement-building that will sustain that work far beyond anyone’s term in office.

RF: You’ve talked about the ways being a community organizer has informed your work on the city council, and you’ve also talked about your theory of change. How does real change happen?

HG: We’re dealing with systems that have massive amounts of dysfunction, large failures, gaps, long-term instability, and people in power who try to patch it up, bandage it, repackage it, and rebrand it, all that kind of stuff. So I’m thoughtful about how the people who live the consequences of the policies that we create are the people who experience the most pain, but they also have a lot of solutions about what this looks like.

The really profound stuff for me comes out of some of the experiences I’ve had around public education, when the state and elected officials and civic actors and many people who had money, titles, and the power to fix something, simply walked away. They abandoned the public schools in Philadelphia, largely in the state of Pennsylvania as well. We closed down 24 schools and laid off thousands of staff. We left kids without nurses and counselors. We shut down their school libraries, abandoned them in classrooms of 60 or more, and then we said, “I wonder how they’ll do? Let’s test the hell out of them.”

I’ve always thought that was a very sick social experiment hoisted upon black, brown, and immigrant kids who live those consequences. And that, to me, is the definition of what racism is. It’s purposeful. I don’t care about intent. Racism is not about just your intent. It’s about the effect that you have on other people. Who picked up the pieces of that? It wasn’t the superintendent, the mayors, the governors, and the school board. The people who pushed hardest for the solutions were the parents, educators, organized student groups, immigrant families who had no other choice but to go to their public schools. And their work was powerful. It was moving; it was rooted outside of the halls of the School Reform Commission (SRC), and maybe outside of city halls.

Those get formed in your school yards, your backyard barbeques, when they marry with real policy, data, and information. You start working on organizing, you get groups and foundations to fund organizing. Then you start to see real movement for change. And the reality is that, yeah, it took us 17 years but I can point to so many more parents that can speak so clearly about what’s been happening that when Betsy DeVos was confirmed as secretary of education, they could take things on in that moment. They’re not surprised, they’ve heard this before, and they know to challenge it.

RF: I’m thinking about what you’ve mentioned in Philadelphia, with the charter schools and privatization movement, and the very real questions about authentic investments in public institutions. What do they look like? Why do they matter? Why is it important to continue to invest in our public institutions even when they deliver sometimes disappointing results?

HG: I don’t think people should allow dysfunctional public institutions to operate on autopilot just for the sake of saying that they support it. The reason why public institutions get targeted is because they don’t serve people as well as they should. They create or reinforce systems of inequity, whether by intent or not. So I support all these groups and people who tackle our public institutions with a fervor to hold it accountable, to see change, to diversify that institution, and to help it evolve.

But privatization is a different thing. It’s saying “I give up on the public space and I will go private.” Private is money, capital, and the power to be able to own a previously public thing. That’s an enormous amount of privilege. And the overwhelming majority of those folks are not going to look like the people they serve. There’s no obligation to serve diverse communities, marginalized communities—they’re more expensive, so if you’re running on a profit margin, don’t expect to profit off serving low-income youth, and immigrants, and helping them learn English, or helping special needs students get to a point of full capacity.

When we closed down 24 public schools in Philadelphia, we probably saw the largest transfer of public land into private hands that we had seen in the city of Philadelphia. It’s a really profound thing for government to say to those that they are charged to serve, especially when they are the most vulnerable—when those communities don’t have a lot of public institutions—to say “Sorry, I simply give up. I’m passing the buck to someone else.” It’s absolutely unacceptable and we should fight against it with every bit of our body because those private institutions take our dollars, they take our children, they purport that they are smarter, more powerful, wealthier, are more efficient to do the job better. And overwhelmingly what we find is that communities become more stratified, more marginalized, less likely to have voice and exercise their voice within those privatized structures.

When public institutions are starved into dysfunction and private capital moves in, that is not helping the situation. It’s exploiting and profiting off public distress. And it overwhelmingly harms the people that are already deeply impacted.

RF: What other safeguards do we have to put into place to protect these targeted communities and ensure that any gains aren’t clawed back?

HG: Our communities are under assault daily. I’d love to say “look at all the great stuff we’re doing.” But the reality is it pales in comparison based on the kinds of assaults that communities endure, and they are really deeply traumatic. They break apart people’s ability to conceive of ways to fight back, or to think about other groups other than yourself, because you’re struggling at the moment with housing, you’re struggling at the moment because you’re terrified that your child may not come home because they’re black. You’re terrified of police monitoring the streets, terrified of a criminal conviction coming up time and time again every time you seek a job.

RF: Or immigrant parents with citizen children afraid to access the resources and programs that they need because they’re afraid that ICE might be there to swoop them up.

HG: Today there was an incredible story about how Philadelphia’s ICE office outranks every single office nationwide in terms of sweeping up people with absolutely no criminal history. In 2013, 33 percent of people swept up by ICE had no criminal record history, and now 70 percent do. And people are seeking political gain by scapegoating immigrants, by trying to pacify people and say “I’m going to send people to jail.” This dictator-like and fascist mentality around incarceration, oppression, repression of mostly black, brown, and immigrant people is really terrifying.

The thing that we have to build out right now is a way to connect these struggles together. If you care about mass incarceration, then take a look at how immigrant communities are being funneled into the for-profit private prison industry that allows rampant physical abuses. Similarly, immigrant communities who are terrified for themselves, scared of the police, scared of judges and the courts, should care about the criminal justice reform movement that has been working on this for a very long time. You can’t divorce these two movements from one another.

RF: You’ve said in the past that the backbone of the progressive movement lies in local organizing. So what is it that national advocacy organizations, think tanks, funders should do to better support the local activism, or the campaigns for justice on the ground?

HG: One, they have to recognize the importance of diversifying their own boards and staff to make sure that there are people of color, women in particular, who are listening to groups, and evaluating not just based on a numbers game—like number of people served, bang for your buck, whatever metrics people use—but also take a look at just the quality of the outcome. What is really moving things? Think tanks and policymakers need to be more cognizant of on-the-ground movement, but that doesn’t happen by sitting in Washington, D.C., or in New York City in an executive suite and tower. It really happens by being connected with people; then they can understand how to evaluate this stuff. If you see movement, go into it.

RF: Thank you Councilmember Gym, it has been such an honor having this conversation with you.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Karen had cycled in and out of prisons for crimes committed in the Greater Philadelphia area, ranging from identity theft and fraud to prostitution and strong-armed robbery. In her early 20s, a Delaware judge handed down a drug trafficking conviction that came with her first of several prison sentences. That’s when she was invited to enroll in a collective-oriented recovery program—a method that was relatively new to that prison in the early 1990s, and Karen’s first exposure to drug treatment. The program was designed to be a “total treatment environment,” where participants were separated from the distractions of normal prison life with other inmates, and instead lived and worked in a space focused on recovery, mutual support, and accountability for self-change.

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Karen didn’t make it through even 5 weeks of the 12-month program before getting kicked out for insubordination to a counselor. When I asked her to reflect on her thoughts about leaving the counseling program to return to work assignments and the general prison population, her response startled me. “I loved [leaving]” she said. “It was just time for me to leave … I ended up losing weight in there. I had lost 19 pounds and ain’t nobody know who I was.”

What Karen encountered—and happily left—was a type of treatment program on which a lot of U.S. prisons rely: the therapeutic community (TC). Based on her story, and the stories of those like her, its success seems to depend on the race of the participants.

*

More than 1 million adults with serious mental illnesses are currently under criminal justice supervision, and the criminal legal system has emerged as one of the largest dedicated providers of substance abuse treatment for American citizens. Treatment for inmates with substance use disorder ranges from cognitive behavioral therapies, which teach patients to identify how thoughts and beliefs affect behavior, to medication, such as methadone, and even to mindfulness, which teaches students how to acknowledge and accept their present-moment struggles and design healthy ways to cope with those feelings and triggers.

Currently, more than 25 percent of state inmates and 1 in 5 federal inmates receive group-based drug treatment, typically offered in the form of a therapeutic community. The guiding approach of the TC is to provide drug-addicted inmates with a substance-free environment and group-based counseling. What sets this prison-based model apart is its focus. Unlike other programs that treat addiction, with TC, it’s understood that the person is sick, and that addiction is only a symptom of that sickness.

For example, during half-day “group shares,” participants are supposed to publicly examine their personal choices. If someone’s behavior doesn’t support the stated values of the TC, they are confronted by the community to help them “get back on track.” This recalibration takes shape first in the form of a verbal “pull-up,” where one community member makes the transgression of another known to the rest of the community. This exposure usually takes place during “encounter groups,” or “EGs,” as Karen referred to them— mandatory group-based meetings marked by harsh public shaming.

My research team interviewed 300 men and women who participated in these encounter groups while incarcerated in Delaware, and several described the experience as being situated in the middle of a pinball machine, where when in the “hot seat” (literally in the center of the group of other TC residents circled around you), you are emotionally hurled from one peer’s criticism to the next. Karen described why she was glad to not have to deal with it anymore:

EG is when everybody is sittin’ around in a circle, and you sit right in the middle of that circle, and when they call your name you would turn around to ‘em and they just blow you right out. Anything that they wanted to say—cuss at you—all you do is sit up in there and you don’t do nothing.

The rationale for this element of “treatment” is to require participants to publicly admit that their choices and negative behaviors got them to where they are now. This is a critical part of TC programming, and newer residents are socialized into these norms by older residents and TC staff, many of whom are in recovery themselves.

Respondents I spoke with shared that the initiation practice breeds bitterness and despair.

Leaving the TC, however, is no simple feat. Participants aren’t assessed as making progress unless they accept that they are “sick” and that they are personally responsible for their current imprisonment and the circumstances that brought them there. But in an age of massive cuts to public benefits and derogatory myths about “welfare queens,” female drug treatment clients are already often characterized as pathologically inferior and dependent. Those without jobs, or children they care for, must tread this territory with a very light step. And for formerly incarcerated non-Whites who must also carry the disproportionate burden of discrimination in post-prison housing and labor markets, the “addict” label is even more dangerous.

*

My interviews with current and former White TC participants suggest that, even though they also find pull-ups horrific, they are more comfortable adopting the label of “addict.” They shared that adopting a sick role allows them to enjoy a collection of rights and pardons, including protection from having to assume full responsibility for their life circumstances, and access to more inclusive, less blame-laden care. We’ve seen the same thing with the emerging conversation about the opioid crisis and how much collective empathy has been extended to White opioid users, despite being denied to Black heroin users for decades. Justine, a 51-year old White women from the suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware, shared that she knew that her addict status would have hurt her recovery and post-prison reintegration prospects much more if she were not White:

When I got out of state [prison], it was like people forgave me in ways I never expected.  They thought that because they saw me doing the work, going to meetings, walking the steps—they thought that I deserved a second chance … I learned that nobody wants a pretty White girl to go to waste like that. Strangers will fight for me even if I won’t.  That’s a truth that still gets me out of trouble today.

Experiences like Justine’s underscore the benefits of White privilege and class privilege. Studies show that White job candidates, regardless of their backgrounds, are given the benefit of the doubt in the labor market in ways that are denied to Black applicants. On the other hand, Black jobseekers are more hesitant to disclose anything that confirms the drug-using or criminal stereotype that they believe employers are already harboring.

Melanie, a Black woman who had served over 10 years for a cocaine possession conviction, shared that the illness language was synonymous with “junkie” and would never help her once released from prison. Instead, she believed that those labels would only lock her out from viable job opportunities and housing options, which are already limited for poor racial minority women with criminal records. Melanie was one of many who either “faked it,” relying on a script that she believed TC counselors wanted to hear, or dropped out of the TC altogether and forfeited the opportunity to claim a formal rehabilitation status.

Other Black respondents left the program because of their desire to get out from under the state’s gaze as soon as possible. The appeal to White TC graduates of prolonging treatment for the sake of earning a certificate of rehabilitation that could be displayed to prospective employers and landlords didn’t have the same luster for Black graduates. For White graduates, the certificate served as a badge. For Black graduates, the certificate lingered as a foul stain, proof of their diseased persona that could resurface at any time.

We already live in a society where Black people simply don’t get to be pardoned, sick, redeemed, or fully human. Incarcerated people who are Black and assessed as drug-addicted are self-selecting out of the corrections-based recovery process because it simply costs them too much and nets them too little.

Damon, a Black man who had worked in construction since his teens but couldn’t find work upon returning home from prison, had this to say about flaunting the TC graduation credentials: “I can tell you this much … I don’t know what the silver bullet is, but I know that that ain’t it.”

* All first names are pseudonyms and used to protect research subjects’ privacy.

**“Black” and “White” are capitalized throughout to illustrate that they represent political categories, just as you would see when identifying an “Irish,” “American,” or “Chicano” individual.

Now, in a groundbreaking new study by a team of researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and the Census Bureau, he’s changing the conversation yet again. This latest study finds that even when children grow up next to each other with parents who earn similar incomes, black boys fare worse than white boys in 99 percent of the country. And, perhaps even more staggering, those gaps only worsen in neighborhoods with low poverty rates and good schools.

I spoke with Chetty to unpack this new study and what it means for our understanding of racial inequality in America.

Rebecca Vallas: So the racial income and wealth gap has long been documented, but your study sheds new light on what’s driving income inequality across racial groups. What did you find with your colleagues?

Raj Chetty: What’s new about the study is that it takes a perspective across generations. So most prior work on racial inequality in the United States has looked at people with a snapshot at a point in time—comparing adults who were, let’s say, 40 years old who were black versus white versus Hispanic and looking at how their incomes and other outcomes differ. But what we do here is use data that span across generations where we can link kids to their parents. And in this case we’re able to use anonymized data covering about 20 million kids and their parents and look at how these disparities evolve across generations.

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The key finding that emerges from this analysis is that there are very large differences by race, especially when it comes to kids’ chance of climbing and staying at the top of the income ladder. Most strikingly, even among kids who grow up in high-income families, if you’re black, you have a much lower chance of remaining in the next generation at the top of the income distribution or even in the middle of the income distribution than if you’re white. Black kids have almost an equal chance of ending up at the bottom as they do of staying at the top if they start out in a high-income family.

The reason that’s so important is that it tells us these disparities are not just arising from something that’s happening today. Trying to climb the income ladder for black Americans is almost like you’re on a treadmill. You climb up in one generation only then to fall behind again and have to climb up once more, and it’s that feature, that cycle that has to be broken to combat these disparities in the long run.

RV: Your study also found that racial inequality can’t be explained by differences in cognitive ability, which maybe sounds common sense to a lot of folks listening, but is actually pretty important as an empirical finding considering a lot of the narratives that still persist out there about what explains poverty in America.

RC: That’s right. We really don’t think differences in ability explain the gaps that we’re documenting, and there are two simple reasons for that. The first is the pattern that I just described of downward mobility across generations. It’s really only there for black boys. Black women do just about as well as white women once you control for their parental income. And that suggests first of all, if you look at most prior theories of differences in cognitive ability, The Bell Curve book for example, it does not present evidence that you’d expect these differences to vary by gender. Furthermore, if you look at test score data, which is the basis for most prior theories about differences in ability, the fact that black kids when they’re in school tend to score lower on standardized tests than white kids, that actually is true for both black boys and for black girls to the same extent. In contrast when you look at earnings there are dramatic gender differences.

And so that suggests that these tests are actually not really capturing in a very accurate way differences in ability as they matter for long-term outcomes, which casts doubt on that whole body of evidence. So, based on that type of reasoning, we really think this is not about differences in ability. One final piece of evidence that echoes that is if you look at kids who move to different areas, areas where we see better outcomes for black kids, you see that they do much better themselves, which again demonstrates that environment seems to be important. This is not about immutable factors like differences in ability.

RV: You mentioned gender differences. One of the most interesting pieces of the study—to me in particular—was that when it comes to women, it seems to be a very different story.

RC: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I think we were quite surprised by that. So there is earlier evidence showing that gaps in wages, for example, are smaller for women between black and white relative to black and white men. What we were struck by is if you just control for parental income so you look at two children, say growing up in a family making $50,000 a year, if you look at their daughters they have essentially the same outcomes in terms of earning, wage rates, employment rates, their chance of going to college. Lots of different outcomes you can look at.

If you look at boys, it’s a completely different picture. If you compare black boys to white boys you see enormous gaps in earnings and employment rates, perhaps most starkly in the context of incarceration. One in five black men born to a low-income family is incarcerated on a given day, which is just an astonishingly high rate. You don’t see anything like that for both black and white women.

Now, one thing I want to emphasize here is that in some of the public discussion following the paper, people have been a little bit surprised. “Are you saying there is no issue here for women? That doesn’t really sound right.” I want to emphasize that that is not what we’re saying. First of all, if you just look in the raw data, there is still a significant difference in the earnings of black women and white women, and the reason for that is black women still grow up in much lower-income families than white women. So it’s only once you control for parental income that their outcomes look much more similar. The second important point to note is that black women, white women, and black men all have relatively similar levels of earnings, that it’s really white men who have considerably higher levels of earnings. The reason we focus on black men is when we look at certain outcomes like the probability that they have a job or their odds of being incarcerated or their chances of completing high school, they do look like an outlier relative to all the other groups. Black men are significantly less likely to be employed than black women, they are significantly more likely to be incarcerated, they’re significantly less likely to complete high school. And so it does seem like there are a special set of challenges confronting black men. That’s not to say that there’s no issue for black women or that gender equity is not an issue, that’s just not the focus of this study.

RV: The gaps that you found in your research only worsen in neighborhoods with low poverty rates and good schools. Why is that?

RC: Both black kids and white kids do much better in places that have better schools, that have low poverty rates, that you might think of intuitively as “good neighborhoods.” So we’re not challenging that intuition at all. However, what you see in the data is that white kids gain more from being in these lower-poverty areas and from attending better schools than black kids do. And as a result the gaps between white kids and black kids are larger in those areas. So the takeaway from that is not that schools are not important or that having lower-poverty, lower-crime areas are not important; all of those things would help black kids and white kids as we’ve shown in our prior work.

What this study is showing is it is not adequate by itself to close black-white disparities. You need to do more than that. You need to perhaps integrate black kids into these better schools so that they can take advantages of the resources they offer to the same extent that white kids do.

To put it differently, thinking about socioeconomic class and neighborhood is not a substitute for thinking about race. We need to think about how to narrow racial disparities separately.

This interview was conducted for Off-Kilter and aired as part of a complete episode on March 23. It was edited for length and clarity.

“Really?” Trump replied. “Then what are they?”

Statistically, they were probably white. But given the United States’ history with the word “welfare,” it’s not all that surprising that Trump was confused.

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Despite the fact that white Americans benefit more from government assistance than people of color, means-tested aid is primarily associated with black people and other people of color—particularly when the term welfare is used. For many Americans, the word welfare conjures up a host of disparaging stereotypes so strongly linked to stigmatized beliefs about racial groups that—along with crime—it is arguably one of the most racialized terms in the country.

Martin Gilens, a professor of political science at Princeton University, has studied the relationship between whites’ racial attitudes and their opinion on welfare extensively. In one study, he finds that white people’s racial attitudes are the single most important influence on their views on welfare. In other words, white people who are more prejudiced toward black people are also significantly more opposed to welfare. Numerous studies in the social sciences have substantiated this claim.

That has tremendous consequences for the types of policies that are proposed and passed. Public support for programs associated with the term welfare are generally weaker than support for other programs, like unemployment insurance, primarily because welfare is so strongly linked to the negative attitudes white people possess about black people. However, the public is willing to support redistributive benefits generally when they are not called welfare. For example, in 2014, 58 percent of white people thought that we are spending too much on welfare, whereas only 16 percent reported that we are spending too much on the poor.

Source: Author’s analysis of 2014 General Social Survey data.

These same racial attitudes also structure the way policies are designed. They inform which groups we think are deserving of assistance, and which are not. Nicholas Winter, for instance, notes that part of why Social Security is so relatively popular compared to welfare is because of how both policies are racialized. Social Security, he argues, has been framed as a policy that is both universal—that is, it benefits all groups—and as one that has been contrasted with welfare as an earned reward for hard work (stereotypes associated with white people), rather than a handout for the lazy and dependent (stereotypes associated with black people).

In contrast, negative beliefs about the beneficiaries of programs we think of as welfare have arguably lead to a system of surveillance and sanctions. After Reagan popularized the disparaging stereotype of the

in the 1980s, Bill Clinton passed welfare reform policies that restricted access to benefits to satisfy racist attitudes. In addition to placing significant and often unfair burdens on the individuals seeking assistance, these restrictions—like required drug-testing of program applicants, restrictions on where benefits can be spent, and specifications on what types of work count toward required hours—relied on stereotypes and reinforced the belief that beneficiaries of these programs are undeserving. According to work by Joe Soss and Sanford F. Schram, more people believed that welfare benefits lead to dependency in 2003 than in 1989.

The media have played a significant role in establishing the link between poverty, welfare, and race in the public mind. According to Gilens, these trends were forged in the 1960s, when race riots drew the nation’s attention to the black urban poor. In just three years—from 1964 to 1967—the percentage of poverty news stories that featured images of black people grew from 27 percent to 72 percent. These trends have persisted in the present day.

But both Gilens’ and Winters’ work suggests that the media can also help promote anti-poverty legislation by avoiding racialized terms, like welfare, to talk about public assistance. But if they keep leaning specifically on the term welfare—as they have during Speaker Ryan’s recent push to cut anti-poverty programs by referring to them as “welfare reform”—then otherwise popular policies may be dragged down with the word’s racialized history.

I try to make myself small. I fold into myself hoping that if I don’t make eye contact, if I just don’t look up, no one will notice I’m there. I pack away my loud laugh and hunch my broad shoulders.

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My mom mentioned the same thing to me in a phone call last week. On her daily walk during her lunch break, she asked me if she could share something that had been weighing on her recently. Her whole life, she said, she has tried to make herself invisible. As a child, she tried to make herself invisible as a means of survival. As a teenager who was undocumented, she tried to make herself invisible so that she wouldn’t be detained by INS. And as a single mother, she tried to make herself invisible so that she could raise me in an environment that was safe. Recently, people have been cutting her in lines, as if she isn’t there.

“I’m starting to think I got too good at making myself invisible. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I do.”

The concept of shrinking one’s self down to navigate the world safely is not at all new. When what you have learned in life is that self-preservation may be your only means of survival, invisibility is a refuge. But over the past year—a year in which our country has been led by a man who won the White House by being sexist, racist, and violently anti-immigrant—invisible people have stepped into the light.

When being seen is dangerous, choosing to be visible is an act of resistance and radical love.

We see this with young undocumented activists who are protesting at the Capitol: seeking out the elected officials who would deprive them of their home, knowing fully well that they could be arrested and detained. We see this with the members of ADAPT who fought to take down Trumpcare, through arrests in front of the White House, in the Capitol Rotunda, and Mitch McConnell’s office. We see this in the survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault, ranging from movie stars to domestic workers, who are speaking their assaulters’ names.

We are done making ourselves small, and we are done staying quiet out of fear.

There is no asking for access anymore, or asking to be listened to. Instead, there is truth telling and a demand for acknowledgment. We are showing up, in record numbers, and we are not losing energy.

We have realized that our seat at the table will not be given to us if it requires someone who has privilege to relinquish it. So we are doing what Shirley Chisholm taught us, and bringing our own folding chairs. And in doing so, we have stepped out of our invisibility and into the light.

But even with those words of encouragement, there were still times when I felt I was lacking, and that I stuck out like a sore thumb—beyond the difference in my race and skin color. I had my fair share of racist encounters: classmates asking if we were going to get shot by gang bangers on a school trip to see Watts Towers, and being bullied by boys who were universally kind to the white girls in my class. I also had my first experiences with classism, even at the age of 9.

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Classism—especially in a country where most people believe they are middle class—is subtle and implicit. It was there when my Spanish teacher didn’t realize some students might not be able to afford a camcorder to complete an assignment, until my mother called and asked for an alternative way for me to complete the project. It was there when the same teacher became inexplicably obsessed with my statement, during a class discussion, that I owned an armoire. She was concerned enough about my furniture to talk to my mother about it at a parent-teacher conference: “Loryn claims she has an armoire, but I really think she was trying to fit in with the wealthier kids,” she said.

Those moments were embarrassing, and that embarrassment kept me in my place (which is to say, quiet). Then the class gap started to steer entire curriculums. Like a lot of students, I struggled with math. But while other students had access to expensive tutors, I had to rely on the lessons in school or my parents helping me whenever they could. I often got answers wrong when I was called on, which led to the other kids teasing me. It got to a point where I didn’t even bother raising my hand to speak—I didn’t want to feel that embarrassment again.

In the classroom, we acted according to our status: The rich kids asked for attention, while I tried to be obedient. Research shows that’s typical: An Indiana University study concluded that social class leads to differences in how parents tell their kids to navigate school. More affluent parents tell their kids to ask questions and actively seek attention, while working class parents tell their kids that asking for extra help is disrespectful. And so, the divide between the haves and have-nots is multiplied.

This divide makes the current administration’s emphasis on “school choice” a hard sell. President Trump’s budget called for a $250 million increase in voucher programs, which would pay for more students to attend private schools. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has not provided many additional details, but she is an outspoken advocate for school choice programs, arguing that it focuses on the needs of the individual child. But more often than not, sending students to schools with more resources simply means they’re attending schools that are whiter and wealthier. And that comes with a culture shock.

A study by the Department of Education showed that test scores fell when students moved from public to private schools. Though there are a number of potential causes for the drop in performance, researchers suspect that the different behavioral expectations—just like the ones that plagued me—play the biggest role. And it doesn’t help that teachers have lower expectations for students of color and students from disadvantaged backgrounds—those expectations actually play a bigger role in student outcomes than a student’s own motivation or effort.

If you are convinced that private school vouchers are the answer to the country’s education woes, you will also need to be ready to prepare students who do not come from wealthy families for the classism and class differences they will face. This means training teachers and other faculty to be sensitive to how these differences affect the way kids learn—and yes, how to unlearn the assumptions they may make about poor students.

One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt.

– Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

Earlier this year, National Geographic published an article claiming to have discovered the 25 happiest cities in the United States. The measurements were based on a scale developed by Gallup, with input from Dan Buettner, who has spent decades traveling the globe in pursuit of the roots of happiness. Even with all that experience, Buettner’s findings (reported in the article by George Stone) seem to overlook one glaring problem: American happiness appears to be rich and white.

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The city that tops Nat Geo’s list this year is Boulder, Colorado. Boulder is a small town nestled in the Rocky Mountains, known for its biking paths, clean air, and youthful population; the latter of which can be attributed to the fact that it is home to the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and Naropa University, in addition to several specialty and trade schools. Naropa University includes the writing school that was founded by beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. It’s also where I attended grad school.

Before I moved to the city, I had farewell drinks with a friend and a schoolmate he brought along, an Asian woman who spent one short academic year at CU before bolting.

“It’s the most racist place I’ve ever been,” she told me upon learning where I would soon be moving. “Everyone there is white, and if you’re not,” she swiped her hand through the air as though swatting away a bug. “It was like being Asian made me an alien,” she added.

There was a moment of silence as I thought about my Cuban heritage, and whether I’d fit into the city that Nat Geo this year described as “bolstered by a sense of community, access to nature, sustainable urban development and preservation policies.”

Then my friend (a white gay man, if you’re wondering), said, “Oh, don’t worry, you pass.” Ultimately, he’s right. I do “pass.” My skin is olive-toned but not brown, my eyes are hazel, and my hair is a shade that in Latino communities is considered rubio, which roughly translates in English to blonde. I did not personally experience the racial alienation my drinking partner described that evening, but I saw and experienced other events that made the generous smiles, the lavish, clear-aired sunsets, and the folded yogis in the parks all seem like part of a deeply exclusionary facade.

     *                            *                            *

In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” author Ursula Le Guin describes a city of immense but ambiguous happiness, where “the air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky.” There, in Omelas, the people “were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched.” But buried somewhere out of sight, in a small windowless room, an emaciated child sits alone. Le Guin describes its fear and decrepitude; the terrible squalor of its existence, and the feeble, hopeless waste of its mind and body. The child is always referred to as “it,” because to imagine an actual human being treated this way is beyond comprehension.

But, Le Guin explains, the people of Omelas have had to make a choice. “If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done … that would be to let guilt within the walls.”

And so the Omelans reason that it is simply a matter of math. Every life in the city stays joyful and beautiful—and the one that is not is hidden.

     *                            *                            *

National Geographic writes that in the happiest places, “locals smile and laugh more often, socialize several hours a day, have access to green spaces, and feel that they are making purposeful progress toward achieving life goals.”

This type of happiness, the article admits, relies upon wealth. What it doesn’t mention outright, however, is that for an entire city to be dubbed “the happiest,” poverty cannot play a significant factor. In Boulder’s case, this is not because the social problems that cause poverty have been fixed, but because the poor have been pushed out.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 88 percent of Boulder is single-racial white. The median single-household income is just under $60,000, and the mean a whopping $90,000. Median monthly housing costs are reported at $1,320, with the number of renters and homeowners roughly the same (in 2015, there were only about 2,000 more renters than homeowners). This should be surprising, considering the fact that Boulder houses two universities, and the average student does not own the home she lives in. While I was there, I watched a slow, quiet change take place; one that I doubt many of my mostly white and affluent grad school cohorts noticed. It was something I saw not from my vantage point as a grad student at the Jack Kerouac School, but as someone addicted to heroin, who would, while in Boulder, eventually become homeless, pregnant, and on methadone.

First, the natural food markets—which were more available than average grocery stores—began stocking security guards alongside their expensive, organic products. Then the city discretely installed security cameras near the Boulder Public Library, which were able to spy on Central Park—once a favorite hangout spot for the city’s small homeless population. Wayne, a local methadone patient who asked me to change his name for privacy purposes, tells me there is no longer a homeless presence at that location—or, he says, much of anywhere in Boulder. That’s not surprising, since the city passed several ordinances that essentially prohibit homelessness: They outlaw sleeping in vehicles, “aggressive begging,” and public camping.

My methadone clinic used to be located just off Pearl Street, the beflowered street pictured in Nat Geo’s article.  A short while after I left the clinic in late 2012, it moved from Boulder to Longmont—Boulder’s poorer, browner neighbor to the north. It remains there, in a large, unattached building that stands near several bus lines but away from any downtown area. Wayne has been a client there since August of this year, previously attending the sister location in Denver. He was never a patient at the Boulder location, but works as an Uber driver and tells me over Facebook that the attitude toward addiction and poverty has shifted dramatically in Boulder over the past several years.

“The influx of new wealthy people from all over the country … has made people more judgmental and ignorant,” he says.

And what of the other cities that top National Geographic’s list? Number two is Watsonville, California. Although Santa Cruz County, where Watsonville is located, hosts a heavily Hispanic and Latino population, Watsonville itself is, again, mostly white—a shift that has climbed steadily since 2010. Rent averages around the same as in Boulder. Charlottesville, Virginia, earned third-place on the measure of happiness, even after making national headlines for hosting a violent white nationalist rally. It is around 70 percent white, with a mean household income just under $90,000.

Perhaps these facts are not surprising. Perhaps we have known, all along, that money does in fact buy happiness.

When I look at the photos and blog posts from my classmates who are still in Boulder, it appears relatively unchanged. Ravishing sunsets frame wine glasses adorned by a backdrop of lush mountains. Pearl Street’s clean red bricks look as pretty as I remember against the quaint boutiques that line the street. In these photos, everyone is smiling. It’s envy-inducing, for sure.

But then I remember how, when I was in Boulder just a few years back, the photo of Pearl Street that heads the Nat Geo article could not have been taken without a street performer or beggar in sight. How the methadone clinic was pushed north, and along with it, I’m sure, all of those clients seeking refuge from addiction. The measure of Boulder’s happiness is not only healthy eating and learning new skills, but also a practiced ignorance of those who are suffering or in need.

One thing I know there is none of in Boulder is guilt.

There are events morning and night: People have staged die-ins, blocked intersections, and marched for miles every day in the sweltering Missouri heat. There is always someone with water or sandwiches or voter registration forms nearby, and a volunteer medic every few hundred feet. There are legal observers and a drum line, but no hint of reconciliation in the air.

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Annie Smith, the mother of Anthony Lamar Smith, gave a press conference on Friday at the site of her son’s death. “I didn’t get justice, so I can’t have any peace,” she said.

The weekend has been split, as it usually is in St. Louis, between massive demonstrations that are angry but peaceful and smaller nighttime protests that devolve into broken windows and tear gas. The property damage has been in a different section of the city every night, led by younger and angrier protesters, and there is tension between people who think breaking windows is violence and people who argue that it’s not as violent as killing people. The chant “you kill us, we kill your economy” is a two-edged sword, and in the daytime it sounds like thousands of people making commerce inconvenient and at night it sounds like dozens of people making commerce disappear.

On Sunday morning, people gathered in the Delmar Loop, which had seen the worst of the damage, to help clean up and board up storefronts and paint murals on the plywood. Then they went to protest. That’s how St. Louis has been since 2014 at least, when this cycle ingrained itself into the city.

By Sunday night a fully militarized police force had seized control again. They chanted, “Whose streets? Our streets!” after arresting dozens of people—media, legal observers, and protesters alike. An undercover police car reversed through a crowd marching through a street in downtown St. Louis on Sunday, after which a line of riot police protected the car while protesters de-escalated the situation.

A funny thing about new normals is how easily people accept them; most people seemed upset but not shocked by these incidents. They expected the not guilty verdict and were ready for it—and for the police response. Journalists have been arrested at St. Louis protests before, the most famous example being Wesley Lowery and Ryan Reilly while they worked from a Ferguson McDonald’s in 2014. And on Saturday, a woman named Pat Washington was hit by a truck during a protest, though her injuries were minor and she finished the march. Two other times this weekend I’ve seen cars simply keep driving through the crowd.

If you are looking for a 2017 dystopia, it’s in St. Louis. It is entirely usual and patently unacceptable for the police force to do many of the things they’ve been doing on video over the last few days: firing projectiles toward residents at random, macing people who came out of a bathroom, knocking over and kicking elderly women before arresting them on spurious charges, running cars into crowds, using strobe lights on crowds of protesters at night knowing there were epileptics in the area, and putting a synagogue under siege on Shabbat. It is messy and complex here. There are shades of 2014, with the same protesters demanding the same changes and the same authorities quelling the unrest. But is it also three years later, and as a nation we are debating whether it’s appropriate to have Sean Spicer on the Emmys or whether it’s okay for the president to tweet a video of himself hitting Hillary Clinton with a golf ball.

On Monday morning, protesters arrived downtown by 7:00 a.m. Protests are expected to continue into Tuesday evening. Police and news helicopters circle above, and people wonder aloud why they don’t just admit a cop was guilty for once instead of putting everyone through all this again.

Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series on the trial over the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith. Read part one.

St. Louis residents are used to being told to wait for justice, and this all feels familiar. In 2014, it took months to get the grand jury’s decision not to charge Darren Wilson for the shooting of Michael Brown.

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Now, any time something big happens in St. Louis—like a verdict or an important anniversary—people converge on the city. Activists, journalists, residents, and protesters head back to the same street corners and the same cafes, and everybody speculates, though there’s no telling what might happen next.

This year’s unseasonably early cold snap makes it feel like that November when we all waited for Wilson’s verdict. Again, the waiting has stretched into months, and there’s an edgy monotony of checking the news and reporting on local events, and wondering how long tension can build before it bursts.

On September 1, two officers were shot and a woman was killed by a stray bullet near the downtown area. A few hours later, residents who’d gathered in the area spotted heavily armed officers a few blocks away. It turned out to be a search of nearby abandoned buildings, presumably for a suspect in the shooting. Five cruisers and at least as many undercover units gathered and milled about, while residents speculated that it was a raid of someplace nearby.

“I saw the cops converge behind this building for something or somebody,” said Megan Macarey, a yoga teacher at a nearby charity. “Police are militarizing the neighborhood.”

Macarey had been calling her friends, telling everyone they might have to come outside and keep an eye on things. Most neighborhoods that are the target of police in St. Louis are like that, with informal networks and a practiced sequence of events. Cops show up, everyone comes out and videos everything. Macarey said, “Tensions are high, and we know police are putting up the barricades,” which the city had erected earlier that day in anticipation of the verdict’s release.

That is how policing is done in St. Louis: opaquely and usually with a show of force. There are times when the police can be perfectly lovely, such as at the Labor Day parade when they were playing with children. But policing of protests is decidedly less friendly in many instances, and given that two officers have just been shot, few people in the activist community expect the police to be in a conciliatory mood any time soon.

Over Labor Day weekend, there were protests going on at nearly any hour. Sunday night, local activists marched through a bar district, gaining a fair amount of support from patrons who joined them to chant, “Out of the bars and into the streets!” Monday morning, Fight for $15 shut down a local McDonald’s before joining the Labor Day parade, which featured thousands of union workers alongside ads for Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Monday evening was the vigil for Smith, which was supposed to be candlelit until a storm roiled above us and forced everyone to use their cell phone lights instead. Annie Smith, Anthony Smith’s mother, gave a statement: “Why has it taken so long for the verdict?” Smith is, like many people, tired of waiting for justice. “I lost my voice yelling, and I’m tired of yelling,” she said.

The verdict could feasibly come back guilty. But although roughly 11,000 people were shot and killed by police officers from 2005 to 2016, only 77 officers were charged—and only 26 were eventually convicted. It’s more likely that Stockley will be found not guilty. When that happens, the people here will be reacting to not just this verdict, but to every verdict this feels like, each piling on top of one another.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series on the trial over the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith.

Nativism—the often racialized view that local interests should be protected over those of immigrants—is as old as the country itself. The anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic “Know-Nothing Party” was a major political force in the middle of the 19th century, electing eight governors and more than 100 members of Congress. The Immigration Act of 1924 severely restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europeans, targeting Italians and Jews. Just this week, former White House adviser Steve Bannon revived anti-Catholic tropes in voicing his opposition to DACA.

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I spoke with Tyler Anbinder, a historian at The George Washington University and expert on the history of nativism in the United States, about how Trump’s decision fits into nativist politics throughout the country’s history.

Jeremy Slevin: You’ve written a lot about this concept of nativism. Can you start by explaining what it means and where Donald Trump fits into it?

Tyler Anbinder: Nativism is the fear of or dislike of immigrants and the belief that immigrants make the United States a worse place to live. Donald Trump fits in the pattern of American nativism that we’ve had for several centuries in that there’s always been a certain portion of the population that has a gut reaction that immigrants are a bad thing, that they take jobs from other Americans, that they change American culture for the worse, that immigrants can never become true Americans. Those tend to be the strains of nativist thought.

JS: Is there precedent for this level of vitriol and this level of nativism at the presidential level?

TA: Probably not at the presidential level. Typically, it’s been Congress that’s been much more anti-immigrant than presidents. In the past, when you had Congress pass anti-immigrant legislation, presidents have repeatedly vetoed it, and that happened in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with presidents such as Taft and Wilson vetoing immigrant-restriction legislation.

So this is a rare case in which the president tends to be the leader of the anti-immigrant movement and Congress is maybe a little less willing to go along.

JS: Obviously the big news this week is DACA, rolling back President Obama’s executive order protecting DREAMers. I think what makes this shocking to a lot of people is that these are people brought here as kids, traditionally a sympathetic political group. Has there been a singling out of immigrant children, either for good or for ill, in the past? Or is this a new territory?

TA: This is pretty much a new territory, because for most of American history, children have not been immigrants. Immigrants would overwhelmingly be people in their 20s especially, late teens, maybe early 30s … immigrants rarely brought children to America. They typically came to America unmarried, trying to strike out in the world on their own. There were exceptions—during the Irish potato famine for instance, or when Eastern European Jews were escaping the Pogroms in Russia. But typically, children haven’t been a very big part of the American immigration story.

JS: The not-so-subtle subtext of all this is racism, whether against Muslims like we saw in the travel ban and now Latinos with the end of DACA. It seems like race and immigration have always been linked—how has that evolved over time?

TA: Certainly American nativism has always had a racial dimension, even though exactly what people mean by the term “race” has changed. In the 19th century, the big targets of the nativists were the Irish. The American nativists believed that the Irish were of a different race—that most white Americans were Anglo-Saxon in origin, and the Irish were different and therefore couldn’t become true Americans, and weren’t even intellectually capable of reaching the status of other Americans.

In the late 19th century, the same charges were leveled against Eastern European Jews and Italian immigrants, which were the two biggest immigrant groups in that period. People said the same things. They would go so far as to say that these groups weren’t really “white,” and therefore being “less than white,” they weren’t capable of the intellectual attainments that other whites were and they should be barred from the United States.

JS: Have nativists always wrapped themselves in the identity of whiteness?

TA: Yes, with some exceptions. In the 1920’s, when there were restrictions on Southern and Eastern European immigration, African Americans were big supporters of that. They supported it primarily because they said, “immigrants are taking our jobs, and if we have fewer immigrants, better jobs would go to African Americans.”

So it’s not just that nativism is solely something that whites participate in. It can be something that others partake in, too. But in terms of the majority of American nativism, there’s always been a sense that the new group isn’t part of what the current Americans define as being American. For a long time that meant being a certain type of Protestant. Then it meant all Protestants. Then it meant all Christians. Then it meant Judeo-Christians. And that’s where we are today, perhaps.

JS: Steve Bannon said today that American Catholics have an economic interest in unlimited illegal immigration, so you’re kind of seeing that Anglo-Saxon anti-Catholic sentiment creep up again.

TA: That’s so interesting, I didn’t hear about that. Yes, that would precisely fit in with that historic trend.

JS: At the same time, there’s a tension within the modern Republican party between business leaders and Republican elites who often support immigration because it’s seen as a boon to the economy. Has that tension always existed?

TA: Yes, although the important thing to understand is that the business community won out for most of American history. Even when immigration restrictions were in place, often there would be loopholes. A great example of that is in the 1920’s, when restrictions were put in place on Southern and Eastern European Jews, there was an exception for Latinos. And that’s so those employers say, “well, we may not be able to get those Eastern or Southern European workers, but we can get Mexicans instead to do the work that those other people used to do.”

It’s only really starting in the 1960’s, when the restrictions were relaxed on groups like Asians and Africans and Eastern Europeans, that the restrictions were put in place on Latinos.

JS: So it kind of shifted—when Eastern Europeans were the largest immigrant group, they were targeted, and now that Latinos are a larger immigrant group, they’ve become the target.

Obviously, you’re more accustomed to looking backward, but what do you think is next, after DACA? Do you think we’re on a more restrictionist path like the 1920’s, or do you think this has got to shift?

TA: Well, it’ll be really interesting. Until very recently, I’d have said that the restriction could not win out legislatively. Politicians have found that talking tough on immigration is good, but Congressional Republicans are split between a cultural wing and a business wing, and the business wing has been very adamantly against restricting immigration for the reasons that we talked about. Because of that, there’s been this 30-year stalemate where nothing has changed.

But typically, Republican presidents have leaned toward the business wing. Clearly, it’s hard to predict where Trump is going to go, but one option he has is removing the [undocumented] immigrants that are already here. That’s something that the president can do on his own; he doesn’t need Congress, since it’s just an enforcement matter. That seems like the most likely possibility.

The next possibility would be the bill that was proposed by Tom Cotton a few weeks ago calling for a reduction in the number of legal immigrants. I find it hard to imagine that bill passing Congress, but certainly a lot of the Trump base would support that proposal, I’d imagine. I still think the most likely thing is gridlock on that, but with stepped-up deportation.

But I have to say this is a whole new ballgame, so it’s hard to predict.

This interview was conducted for Off-Kilter and will air as part of a complete episode on September 15. It was edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full interview below.

But the media missed a key piece of context in its outcry: Programs like this aren’t actually unusual. The United States has a long history of forcibly sterilizing people, and it never really stopped.

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Starting in 1907, state governments sanctioned sterilization as a form of eugenics, to prevent anyone with undesirable traits—disabilities, poverty, a criminal record, specific racial backgrounds—from procreating. This type of legislation justified the sterilization of approximately 60,000 Americans until the laws were phased out in the late 1970s. But that doesn’t mean the practice actually ended: In 2013, the Center for Investigative Reporting found that at least 148 female inmates in California received tubal ligations without their consent between 2006 and 2010. Just one year later, the Associated Press reported on at least four instances of prosecutors in Nashville including birth control requirements in plea deals.

Other recent examples of court-required sterilization throughout the country include a 21-year-old West Virginia mother who had her tubes tied as part of her probation for marijuana possession (2009), and a man in Virginia who traded a vasectomy for a lighter child endangerment sentence (2014). “We’re starting to reach a point where the courts are responsible for anyone,” explained one prosecutor involved in a Florida plea deal. “It’s one final step to have to supervise teenagers in sexual relationships they aren’t ready to handle.”

The prosecutors in each of the recent cases lean on a classic conservative talking point to justify this paternalism: the need for “personal responsibility.” Judge Sam Benningfield, who is behind the recent sterilization program in Tennessee, used those exact words in his justification: “I hope to encourage them to take personal responsibility … This gives them a chance to get on their feet and make something of themselves.”

It is strange to think that these prosecutors and judges do not connect “responsibility” to “autonomy,” and stranger still that they see no connection between the personal and the systemic. At the core of each of these stories is an individual whose body was violated. But these plea deals tap into a historical pattern of abuse against people of color, LGBTQ people, people with physical and mental illness, and those living in poverty. Instead of acknowledging the systemic failure and offering basic supports to the communities most likely to bear the brunt of these policies, they are punished in one of the most dehumanizing ways imaginable.

This disconnect is threaded through the conservative platform on reproductive justice. Campaign promises to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization providing affordable family planning services, have become canon for the GOP. Eighty-five percent of Planned Parenthood patients have an income at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. Defunding these clinics would have a profound and disparate impact on those living in poverty, communities of color, rural communities, and the LGBTQ community. Many of these patients often do not have access to alternative providers for reproductive health care—including cancer screenings like pap smears and breast exams, sexual health education, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and contraception. These clinics empower patients to make their own reproductive decisions, but conservatives are on a crusade to take away their agency while simultaneously spouting rhetoric about individual responsibility. The contradiction appears to escape their notice.

Marginalized communities do not suffer from a lack of personal responsibility. They suffer from a lack of resources and support. Instead of dismantling organizations that serve these communities and leaving it to the criminal justice system to serve as the arbiter of family planning, let’s support the institutions and policies that empower and build capacity for self-determination.

Right now, we are looking for a story that lets us assign blame for terror and racism. The uprising in Charlottesville has knocked the wind out of us, and it is only natural to hope that the blame can be placed on something impersonal, to believe that no human being might simply be addicted to hate.

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That’s likely how it came to be that former congressman and mayor of Atlanta, Andrew Young, appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to say this:

Most of the issues that we’re dealing with now are related to poverty. But we still want to put everything in a racial context. The problem with the—and the reason I feel uncomfortable condemning the Klan types is—they are almost the poorest of the poor.

They are the forgotten Americans. And, um, they have been used and abused and neglected. Instead of giving them affordable health care, they give them black lung jobs, and they’re happy.

And that just doesn’t make sense in today’s world. And they see progress in the black community and on television and everywhere and they don’t share it.

It is a good impulse to look for structural reasons for social ills. But it goes too far when it removes agency from human beings. Poverty, even the crushing sort that has you rolling pennies to buy milk, does not cause bigotry. One does not conceive a love of genocide because the economy tanks. We choose what we say, and whom we hurt.

If poverty were a causal effect for racism, then you would not expect to see quite so many virulent racists in the upper classes. David Duke and Richard Spencer were both children of some privilege. Stephen Miller didn’t grow up in straitened circumstances. These are the men who stoke the fears and resentments of the lower classes, who manipulate and misinform.

Lyndon Johnson famously said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” He wasn’t wrong, and that strategy has been used to great effect over the centuries. It’s why we have de facto segregation, it’s why we pushed through welfare reform using the boogeyman of the “welfare queen,” and it’s why the same crime gets you a different sentence depending on what color you are. Find a bit of structural racism, and behind it you’ll find a white politician pandering to the worst parts of human nature to gain or hold power.

But there is a difference between misinformation and hate. I know many good people who support bad policies; they are well-intentioned but misinformed. I don’t know many good people who take pleasure in terrorizing others, who would join hate groups and call it a fight for utopia. We live under crushing poverty and manage to not kill our horrible bosses or the uncaring bill collectors; we can surely manage to not join the Klan.

There is no excuse for willful evil, even if someone’s life is filled with pain and desperation. Someone who is very poor has few choices, but the things you can choose are all about what sort of person you want to be. It’s the one thing you can control, the one thing you can’t lose and nobody can take from you. Those choices are intentional, adult decisions. To explain them away is to say that the poor are incapable of moral reasoning. In our quest to be reasonable and kind to the less fortunate, we risk making them not human at all.

One day we will have a conversation about race in the upper classes, about the people who make the laws and set the narratives and peddle these lies. Today is not that day, and sometimes it seems like that day might never come. For now, it is enough to say: The poor cannot afford illusions about themselves or their lives. At least give them respect that any autonomous human deserves, and call evil “evil” without equivocation.

Poverty does not cause bigotry, no matter how comforting it might be to tell ourselves it does.

This week, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) called for the removal of all Confederate monuments in North Carolina. Mayor Jim Gray (D) of Lexington, Kentucky, announced the removal of two Confederate statues from a historic courthouse in the city. And officials in Florida and Maryland made similar announcements.

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But the conversation around the monuments’ removal is missing crucial context around how they got there in the first place. Most Confederate monuments were constructed at the dawn of the Jim Crow era, decades after the Civil War, with a second uptick in the 1960s in response to the civil rights movement. Like the popularity of the Confederate battle flag, their construction neatly aligns with backlash against racial progress.

To learn more about the evolution of Civil War iconography, I spoke to Professor Kirk Savage. Savage has spent a career studying the history of monuments. He’s written about the construction of the National Mall, the 9/11 memorial, and he is perhaps best known for Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century America, a book on the history of Civil War monuments.

Jeremy Slevin: I think a lot of people don’t know that most of these monuments were constructed after the Civil War, around the turn of the 20th century. Can you give us a sense of the timeline and why that happened?

Kirk Savage: The big boom in Confederate monument building was roughly between 1890 and 1920, and then there was a secondary boom in Confederate commemoration that was in reaction to the civil rights movement in the ’50s and ’60s. In both these cases, there were political reasons why those monuments were erected when they were. The first boom took place during the consolidation of Jim Crow and racial segregation in the South, the final defeat of the ideals of reconstruction and racial equality in the South. The second boom took place when that Jim Crow era came under threat from the civil rights movement.

Now, I should say that in the North, there was a less marked but similar lag in monument construction, simply because the veterans of that war were dying off. But what really distinguished the white Southern commemoration of the lost cause was the systematic campaign to build monuments, rewrite textbooks, and put Confederate flags and symbols in public schools. This was happening in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a systematic propaganda campaign to advance the racial cause of the Confederacy.

JS: And the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville was constructed at the tail end of that first wave, in the 1920s?

KS: Right, in the 1920s, if I remember correctly. That’s interesting in a way, that it took them so long. Richmond erected its huge monument to Robert E. Lee in 1890, and New Orleans a few years before that. The Richmond monument really kicked off the campaign to make the Confederacy respectable again.

JS: I was struck in your book that these weren’t necessarily initiated by the government. In a lot of cases, they were these volunteer, activist organizations that pushed for these monuments. Can you talk a little bit about that?

KS: Yes, yes, in fact it wasn’t until much later that state governments got involved. In the earlier days in the late 19th century it was these activist organizations that were in the South, largely driven by women’s groups. The United Daughters of the Confederacy was the outgrowth of that organization, which then conducted this systematic campaign that I just mentioned.

That’s the way public monuments worked in general in the 19th century. It was elite civic organizations that erected them, and only certain groups had real access to public space in that period of time. So of course African Americans, Native Americans, people of color had no access to that arena and no entry into those conversations.

JS: Was there public backlash? Of course this is the Jim Crow South we’re talking about, but was there public outcry to these monuments?

KS: There was some, which is interesting. To return to the example of Richmond and the monument to Lee in 1890, there was a black newspaper called The Richmond Planet that published a fiery series of articles in opposition to it, talking about the black community’s relationship to that monument, which of course is entirely different from the white community’s. There were these pockets of resistance. They were largely overlooked by the mainstream white media and politicians, but they were there. What it shows us is that that kind of resistance, that kind of attitude was always there. It just wasn’t reported for the most part.

JS: As you mentioned earlier, there was a second wave during the civil rights movement, which many of us associate with progress and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. But there wasn’t a systematic campaign to take down these monuments. In fact, we saw an uptick. Why do you think that was?

KS: Well, look who was in charge of the state and local governments in the South. They were still exclusively in white hands, and they were very worried about their loss of power and the potential that they might have to share power with African Americans. It was very much a backlash against that civil rights movement. You see places like Alabama for the first time in the 1960s displaying the Confederate flag on its capitol building. It was very much a defiant pushback against the forces that were trying to destroy segregation.

JS: It sounds like that mirrors the iconography of the Confederate flag as well. It became a symbol during the lost cause and was taken up by the segregationists in the 1960s. Have they followed a similar trajectory?

KS: Monuments and flags you mean?

JS: Yes.

KS: Yeah, it’s interesting to me that after the Dylann Roof massacre in the Charleston church, the first symbols to be attacked were the flags. Of course, he was shown in those photographs holding the Confederate flags. So it’s interesting now that with the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville at the Robert E. Lee memorial, the attention has turned to monuments. But yes, in a sense, these always went in a parallel process. But the unraveling seems to go flag first, monument second.

JS: In the book you write, “Public monuments were meant to yield resolution and consensus … but the process of commemoration often leads to conflict, not closure, because in defining the past we define our present.” What do you see as the next step? Is there a closure? Do these monuments have to come down?

KS: That’s a really tricky question because I have, for a long time, been maintaining—hoping—that we can have a “truth commission” kind of dialogue around these monuments, so the monuments could inspire us and open the way to really confront the legacy of slavery and white supremacy in this nation. The question of what to do with any particular Confederate monument would raise those larger questions that we urgently need to explore and wrestle with as a society.

Unfortunately though, I think what’s happened now with Dylann Roof and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville is that the time for dialogue is closing around these monuments. Local governments are put in a position where they have to take them down, because otherwise they’re going to be appropriated by neo-Nazis, or they’re going to be torn down by counter-protestors. It’s a little hard for me to know what the way forward is now because we need to have this dialogue. We can’t just take these monuments down and think that we have solved our problem, because we won’t have. But on the other hand, the monuments are honoring something that we absolutely need to repudiate. The easiest way to repudiate them is to take them down. And I understand why that was done in New Orleans, and I think the mayor there did an eloquent job of explaining why they had to come down. But now everything is lightning speed, and it’s hard to know where we’re going to be even a week from now.

JS: We shall see. I appreciate you joining me professor. Thanks so much, Kirk.

This interview was conducted for Off-Kilter and will air as part of a complete episode on August 18. It was lightly edited for clarity.

We’re finally starting to call out racial disparities, but do we understand the history that creates them? We pledge our allegiance to inclusiveness and shared power, but do we examine the roles our own lives play in maintaining policies, practices, and cultures that continue to harm African-American friends and family, neighbors and coworkers?

It is for these reasons that I believe every white progressive (and, really, every white person) should see Bob Herbert’s new documentary, Against All Odds: The Fight for a Black Middle Class.

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Herbert presents an airtight case of structural racism in America—and it’s a case I’m laying out at length here in case you don’t see the film. If we are going to throw these words around, we better understand their meaning and use that understanding to inform the work that we—white people—must do.

Lack of access to jobs, housing, and capital

When 6 million African Americans fled the horrors of the South during the Great Migration, they discovered new forms of discrimination and exclusion in the North. Some found work in factories, but most worked menial jobs—as servants, janitors, drivers, and cooks—while they were charged exorbitant rents for substandard housing in the worst neighborhoods.

One of the only pathways to the middle class that was available for black Americans was self-employment.  But without access to capital, it’s hard to grow a business. Herbert’s grandfather managed to open an upholstery business that staved off the worst of the Great Depression for his family. His father, too, opened two stores in the 1960s and ’70s.  But when his father was in a position to expand and compete with larger, white-owned businesses, he was locked out by the banks—and that was in New Jersey.

“They weren’t giving bank loans to guys who looked like my father,” Herbert says.

This lack of access to capital is a constant refrain throughout the black experience in America.  When black families could finally afford to move out of ghettos, banks wouldn’t give them mortgages.  Lenders took maps and drew red lines around neighborhoods where they wouldn’t loan to black families. (Hence the term “redlining.”)  Moreover, the federal government wouldn’t insure home loans for black people—it was literally written into the Federal Housing Administration handbook, according to former housing organizer Jack Macnamara.

As a result, black families often resorted to buying homes “on contract,” which meant purchasing them—at double or triple the value—from shady brokers on a monthly installment plan. There was no opportunity to build equity for black families—when they couldn’t make a payment they were simply tossed out and the seller would cut the same deal with another black family.  It is estimated that this legal practice drained at least $500 million from the black community in Chicago alone between 1940-1970 (and according to The Washington Post the practice is making a comeback).

Predatory schemes were still rampant in the lead up to the housing collapse in 2008.  Rather than having access to prime, fixed-rate home mortgages, black Americans earning annual salaries of $100,000 were more likely to receive toxic, subprime loans (think low teaser interest rates that later skyrocket) than white Americans with an income of just $30,000.  Major commercial banks actually incentivized these deals, paying mortgage brokers and loan officers more for the subprime loans and then selling them to eager investors who were promised higher returns.

“Businesses, banks, and brokers were deliberately wealth-stripping from communities of color,” says Dr. Maya Rockeymoore, president and CEO of the Center for Global Policy Solutions.

When the housing market crashed, decades of wealth that black families had managed to build up vanished overnight. Today white families average about $113,000 in financial assets, while African American families average just $5,700. Rockeymoore notes that about one-third of African Americans have no assets at all.

Keeping blacks “in their place”

Racism wasn’t all institutional. Many white citizens and politicians have conspired to limit the social and economic advances of African Americans any time they felt their own status was threatened.

For example, beginning in the mid-1940s, thousands of whites in Chicago participated in a series of riots to keep single black families out of their neighborhoods. In 1951, when an army veteran attempted to move into a rented apartment with his family of four, they were stopped by a mob of 4,000 people that ransacked their belongings and then burned the entire building down. Similarly, in 1959, when a black family moved into their newly-purchased home, a mob of 5,000 people stoned the house, threw lit torches, and chanted “we want blood.”

Author Beryl Satter says that the riots were “common” and yet the history of white rioting has been “buried.”

“When people think of violence and riots in the street, they always think of the 1960s when black people rioted. But when white people rioted, it doesn’t even have a name,” Satter says.

Meanwhile, politicians stoke hostility towards blacks in more subtle ways. The film includes remarkable audio of Lee Atwater, advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, discussing some of the tactics used to secure the votes of racist whites.

Atwater notes that politicians moved from saying “nigger, nigger, nigger” to more covert, racist talking points about “forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff.”  Atwater says elected officials have been forced to adopt “much more abstract” language—often called “dog-whistles”—to communicate that voting for them means “blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

Today’s more subtle forms of racism

Herbert’s interviews with black professionals render a vivid portrayal of what middle class African Americans continue to experience in their daily lives, even internally.

Karla Swinton, a marketing manager, talks about wearing “a mask” at work so that when she hears “racially offensive” things “you take it in stride, you take a breath, you keep moving.”

Z Scott, a partner at a major law firm and former federal prosecutor, talks about being asked to type for people, or being treated as incompetent and not deserving “the chair you are sitting in.”

“Black professionals, we’re all suppressing a certain amount of rage… and it’s something that you have to manage,” she says.

And then there is the inherent insecurity of trying to provide for one’s family, knowing that you haven’t benefitted from generations of government entitlements like tax deductions on mortgage interest, 401Ks, and health insurance—or even benefits under Social Security and the GI Bill—as white families have.

Swinton’s husband, Brent, a professional fundraiser, says, “Being black middle class means wherever you’ve arrived you’ve only been there just in the span of your life.” He describes driving through a nearby white suburb and reflecting, “There is something that takes place over more than one generation that allows them to pass along a much greater head start…. I want to do that for my kids.”

What to do in terms of action?

At a recent screening in the nation’s capital, Herbert spoke of his hopes for the film: “I want people to see things that they may not have been aware of. I want them to be appalled by it.  And I hope that people will take action and say ‘we are not going to tolerate this anymore.’”

Herbert was joined by Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who appears in the film and shares his own story of being the son and grandson of sharecroppers. Both men agreed that the easiest way to create change is simply to vote—including in off-year elections.

But progressives need to also fight to make sure black Americans have someone and something to vote for.  We need to support candidates who will speak the truth about structural racism in our past and present, and fight for the new equitable policies that are needed if we are serious about equal opportunity—like targeted jobs programs, greater affordable housing, and increased public school funding in communities that have been historically and chronically disadvantaged by racist policies and actions.

Indeed, in the wake of the 2016 election, with so much focus on the white working class, we need to be more vigilant—and better students of history—if we are going to find real solutions.

Being a “white progressive” involves incessantly asking tough questions—of oneself, loved ones, and social circles—about the ways structural racism is threaded throughout our country, cultural norms, and day-to-day interactions. We are not entitled to comfort and confidence—those should be fleeting sensations.  There is much to learn and even more to do to truly combat and eradicate structural racism.

As Herbert says towards the end of the film: “I don’t even think the full story of overt racism in this country has been well told… The more subtle forms of discrimination are not addressed at all.  People pretend that those subtle forms—which are incredibly debilitating—don’t even exist.”

Author’s note: For screenings at your school, workplace, or other venue, contact: Roys@publicsquaremedia.org.

Nevertheless, 96 percent of the people who voted for Trump say they’d make the same decision today.

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When I was growing up—in the 1970s, in the deep South—I struggled to understand why some low-income white Southerners voted against their own interests. They dismissed unions, and supported politicians that let their states lag behind the rest of the country in every indices of health, livelihood, and employment.  They routinely supported candidates who opposed everything from access to affordable childcare, to unemployment benefits and investing in good jobs, to Medicaid expansion today.

But now I realize they’re not voting for policy. They’re voting for white privilege.

White privilege runs deep in America, and it still shapes white concepts of social standing and entitlement. Those entitlements can be symbolic—for example, the power that whites have in the South to maintain Confederate emblems with public prominence and high esteem. They can also be very literal, as with public policies that help whites build and sustain wealth while keeping doors of opportunity closed to blacks (think redlining, predatory lending, unequal access to higher education, and lack of investment in communities of color). That helps explain why black people in poverty have higher death rates than white people in poverty.

Perhaps because it plays such a central role in life in America, “white privilege” is not a comfortable phrase to say—not now, and certainly not in my childhood. Back then, Southerners only used this term—or its counterpart, “white supremacy”—to indicate that someone supported the Ku Klux Klan.

Most white Americans still prefer to define racism in those overt terms. It’s a convenient approach that limits discussion of racism to bygone “whites only” signs and burning crosses, and that argues inequality in our schools ended in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Few people—and even fewer white people—ever spoke the way famed basketball coach Greg Popovich did recently when he called out white privilege for what it really is:

If you were born white, you automatically have a monstrous advantage educationally, economically, culturally in this society and all the systemic roadblocks that exist, whether it’s in a judicial sense, a neighborhood sense with laws, zoning, education.  We have huge problems… that are very complicated, but take leadership, time, and real concern to try to solve… People don’t really want to face it.

Our most pernicious social ills—the ones that create the privilege that Popovich described, and that many of Trump’s voters cling to—are rooted in policies that were designed to target people of color. We can measure racism by the impact of redlining and toxic mortgages. We can see it in the justice system, where black defendants receive twice as severe sentences as whites convicted of the same crimes. We can find it in classrooms that are still highly segregated, leaving children of color in schools that receive dramatically fewer resources.

America is essentially a racist nation—riddled by racial markers—that is levying its harshest economic and psychological toll on the 1 in 3 African American children and more than 1 in 4 Hispanic children who live in poverty.

Trump appeals to a strain of American racism every time he calls for a border wall, or calls inner cities “a disaster,” or swears he’ll ban Muslims from entering the country. That is what many of his voters—who are disproportionately likely to hold dehumanizing views of black people—want.

By backing Trump, conservatives have coalesced around maintaining a racially divided nation, and so progressives must now coalesce against it. Decisively.

Unfortunately, liberal politicians hoping to woo white voters have also skirted acknowledging white privilege, out of fear that talk about race will strain coalitions. Even the progressive hero Bernie Sanders was slow to talk about racial disparities in America  at the beginning of his presidential campaign—before Black Lives Matter activists protested at his rallies. Silence concerning white privilege is a form of complicity.  It’s the hypocritical denial of reality experienced by blacks that fosters disunity between minorities and white progressives, and discourages minority voters.

The time has come for whites who understand what white privilege means—and who know in their hearts that they want no part of it—to join people of color in a way which is neither compromised nor complicit. Then, through shared power, people of color and white progressives can grow our political strength.

According to Trump’s “skinny budget,” African-American families and communities stand to lose billions in programs and services that touch every aspect of our lives. This budget makes it harder for black people to raise healthy children, get an education, live in a safe neighborhood, secure adequate housing, and maintain a good quality job.

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From the cradle to the grave, these billions of dollars in cuts will leave black Americans worse off—especially since African Americans are over-represented as beneficiaries for many of the programs. Cuts of approximately $150 million to the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program—where blacks represent 20 percent of enrollment—guarantees fewer black families receive nutrition education and supplements necessary for small children. The elimination of $1.2 billion in grants to after-school and summer programs, which serve 1 in 4 black students, will leave millions of kids without opportunities that give them a chance to get ahead. At the college level, nearly two thirds of black undergrads at public four-year institutions depend on tuition assistance received through Pell Grants. Reducing the funding for this program by $3.9 billion ensures fewer black students go to college, even as the labor market demands more credentials for good quality jobs. And for blacks in the labor market, the cuts to the Labor Department—which provides training for people who decide against a four-year degree, and combats the discrimination that still plagues black workers—makes it harder to get and keep a decent job.

Trump’s campaign trail claim that black communities are “in the worst shape they’ve ever been in before” was more a prediction of his budget’s impact than a description of daily life for black people. Historic racial disparities in terms of unemployment rate, housing segregation, and wealth have remained essentially unchanged over the past several decades. But his budget calls to eliminate programs that are designed to lessen those disparities, as well as the ones that support communities that are already marginalized.

In many cases, the programs slated for elimination would literally take the roof from over people’s heads. Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), which fund affordable housing, economic development, disaster relief, and infrastructure for communities of color across the country are first on the chopping block. In 2013 alone, 9.8 million people lived in areas that benefited from CDBG grants, and more than 1 in 4 of them were black. More than a quarter of cases closed by Legal Services Corporation grantees, which accounts for much of the legal aid in the U.S., were tied to housing and foreclosure—and nearly 30 percent of their clients are black. And more than one third of black households qualify for help heating their houses with the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), but Trump’s budget would force them to choose between heating their houses and paying for other basic needs.  For families left completely in the cold, the US Interagency Council on Homelessness is a last resort. Again, Trump’s budget would completely eliminate this program, in which nearly half of all families with children served are black.

Trump believes to be black in America is to live in a constant nightmare of poverty, joblessness, and inadequate opportunities. This budget turns that belief into reality for African American families and communities.

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These folks hope the new president will bring us back to this romanticized vision: the U.S. as Mayberry, the small town from the The Andy Griffith Show that has become synonymous with an idealized, folksy life.

The problem is, that America never actually existed.

At least not for my family, living in segregated Chicago in the 1940s—around the time when The Andy Griffith Show was set.  My grandparents lived in public housing. Other housing options weren’t available to them because back then, black people couldn’t just move into any home or neighborhood they wanted.

Their parents—my great-grandparents—had come north to the promised land of Chicago to escape racial violence in the South, only to find that black folks couldn’t escape America’s racist purgatory. My grandmother was born a month after the 1919 race riots in Chicago, which started when a black swimmer crossed the “invisible” color line at the 31^st Street beach. My great-grandmother, eight months pregnant at the time, had to run home to escape the angry white mob—tripping and falling on her stomach heavy with my grandma inside.

Such were the experiences of oppression, violence, segregation, and opportunities denied that were passed down to my grandparents.

My grandmother and grandfather were janitors. In fact, three of my four grandparents were janitors. When they first started working, jobs didn’t have benefits like pensions and health care. But there was a key development in their lives that would impact my family for generations to come–they joined a union. My janitor grandparents were members of the Janitors’ Union, SEIU Local 1, at a time when racial exclusion from the labor movement was too often the norm.

Those good-paying union jobs helped my grandparents save money and buy a home on the South Side. When they bought their house in 1954, they were the third black family on a block made up of working-class Irish and Italian families. By 1960, the entire block was black.

White flight was in full swing, because white families thought the presence of black families would cause property values to plummet. The result, almost 60 years later, is segregation that still isolates my community from good jobs, good schools, and the hope for something better.

Still, those good union jobs helped my grandparents send the first person in our family to college–my mother. In 1950s America, a smart black woman had only two options: nursing school or teacher’s college. My mom chose to become a teacher, and taught in public school for more than 40 years.

It was that union job as a teacher that allowed my mother—a single parent, in a working-class neighborhood, on the South Side of Chicago—to raise two boys and have economic opportunities not available to other black men and women of her generation.

Yet as any measure will show, the opportunities for most black Americans were—and still are—much more limited compared to opportunities for whites.

If you doubt that, consider my family today. My grandparents passed down the house they bought in 1954. My mother raised my brother and me there, and my brother and his wife are now raising my 20-month-old nephew there. This past fall, they had to temporarily move out of the house because my nephew had dangerously high levels of lead from the paint and windows in the house. I imagine white families with the income to remediate the lead in aging homes never have to worry about this.

The neighborhood remains segregated, and suffers from the toxic inequality that plagues many black communities today.

That’s the kind of inequality, racial segregation, and seclusion that so many of our fellow Americans want to remain steeped in. So far, the new president has tried to ban immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.; is now trying to take away health care away from millions of Americans; and is preparing to shred the safety net that protects working people and their families when work doesn’t pay enough or they fall on hard times. Trump and Congressional Republicans are also set on destroying the very union jobs that gave families like mine a chance.

We’ve made so much progress, and still have so far to go. It’s time we see our history for what it is, and leave those romanticized notions of Mayberry where they belong—in the past.

In many ways, the Facing Race conference in Atlanta, Georgia, was exactly this kind of space. For two and a half days in November, some 2,300 racial justice activists gathered to participate in panel discussions and workshops on how to make moves toward achieving long-sought racial equality. One of the conference panelists, Jamilah Lemieux—currently Vice President of News and Men’s Programming for Interactive One and former Senior Editor of Ebony magazine—sat down with us to talk about her work as a writer, and what kind of media we’ll need in the years ahead.

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Brandon Tensley: Could you start by telling us more about the importance of being under black thinkers? Roxanne Gay hit on this yesterday—the idea that when you’re working under a white hierarchy, that can affect the voice that actually comes out of the work. Has that figured in your writing, or have you seen that play out over your career?

Jamilah Lemieux: I routinely hear from my friends who are freelance writers about their struggles with non-black editors, who may be very earnest in assigning a story or accepting a pitch about something directly impacting or shaped by black people. It’s not every editor—I’ve had great experiences with white editors, and non-black people of color editors—but if this isn’t your lived experience, if this is not your community, your vernacular, your lens, then you can’t always be trusted to know how those stories should be told.

Unfortunately, so many black journalists have basically been told that they can’t be unbiased. When they’re doing reporting, even when it comes to op-ed writing, we’re told that we can’t be trusted to be the final say. We’re too close to the information, we’re too close to the story, right? And so we end up with the idea of whiteness as default.

In particular, I think of some of the mainstream men’s publications and their interviews with black male athletes and rappers. There have been instances where the subject was offended or bothered by the writer or just not really getting any insight. It’s almost like National Geographic stepping into Compton or Chicago to talk to someone who’s American, as if he’s from some mystical, magical land where there are gangs and basketball. To that example, the conversations between rappers and black male journalists are so much richer. Even if they’re from different class backgrounds or different parts of the country, there is something that kind of unifies them in their black maleness.

So, I think that the best reporting about black people is led by black editors. I think that the best op-ed writing about black people has been touched and shaped by black editors, and I’m looking forward to empowering more black editors to do the work I’ve been able to do in the last five years.

Michael Richardson: We do a lot of work on poverty issues. What do you think the media’s role is in reporting about poverty and illustrating the narrative of people’s stories?

JL: There’s what the role is now, and there’s what it should be. The media, of course, has not been kind to folks living in poverty. It has not been honest. Oftentimes, we just have these very trite, narrow, limited stories about what it means to be impoverished in America, when that entails such a diverse set of experiences.

There are people who are glamorous and popular, who in certain ways enjoy a decent quality of life, perhaps outside of the household, who are living in poverty. There are so many people who have experienced periods of poverty, but who are no longer living in poverty and maybe themselves are trying to escape or erase that experience, so it’s not something they include in their own narratives about themselves. They don’t talk about it often, or it just becomes this anecdote once you’ve made a whole lot of money and you’re wildly successful. Then it’s cool to say, “I grew up poor.”

But the media, much like the government, criminalizes poverty. It shames people for struggling and acquiring benefits we pay a lot of taxes to fund. And we just simply have to do better in telling the truth about what it means to be poor.

Think about a show like Atlanta, where there’s actually a plot twist at the end of the season when you see where the main character lives. He spent the season house-hopping from his woman’s house to his parents’ and other women’s houses, and you just never really thought to ask, “Does he have an apartment? Does he have a home? Does he have somewhere where he can collect mail?” And then you see in the last episode that his home is a storage unit.

I think that’s an experience that’s more common than a lot of us know. This character is someone who is cool and popular. He’s got this cousin who’s got a rap career, and he’s managing it, so he’s going to parties. He attended Princeton, so he’s got some very highfalutin friends, and this very pretty on-again, off-again girlfriend, and a child. You wouldn’t think that this person is, in theory, homeless.

BT: Could you put that in the context of this political moment, where, especially over the past few days, there’s been racist, homophobic backlash? Do you see your role—and other people’s, as well, especially people of color—as a writer, as a thinker, needing to shift going forward, even just looking to 2017?

JL: We’ve been doing this work for quite a long time. We’ve always had this work to do. It’s urgent now, more than ever, and it’s daunting.

We have so much work to do. It’s going to get harder. It’s going to get more intense. I think that the closest thing to a silver lining is that I don’t think people will have the luxury of ignoring this work in the way they once did. Your class status won’t protect you. Deciding to be detached from media won’t protect you. People you know will be impacted by what’s going to come.

I think that the level of vitriol, and the outward expressions of hatred by people who are supporting our next president, are going to force a lot of people to wake up and pay attention. That’s an opportunity for media-makers on every side of the business. For those of us who do advocacy journalism and want to change hearts and minds with our work—as opposed to simply driving traffic to a website or people to a newsstand or television network—we have a difficult ride ahead of us. But there are people who are equipped to do this work, and we just have to fight to keep each other sustained, to not just completely fall apart, to make sure that we have funding, to make sure that we have space. I do think that great work will come from what’s going to be a very dark time.

MR: What do you think the role is for progressive media advocates in lifting up these voices? What would you recommend to them as they continue on this journey?

JL: For those of us who work on the editorial side, making sure that we are looking for a diverse pool of content creators and writers. We can’t keep hearing from the same people over and over again.

Understand that people need joy, people need safe spaces, and people need a break. So you know, if a Solange album comes up, or Beyoncé drops a project, people are going to want to celebrate that. Make space for that.

Also, be more lovingly critical when we’re talking about ourselves, whether it’s an album, a politician, a thinker, or somebody who said something problematic. Learning how to critique our stuff with love, as opposed to “Did you really like Solange’s album? Is it really a big moment in music, or just something you all like right now?” or “So-and-so said something kind of offensive, so he’s dismissed, he’s problematic, he’s thrown away.” We need each other, we can’t afford to lose each other. We shouldn’t make energy to hurt people’s feelings.

You’d be very hard pressed to get me to sit down and write a long excoriation of Tyler Perry in 2016 or 2017. I just don’t think that’s the best use of my time and talent. I’m also not going to dismiss the people he reaches. I’m not going to say I don’t have stern critiques of his work and some of the messaging he puts forward. But at the same time, knowing who our enemies are, and who’s a real threat to our lives, is more urgent than it’s ever been.

That was a common thread of the 2016 Facing Race conference in Atlanta, Georgia, where more than 2,000 activists, community organizers, and journalists from across the country gathered for two-and-a-half days to talk about racial justice. While many people are still scrambling to make sense of Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton in last Tuesday’s presidential election, for the maligned and marginalized, it’s less tricky to pluck out the heart of the mystery.

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“I was stunned that I was stunned,” civil rights scholar Michelle Alexander told the audience. Alexander pointed out how widely entrenched—and ignored—black suffering continues to be in the United States. She catapulted the issue to national attention in 2010 with her book The New Jim Crow, which focused on mass incarceration’s heavy toll on black families. But we see this systemic racism tightly woven into other issues too, including the school-to-prison pipeline, the legacy of redlining, and crumbling infrastructure in cities like Flint, Michigan.

Barack Obama’s presidency offered a glimmer of hope that the country was ready for a long-overdue reckoning with this pain. But last week’s election and its aftermath say the exact opposite: After having had a black man in the White House for seven-plus years, white Americans pulled rank. Or as CNN’s Van Jones put it, the election results were “a white-lash against a changing country.”

Exit polls are hardly perfect, but they can reveal important trends. For instance, more than half—58%—of white voters preferred Trump, while 88% of black voters cast their ballot for Clinton. And perhaps more interestingly, while 94% of black female voters supported Clinton, 53% of white female voters showed a preference for Trump. This isn’t to say that all white voters who decided to get behind Trump did so as a direct statement of racism. But, at the very least, Trump’s murky brew of misogyny and racism wasn’t a deal breaker for a broad range of white voters. That shines a light on a galling indifference to the misery and oppression of others.

So where do we go from here?

Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, made it clear that group-specific siloes aren’t the answer. It’s tempting for groups already on the social and political fringes to retreat into enclaves to protect our own, but—especially at a time like this—we have to keep a close watch on the overlapping ways in which oppression operates. “We’re all being attacked, and our movement needs a broader front” in order to keep the needle of progress moving, Garza said. Because at the end of the day, whether you’re black or brown, “we’re all going down together.”

There was also a call for progressive white Americans to do more for, and to do better by, their non-white allies.

“I’m done with ally-ship. I’m done with people who allow themselves the distance of ally-ship,” said Roxane Gay, one of the keynote speakers and the bestselling author of Bad Feminist.

“The people who are calling for healing and reconciliation are well meaning but dangerous, because they’re delusional. They know better. They don’t want to do better,” she added. Gay spoke specifically to what she sees as the performative ally-ship of white progressives. Beyond merely donning solidarity safety pins and parroting Martin Luther King, Jr.—a favorite of many a white progressive—white allies ought to walk the walk. Have those prickly conversations with other white people. Donate money to groups looking to extinguish racism. Stop focusing exclusively on whiteness when talking about post-election anxieties, when people of color are the ones who have been feeling the stab of these anxieties most.

And while white people need to “get their shit together,” Gay said, people of color should have an eye to “infiltrating” what are overwhelmingly white spaces. “We need to think about running for office. Run for city council. Become a member of Congress. Get inside, and suck it up.”

Indeed, Trump’s upset in the presidential race has cracked wide open just how persistent and pervasive American racism has always been. This is a point that many black Americans have been making in the wake of the election. Whenever the United States has seemed to bend toward a more racially inclusive brand of democracy—from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement to the Obama era—what has often followed has been an equal and opposite push to reclaim a whiter status quo. We saw it in Jim Crow, and in Richard Nixon’s anti-civil rights administration in the 1970s, and we’re seeing it now. This is America, being America.

There’s a long fight ahead of us. And as Linda Sarsour, the Advocacy and Civic Engagement Coordinator for the National Network for Arab American Communities, drove home on the final day of the conference, it has to be all hands on deck. Our future may depend on it.

“All we have is each other. Ain’t nobody got time for part-time progressives,” she said. “Everyone has a role to play in the movement.”

The majority of voters are still unlikely to face issues on Election Day, but the new burdens fall disproportionately on a select cohort of Americans. Here are the groups of people who will face some of the steepest battles to cast their vote.

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People of color

African-Americans had the highest voter turnout rates in 2012, but new obstacles could keep many black voters from the ballot box this year. Laws that require voters to present photo ID at the polls—which have cropped up in eight states since 2013, bringing the total to 34 states—disproportionately impact African-Americans. That’s because people of color are less likely than whites to have the specific forms of required photo ID, and because these laws are more common in  Southern states (where African-Americans are concentrated).

In addition to obstructive voter ID laws, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans are often plagued by language barriers. While the Voting Rights Act contains protections for language-minority voters, poll workers are not always aware of them (so they might not honor these voters’ rights, for example, to have someone assist them at the polls).

People of color often have to take more time and travel further distances in order to vote. In 2012, black and Latino voters waited nearly twice as long as white voters to cast their ballots, likely due in part to state decisions to restrict early voting. And this year, Native Americans in northern Nevada will have to travel nearly 100 miles round-trip to cast their ballot in November.

Homeless people

First, the good news: in recent years, court decisions and new laws at both the state and federal level have eliminated formal bans on voters who do not live in a “traditional dwelling.” As a result, homeless people are now formally able to register and vote in every state.

But homeless adults—of whom there are at least 400,000 nationally—still face a variety of informal barriers. Some states require voters to provide a mailing address when they register. Other states require voters to prove how long they have lived in a voting district, a task that is understandably difficult for homeless people. And again, stricter voter restriction laws—like photo ID requirements—fall particularly hard on the homeless community, who are less likely to have a driver’s license or other forms of acceptable identification.

People with criminal records

Americans with criminal records, especially those with felony convictions, face some of the steepest—and most convoluted—barriers to the ballot box. In fact, a new study found that a record 6.1 million people are barred from voting this year because of felony convictions.

Because voting for people with felony convictions has not been federally regulated, those seeking to register face a patchwork of state voting laws that range from no restrictions (in Maine and Vermont) to a lifetime of disenfranchisement (in 10 states). Ten states also restrict voting for people with misdemeanors. These restrictions disproportionately impact people of color. In Florida, felony disenfranchisement bars 23% of African Americans from voting, and four other states also suppress the votes of 1 in 5 black citizens.

Unfortunately, the confusion and misinformation around state laws can even discourage eligible Americans with criminal records from voting. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “Many people with past criminal records mistakenly believe they are ineligible to vote.” As a result, many end up staying home unnecessarily on Election Day.

Women

Even though women made up a majority of voters in 2012, voter ID laws are creating new obstacles for them, too. Thirty-four states require voters to present some kind of identification. Roughly 90% of women change their last names when they get married (and often change their names back following a divorce), and many may not realize their voter registration does not match the name on their ID until it comes time to vote. What’s more, women are also more likely to belong to other groups who face barriers at the polls—low-wage workers, seniors, students, and the poor.

Low-wage workers

More than 23 million people—disproportionately women and people of color—work in low-wage jobs. These workers are especially likely to have volatile and erratic schedules, which makes it hard for them to plan to get to the polls. Additionally, only 30 states require employers to give workers time off to vote—and even among states that do provide workers leave to vote, that time off is not always paid.

For workers who subsist on very low wages, the decision to take time off to cast a ballot can result in a difficult financial loss. That may explain the 30-point gap in voter participation along income lines: Less than half of people earning under $30,000 a year voted in the 2012 election, while over 80% of people earning over $150,000 voted. As a point of comparison, 99% of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans voted.

Transgender people

Transgender citizens have become a vocal voting bloc this election cycle, but stringent photo ID laws threaten their ability to cast a ballot. An estimated 27% of trans people lack identification that accurately reflects their gender, in large part because they face uphill legal and financial battles to update their ID documents. For example, in at least 15 states, trans people are required to show proof of a gender reassignment surgery—a task that is simply not possible for those who are unable or choose not to have the surgery.

People with disabilities

People with disabilities face a wide range of voting obstacles, but chief among them are transportation, lack of accommodations at the polls, and poll workers who are ill-equipped to offer help. A full 30% of people with disabilities are unable to drive, which makes it hard to get to the polls in the first place—particularly for those voters who live alone or in rural areas. Even if they manage to make it to their polling location, a lack of ramps or curb cuts and limited support for voters with vision impairments make it difficult for people with disabilities to vote—even though laws like the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and the Americans with Disabilities Act were designed to improve ballot access. These barriers help explain why turnout rates among voters with disabilities—especially those with cognitive disabilities—tend to be lower than voters without disabilities. In fact, it can be difficult for people with disabilities to even register to vote, since most online voter registrations are not accessible for people with vision-related or cognitive disabilities. All told, these barriers to access could account for as many as 3 million votes.

None of these barriers are inevitable. Most are the consequences of policy decisions, some of which were made with the deliberate intent of disenfranchisement. Election Day gives Americans the opportunity to reverse these laws, and to elect policymakers who will work on behalf of those who don’t always have a voice.

If 228 years seems like a really long time, that’s because it is. But if current trends continue, that’s how long it will take for the average black family to reach the level of wealth the average white family has today.

The average Latino family fares slightly better—if the current trend continues, it would take them a little more than 80 years to amass the same amount of wealth white families have today.

Racial discrepancies in income and wealth are nothing new in this country. The troubling thing is that they aren’t improving. A new report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) compares data on white, black, and Latino households over the past 30 years to see just how big the gap is—and the findings are staggering.

Between 1983 and 2013, the average black family saw their wealth grow by a little less than $20,000. Latino families saw a bump of about $40,000. Meanwhile, the average white family’s wealth spiked by more than $300,000.

If current trends persist, the figures get even starker. By 2043, when people of color are predicted to outnumber white people for the first time in the U.S., the racial wealth gap will double—leaving the average white family with over $1 million more in assets than black and Latino families.

Wealth is an important barometer of long-term financial stability. It translates into a first home, retirement security, and the countless opportunities afforded by having savings and investments.  Those without wealth lead a precarious existence – they have no cushion to fall back on if tragedy strikes or when they grow old.

So how did wealth become so skewed along racial lines?

The legacy of overtly racist public policy is partly to blame. Redlining, the practice of deliberately blocking non-white families from obtaining a mortgage, had a devastating impact on homeownership for black and Latino families. From 1934 to 1968—the period marking the biggest expansion of the American middle class—only two percent of Federal Housing Administration mortgages went to non-whites. The effects of that kind of discrimination are still reverberating today.

Unfortunately, current policy has exacerbated the problem. Consider, for example, federal tax expenditures. These tax breaks—all $600 billion of them—are designed to help families pay for college, buy a home, save for retirement, and start a business.  The problem is, the people who need the most help tend to get the least. Working families get an average of $174 each year in tax breaks, while the typical millionaire gets $145,000.

The Internal Revenue Service does not collect data on race, but since we know income is heavily skewed towards white earners—four out of five earners in the top the top 20 percent are white—we can be reasonably confident that these tax breaks are disproportionately benefiting white earners.

The racial disparity continues to grow at the very top of the economic pyramid. On last year’s famed Forbes 400 list, which enumerates the 400 wealthiest people in the country, just seven people are black or Latino. That’s worth noting, since America’s wealthiest citizens control a tremendous amount of the country’s wealth: the top 100 members of the Forbes 400 list own about as much wealth as the entire African-American population (42 million people), while the top 186 members own as much wealth as the entire Latino population (55 million people).

In short, wealth is concentrated in very few hands. And those hands are mostly white.

But just as public policy played a role in growing the racial wealth divide, it can play a role in shrinking it. An important first step would be to conduct a government-wide audit, launched by an executive order from the next president, to understand the role current federal policies play in perpetuating (or closing) the racial wealth divide.

With that data, we can begin to overhaul inequitable policies and take the steps needed to ensure our nation’s wealth-building system works for all Americans.

Before they were hashtags, these men mattered.

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I can say this with certainty because I was raised in the “hood” in South Memphis that was home to a CD/DVD man like Alton and cafeteria workers like Philando. These men helped to bring light and joy to my life, and the lives of all of my community members. Our “bootleg man,” like Alton, was a fixture outside of the neighborhood shopping center—always cracking jokes and willing to cut deals with loyal customers. I was “Red” to him—a nickname given to me by several people due to my light-skinned complexion.  He remembered my love of Anita Baker and Stevie Wonder, and always made a relentless effort to make me smile, even if I didn’t purchase a CD from him that day.

My hometown is riddled with poverty and violence, and shrouded with a hopelessness that clings to its residents like the humid summer heat.  Run-down homes and buildings stretch for miles on litter-filled streets, and our community park is marked by broken swings and rotted park benches. From kindergarten through second grade, my classmates and I were dismissed early from school as soon as the summer heat began, because the school’s air conditioner was broken. In third grade, we were once sent home because asbestos was falling on us from the caved-in ceiling. I can still remember the tingly itchiness of the fibers on my eight-year-old back and shoulders.

Still, black joy found a way to exist: it came to us through the CD/DVD man who provided affordable entertainment and a charismatic, hard-working attitude to emulate; and cafeteria workers who made you feel special by remembering your favorite meal, and that you loved the butter cookies more than the chocolate chip ones.

What if the media spoke about the men who lost their lives in this light? What if the accounts of Alton focused on his generosity and value to his community, instead of his mugshot and criminal record?

What if instead of replaying the gruesome video of Philando’s dying body, major news outlets shared the beautiful statement  from the Saint Paul Public School District that details how beloved he was to his colleagues, and describes the “great relationships” he had with the staff and students he helped to feed every day?

What if the media acknowledged that economic shifts hit black communities—many of which are already in poverty—the hardest?  What if it regularly explored the ways that men like Alton Sterling and Eric Garner—killed by a New York City Police Department officer in 2014—are examples of “the black men most likely to be left out of the formal economy,” who engage in “hustles to make ends meet, and are far more likely to suffer from police violence,” as Lester Spence, a professor of political science at John Hopkins University, told Salon.

When you are in poverty, and at such a disadvantage in our economy, you must hustle to create opportunities for yourself—not to build wealth, but to survive.

I hustle, too. Along with several of my peers, I engage in informal work—like housesitting, babysitting, and pet-sitting—for additional income. Are we immune from the critiques applied to Alton or Eric because we are college-educated individuals living and working in the nation’s capital?

Before you cast Alton as a criminal or thug, or offer up tortured logic saying that Philando “should’ve just followed the police orders,” consider these men as men. They were fathers, significant others, providers, and beams of light and love among their families and peers. They were individuals with real worth to their friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Their humanity—along with the humanity of everyone who is living in poverty—deserves acknowledgment, respect, and honor.

So before you type a hashtag in front of their names—full of rage and righteous indignation—stop and ask yourself: would these men have mattered to you before they were so tragically taken? Would you have purchased a CD from Alton? Would you have spoken to Philando? Would you have even noticed them?

Alton and Philando mattered.  Their black lives mattered before #BlackLivesMatter, and they always will.  We need to celebrate people’s worth when it truly matters the most—during their lives. Then maybe fewer black men and women will be reduced to a hashtag.

Editor’s Note: In the weeks and months ahead, TalkPoverty is committed to continuing the conversation on race, privilege, and change.  We invite your submissions at info@talkpoverty.org.

Maya Angelou’s story does not end with her struggles; it only begins there. She was guided out of silence by the loving hand of an educator. Her teacher did not practice zero tolerance or call a school resource officer to slam young Maya to the ground. She saw the brokenness of a girl child who needed to be drawn gently back into the world. She helped Maya regain her voice through a love of literature and poetry. As a girl Maya was burdened with poverty and brokenness, but she also encountered meaningful opportunities to learn, grow, and discover her talents while experiencing the care of her community. Maya transformed these opportunities into a life of singular accomplishment and remarkable contributions.

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Maya became a fierce advocate for voting rights and human rights, working first with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and later with both Coretta Scott King and Dr. Betty Shabazz.  Recognizing the importance of race and gender health disparities, Dr. Angelou gave her name to the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. In Washington, D.C., she enthusiastically contributed her name to the Maya Angelou Public Charter School offering second chances to young people emerging from juvenile incarceration. Maya Angelou’s path was not always pretty or polite, but it always affirmed that Black Girls Rock and Black Women Matter.

Indeed, Maya Angelou’s story embodies the barriers and pathways for black women and girls we have gathered to discuss today. I believe she would be pleased by this unprecedented gathering of scholars, activists, artists, journalists, citizens, and lawmakers committed to eliminating injustices black women face. I believe she would commend each of the co-chairs for the visionary leadership to develop the first Congressional Caucus for Black Women and Girls. And I believe she would ask of the larger legislative body, “What took so long?”

Vulnerability to Violence

What took so long? After all, it is not safe to be a black girl in America.

Black communities understand how unjust violence perpetrated against black boys is connected to our collective movements for racial justice and social change.  We know how the horrific murder of Emmett Till galvanized the courage of black Americans in the battle against Jim Crow. Because we know these stories we draw on them again and again. When Oscar Grant or Trayvon Martin or Eric Garner or Tamir Rice were taken too soon, we understand their deaths in historical context of racial vulnerability. We can see the need to make change―to keep our brothers.

We less frequently discuss historical violence against black girls and don’t adequately connect these stories to movements for social justice. As a result we think our daughters are safer than our sons. We forget Elizabeth Eckford walking a racist gauntlet toward Central High School in 1957; or tiny Ruby Bridges requiring federal marshals to attend elementary school in 1960, New Orleans; or four little girls murdered in their Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.  Girlhood has never been a shield against the brutality of white supremacy. We cannot forget the vulnerabilities of black girls. Yes, we must keep our brothers, but what about our daughters? We must also say their names: Rekia Boyd, Renisha McBride, Mya Hall, Natasha McKenna, Sandra Bland.

We are even more reluctant to acknowledge the violence black girls and women suffer at the hands of black men. According to the Black Women’s Blueprint, approximately 60 percent of black girls will experience sexual assault before they are 18. A leading cause of death for black women 15 to 34 is homicide by an intimate partner. Debilitating injury resulting from intimate partner violence is a health crisis for black women. Yet African American women are less likely to report rape and sexual assault than their white counterparts. When they do seek protection, black women face unique challenges in family and criminal court because many judges perceive African American women as less vulnerable, more hostile, more sexualized, and less worthy of official forms of protection.

Unequal Opportunity

What took so long? After all, black women have less economic opportunity.

Black women work more than all other women, but reap fewer economic rewards. According to a December 2015 report by the National Partnership for Women and Families, a state by state analysis shows black women’s wages range from 48 to 69 cents for every dollar paid to white men.  One in four black women live in poverty, a rate more than double white women’s poverty.

Perhaps even more shocking than black women’s poverty is black women’s wealth. According to a 2010 study by Mariko Chang, the median wealth for a single white man age 18 to 64 was $41,410.  But the median wealth for a single black woman in the same age range was $5. Five dollars is the cushion between these adult black women and an illness, an unexpected expense, a family member who needs help. Five dollars.

Education is not necessarily the answer. Neither the wage gap nor the wealth gap is resolved by educational attainment. Black women with a college degree earn more than black women with only a high school diploma, but the pay gap relative to their white male counterparts is wider. As a 2015 report by the Black Women’s Roundtable states, “It would take nearly two Black women college graduates to earn what the average White male college graduate earns by himself ($55,804 vs. $100, 620).” Finishing college does not ensure long-term wealth accumulation for black women. Lower wages, higher student loan debt, and significant expectations for redistribution within family networks means studying and working hard are insufficient remedies for the systemic economic inequities black women face.

Criminal Injustice

What took so long? After all, the criminal justice system is unfair to black women.

According to The Sentencing Project, the number of women in American prisons is increasing at nearly double the rate of men. These women are disproportionately black women according to statistics from the Department of Justice. The rate of incarceration is almost twice as high for black versus white women, 113 per 100,000 compared 51 per 100,000. Given that nearly 60 percent of these women are mothers who were caring for minor children before their sentencing, the jailing of black women has a devastating effect on black children and communities.

Now consider this: Decades of research show the overwhelming majority of incarcerated women are survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence, childhood trauma, poverty, and broken foster care systems. When black women are guilty of being victims our response is to lock them away; strip them of parental rights; permanently damage their ability to seek educations, secure housing, start businesses, and choose their elected representatives. And it begins when they are girls. Black girls are suspended, criminalized, pushed out of school and into a juvenile system where they receive disproportionally harsh sentences often in the wake of severe emotional and sexual trauma. Imagine if eight-year-old Maya Angelou had been sent to a correctional facility instead of to the head of the class.

Health Disparities

What took so long? After all, black women’s health is suffering.

Black women have higher rates of hypertension and diabetes. Black women are far more likely to suffer from fibroids and undergo hysterectomies. While HIV-AIDS infections have declined throughout the United States, black women account for 66 percent of new cases of HIV among women. And there is this shocking disparity―black women are less likely than white women to get breast cancer, but more likely to die from the disease. In 2010, the CDC reported breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for black women 45 to 64 years old, a death rate 60 percent higher than for white women.

Perhaps nothing so powerfully illustrates how the bodies of black women carry the burdens of racial injustice as the persistent racial infant mortality gap. Babies born to black women remain twice as likely to die before their first birthday as those born to white women. The gap is not closed by access to health insurance, prenatal care, or education. Black mothers with advanced degrees suffer higher infant morality than white mothers who have not finished high school. The most promising research in this area suggests that black infant mortality may be an intergenerational result of historical experiences of racial inequality. It may be that black women literally carry the legacy of American racism and sexism in our bodies, making both our infants and ourselves ill.

Here I want to pause to note that despite important commonalities, all African American women do not share the same ideas, beliefs, and burdens. Age, region, queer identity, and skin color shape black women’s lived experiences. Black trans women are uniquely vulnerable to public and state violence. Black women living with disabilities face barriers we frequently overlook. Black girls in foster care or struggling with episodic homelessness will have very different challenges than those with more stability. But these variations between and among us do not invalidate the importance of thinking about black women and girls as a group.

I have offered up a lot of statistics. These are data you will hear more about, with more context, from other witnesses throughout the day. Together these data tell us that the intersections of race and gender strongly determine life opportunities for black girls and women. Therefore it is important to think about black girls and women as a meaningful analytic category and to target justice-oriented, community-centered, and culturally literate research and public policy toward addressing the challenges faced by black women and girls. The women you will hear from today represent organizations that have been doing this work for years, often without recognition or adequate support.

Even as we map these profound injustices, don’t get it twisted. Black women are more than the sum of their relative disadvantages―they are active agents who craft meaning out of their circumstances and do so in complicated and diverse ways. The exceptional generative capacity of black girls and women in circumstances of deep inequality is so profoundly incomprehensible to so many they have little choice but to understand it as black girl magic.

How else to understand that black women had the highest voter turnout of any category of voters in both 2008 and 2012, twice choosing an American president while no one asked a single black woman to moderate a presidential debate? How else can we understand that in 2014 black women candidates running statewide in Ohio and Georgia accumulated more than one million votes even though their state parties largely ignored their races? How else to understand that when black women picked up four Congressional seats in 2014, one of those seats was to the first black woman elected to congress from New Jersey, Representative Bonnie Watson-Coleman? And her first order of business was to come here to Capitol Hill and help form this first congressional caucus for black women and girls.

Many call it black girl magic because it seems we can do what no one else can or will do. We seem to bear burdens heavier, run races faster, and absorb brutality more stinging than ought to be possible given how few resources are at our disposal. The legacy of black women’s lives and labors show an unprecedented capacity to survive in hostile conditions. This is not magic. It is grinding work that exacts deep costs from black girls and women. Yes, black women have long made lemonade from the lemons life handed them. The problem is somebody usually sat down and drank it after she made it. That is not justice.

I want to leave you with one final imperative. On July 9, 2014, Tianna-Gaines Turner, an African American mother from Philadelphia, became the only person living in poverty to testify before Representative Paul Ryan’s House Budget Committee on poverty―the only person living in poverty to address the lawmakers creating policy about poverty. Her statement was powerful and clear. She concluded by admonishing the committee with these words:

My neighbors and I know what’s going on in our own communities, more than anyone else. We know our own hardships better than anyone. We have the energy, the grit, the creativity, and the strongest interest in overcoming our struggles. We’re fighting already for our families and our neighbors. We need to be taken more seriously by our state and federal governments.

Nothing about us, without us. Congress should not make any decisions about programs meant to help families living in poverty without people who know poverty firsthand at the decision-making table…. It’s time to call in the experts.

As the work of this historic caucus moves forward, let us follow this rule set by Tianna-Gaines Turner—nothing about us, without us. Black girls must be at the table. Black women must be at the table. Not just the college professors, celebrities, business leaders, and elected officials, but our cousins, our sisters, our grandmas, the girls who didn’t make it out, the ones we locked away, the voices that have been silenced. Let us be the ones who find today’s Maya Angelou while she is yet mute, who remind her she has something to say, and then let us listen while she tells us her story.

This post originally appeared on Elle.com, and was delivered before the Congressional Caucus for Black Women and Girls in April.

This focus is misplaced. To compound that, the task force uses the label “welfare” in a strange way. Traditionally, the term “welfare” has been understood to mean the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which provided income assistance up until 1996, and to some extent its successor, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). But the task force employs the term “welfare” in a much broader way—any program that has a means test or targets funds to low-income areas receives such a label. Medicaid, Pell Grants, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child care assistance, and job training are all “welfare.” So are Single-Family Rural Housing Loans, the Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program, and a long list of other programs.

At the same time, the task force’s skewed definition of welfare excludes many of the benefits and services that make up the so-called welfare state, which includes Social Security, Medicare, and a long list of subsidies provided to individuals. Many of these benefits accrue to wealthy people—for example, tax subsidies such as the home mortgage interest deduction, the largest housing program in the United States, provides substantial cash benefits to well-off homeowners. Similarly, employer-provided health insurance, and particularly the employer-provided health insurance provided to high-income people, is massively subsidized through the tax code.

So why does “A Better Way” focus so much on “welfare,” and why does it define it in such an unusual way?

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One likely answer comes from political scientist Martin Gilens’ book, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Reviewing public opinion polls, Gilens noted that most Americans opposed spending more on “welfare,” but strongly supported concrete policies that help struggling families—just as long as they’re not tagged as “welfare.” Gilens concluded that opposition to “welfare” is driven largely by racial stereotypes, and fed by “racial distortions in the media’s coverage of poverty.” In particular, black Americans are over-represented in unsympathetic media portrayals of poverty, and in ways that reinforced the stereotyping of them as lazy. Similarly, as Professor Sanford Schram has noted, “welfare” did not become “a political epithet” in the United States until it was associated with African-Americans in the decades following the civil rights revolution.

Is the House task force intentionally using “welfare” as a racial dog whistle—that is, to make a coded appeal to whites in order to increase racial resentment and diminish support for anti-poverty programs? We can’t say for sure. But the term’s racially charged history, coupled with the task force’s novel use of it to apply to all means-tested services and benefits—but not to forms of welfare that disproportionately benefit the relatively affluent—doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Earlier this year, House Speaker Paul Ryan disavowed his use of the word “takers.” In the same speech he said: “I was callous and I oversimplified and castigated people with a broad brush. There is a lot of that happening in America today.” Yes, Speaker Ryan, indeed there is, and the task force’s report on “welfare” is the most recent example.

With over a four-fold increase since the 1970s, the United States now boasts the highest rate of incarceration in the world. One in 100 adults are behind bars, and 650,000 return home each year. But where can they live? Although stable housing is key to successful social reentry and preventing recidivism, those with criminal records face enormous barriers in the housing market. They are limited not only by their economic circumstances—facing significant barriers to employment—but are often locked out of the housing they can afford. This makes the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) new guidance—which limits the use of criminal history in tenant screening—incredibly timely, if not overdue.

Those with criminal records are not a protected class under the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits “discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status or national origin.” But because of the disproportionate numbers of African-Americans and Hispanics with criminal records—due in large part to law enforcement practices that have unfairly targeted them—minority renters will be unfairly burdened by blanket rental policies that exclude those who have spent time in prison, regardless of any intent to discriminate. HUD’s new guidance reminds landlords that categorically refusing to rent to people with criminal history may, then, be a violation due to “disparate impact.”

The power of this guidance depends on the actions of one important group of people: landlords. For the past three years, we have led a sociological study of 130 landlords in Baltimore, Dallas, and Cleveland, addressing the key question of how landlords decide whom to rent to.*  While most landlords who rent to poor families will overlook a misdemeanor, few said that they would accept individuals with felony convictions.

Landlords in our study have a variety of official screening techniques at their disposal to sort through tenants: criminal background checks, calling previous landlords, credit checks, visiting a tenant’s current apartment, and verifying income. But many operate far outside this standard toolbox to find the tenants they want. Indeed, it is perfectly legal for landlords to use their discretion when it comes to many forms of tenant screening, but illegal discretion is common too, for example in the case of families with children. While these impressionistic techniques are sometimes used to circumvent fair housing law, they more often reflect the unconscious biases of landlords in ways that may jeopardize the successful implementation of HUD’s new guidance.

The guidance will likely be most effective for managers like Tracy (whose name has been changed to protect confidentiality), who oversees a large apartment complex in Dallas. Well-versed in fair housing law, professionals her like discuss their screening criteria in precise and rehearsed terms. There are small ways in which she can exercise discretion, mostly by marketing properties more enthusiastically to certain demographics, but the actual screening process is largely outside of Tracy’s control. Her complex simply purchases software from the Texas Apartment Association. She plugs in the information from each application and hits submit—the system determines eligibility.

This isn’t just a matter of efficiency. Corporate landlords intentionally take discretion out of the hands of managers like Tracy, reducing vulnerability to discrimination claims. So long as property managers rely on the software algorithms, owners are protected from litigation. But highly professionalized corporate managers like Tracy represent less than half of the low-end rental market. The rest are individual operators owning anywhere from one to a few dozen properties that they manage themselves, making up the rules as they go along.

Gus is one of these “mom and pop” landlords who uses quite a bit of discretion picking his tenants. Now in his early 60s, Gus spent his career at a money management firm where he amassed enough personal wealth to buy a house in Dallas’ tony Highland Park. But when the firm downsized and Gus was pushed from the high-energy world of stockbroking to a staid quasi-retirement, he decided to invest in low-end rental properties.

We spent two days with Gus, riding shotgun in his truck while he went about his business. Gus started off the screening process by text message, sending photos of the unit and a flood of screening questions to potential renters. The first applicant got only to question two. Though he stated his income was $3,500 per month as a contractor, he could not provide proof. Gus noted dismissively, “That guy eats what he kills,” and put the phone back in his pocket.

Later on, Gus met another prospective tenant at a McDonald’s. He ate in relative silence while the middle-aged, African-American woman filled out the paperwork. He collected a $40 application fee, and said he’d be in touch. Back in the truck, Gus confided that he would never actually conduct the background check the fee is intended to cover. Her willingness to be screened was enough. That, and a face-to-face meeting, was all he needed. He accepted her application the next day.

It’s not that Gus thinks screening isn’t important—he’s intimately familiar with the costs of placing the wrong tenant. But he believes that the characteristics of a good tenant aren’t written on their application or in their demographic profile. He seeks some unmeasurable quality—a combination of personal responsibility and stability. At first blush, his strategy appears in sync with HUD’s guidance to take context into account. But like many landlords, Gus’s biases are embedded within a highly racialized worldview.  To illustrate this, Gus noted that most of his tenants are black or Hispanic and he would never reject someone based on race, but in the next breath declared, “If they’re just some n***** I don’t want them.”

Gus’s story embodies two key challenges to the goal of preventing discrimination based on criminal history. First is that Gus’s screening process exists outside of both the legal and illegal practices anticipated by HUD. Taken as a whole, his techniques almost certainly result in disparate impact, but to accurately sort out what criteria he is using to make his decisions is largely impossible even when we witnessed it first hand. In addition, the enforcement regime for a landlord like Gus presents an enormous challenge. Gus, and millions of landlords like him, float under the radar of such evaluations. Individually, they are small-time players, but taken together, they represent an enormous portion of the market.

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Criminal background checks serve as one of the key mechanisms by which landlords make distinctions—an easy and readily available proxy for responsibility and stability. But they are too often a convenient camouflage for discrimination. HUD’s new guidance hopes to provide tools to litigate non-compliant landlords and incentivize others to rethink their screening policies. However, the policy has blind spots. For example, does the requirement that landlords evaluate criminal records on a case-by-case basis solve the problem? Gus’s story suggests that it may not. Most of the discrimination that we saw occurs on a case-by-case basis, through the gut-feelings of small-time landlords.

Furthermore, the guidance does not apply to the blanket exclusion of renters with drug distribution convictions, who are not protected under the Fair Housing Act. There is a deep irony here. Though the War on Drugs is not solely responsible for mass incarceration, it has nevertheless sent hundreds of thousands of Americans to prison in recent years for nonviolent drug offenses, with a staggeringly disproportionate effect on African-Americans. Those locked up for drug-related crimes made up just over half of the federal prison population in 2014. In other words, a huge portion of those who have spent time behind bars will not be protected under this guidance. This caveat raises larger questions about how those with criminal records can and should be reincorporated into society. HUD encourages landlords to think about whether their practices keep the community “safe.” But if we want citizens from prison to reintegrate, isn’t making sure they find roofs over their heads part and parcel of this endeavor?

Landlords have enormous power when it comes to deciding who lives in their homes. And while discrimination is not always intentional, it can have insidious effects on vulnerable populations. This makes it ever more important to clarify the discretion that landlords have in implementing the new HUD guideline. This will better protect the formerly incarcerated, integrating those who are vulnerable into society by allowing them access to homes, rather than ostracizing them.

*This research received funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors.

Tragically, stories like his are far too common in America, and they are the reason I have introduced the No Money Bail Act of 2016 to reform our system of pretrial detention.

Last July, Sandra Bland was pulled over for failing to signal while driving in Texas. She was put in jail and bail was set at $5,000, an amount she could not afford to pay. Three days later she was found hanged in her cell.  And Qiana Williams, who shared her story at the White House last December and on Capitol Hill this past February, spent weeks in a St. Louis jail because she couldn’t afford to pay court and traffic fees.

Across the country, it comes down to this: People of means are able to pay their way out of jail, while the poor remain behind bars awaiting their day in court.

Even for those who can muster the funds, the money bail system is unfair.

In San Francisco, 29-year-old Crystal Patterson, who gets by on a $12.50-an-hour job, paid a bail bondsman $1,500 plus interest to post her $150,000 bail so she could return home to care for her grandmother.  She also signed an agreement to pay back the $15,000 bond posted by the bail bondsman. Afterwards, the District Attorney dropped the charges, but, though the bail bondsman would have been returned the $150,000 bail, Patterson is unlikely to ever see the money she paid to the bail bond company.

At any given moment, more than 450,000 Americans are locked up without ever having been convicted of a crime.  In my home state of California, more than two-thirds of those in jail haven’t been convicted, a total of more than 42,000 people.

Moreover, even a few days in jail can be devastating for families—especially those that are already fighting to make ends meet.  Perversely, money bail gives inmates a strong incentive to plead guilty, even when innocent, because they cannot afford bail and need to get back to their families, jobs, or education. Being locked up can also increase an individual’s risk of suicide and depression.

Finally, unnecessary pretrial detention of low-risk defendants is expensive. State and local governments in the U.S. spend an estimated $14 billion annually to incarcerate people who haven’t been convicted of a crime. In contrast, pretrial systems based on risk, rather than wealth, cost on average $7 per day.

For these reasons, most nations consider money bail an obstruction of justice. In fact, the only other country that maintains a large commercial bail bond industry is the Philippines. In the case of our disgraceful bail system, American exceptionalism is decidedly not a good thing.

Any serious effort at criminal justice reform must address our feudal-like bail system, which amounts to modern-day debtors’ prisons.  The “No Money Bail Act of 2016,” which I introduced earlier this year, would eliminate the payment of money as a condition of pretrial release at the federal level, and also would give states three years to switch to alternative systems or else forfeit law enforcement grants.

Justice in America should not be bought and paid for.  For the sake of Jeffrey Pendleton, Sandra Bland, Qiana Williams, and the countless other Americans who have suffered at the hands of our unjust money bail system, it is long past time that the United States join the rest of the civilized world when it comes to pretrial incarceration.

The officers, who were working with the Drug Enforcement Administration, began quizzing Clarke, a 22-year-old African-American and college student, on his travel plans. They also asked him if he was carrying cash. Believing he had nothing to hide from law enforcement, Clarke consented to a search of his carry-on bag.

Clarke was carrying approximately $11,000 in cash, money he had obtained through legal means, including his job and student loans. Before taking his trip, he had decided to bring the money with him because his mother, whom he lives with, was moving and Clarke did not want his money to be lying around for movers to find.

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“I asked them if they searched my [checked] bags, and they told me yes and that they didn’t find anything,” Clarke said in a video released by the Institute for Justice, the libertarian public interest law firm that is representing him in federal court. “And to prove the fact that I didn’t have anything, I let them search my carry-on. And they didn’t find anything. I didn’t have any drugs on me, anything at all, and they still took my money.”

Carrying cash for domestic travel, of course, is not a crime. But federal civil asset forfeiture laws, as well as most state statutes, create perverse incentives for law enforcement to take people’s property. Under these laws, state and local law enforcement, working in coordination with federal agencies, can seize money under federal forfeiture law and receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds in return. And, in a distortion of justice, the burden of proof in federal forfeiture proceedings falls on the property owners, not the government. This disproportionately impacts low-income people; as there is generally no constitutional right to an attorney in forfeiture cases, property owners who cannot afford legal representation are often left with no choice but to attempt to represent themselves in court.

Clarke, who was never charged with a drug-related crime, admits to being a recreational marijuana user, but he insists that he is not a dealer. But after more than a year, the federal government is still holding his money, and 13 different law enforcement agencies, including several that were not even involved in the seizure, are lining up to get a cut of the cash through the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program. He may not see again if he cannot prove he obtained the funds through lawful means.

“I saved up the money to use for living expenses and for future savings, and now it is gone,” Clarke said. “After the money was seized, it was very hard for me to make ends meet. I had to borrow money from family, and I was embarrassed. No one should have to go through the nightmare I went through simply because they choose to carry their hard-earned cash.”

Clarke’s story is all too common. Innocent people are often negatively affected by civil asset forfeiture. Their money, homes, and vehicles can be taken from them without ever being charged with a crime, which can have devastating short- and long-term consequences for already struggling individuals and families.

When people hear stories like Clarke’s—especially those who are learning about civil asset forfeiture for the first time—they are simply stunned. They wonder how this could happen in America, where we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

A FreedomWorks publication offers background on this troubling area of the policing. The report covers the roots of civil asset forfeiture in British admiralty law and the early days of the United States, how it is used today (primarily in the decades-long war on drugs), and the threat it represents to Americans’ due process and property rights.

While civil asset forfeiture can affect any American, abuse of this pernicious tool tends to impact people of color and the poor the most. The Washington Post, in its lauded September 2014 investigative series “Stop and Seize,” examined 400 federal forfeiture cases that were challenged by a property owner. The majority of those who received at least some money back “were black, Hispanic or another minority.”

Likewise, an analysis of Philadelphia law enforcement’s use of civil asset forfeiture released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania found that African-Americans are disproportionately impacted. Researchers discovered that police in the “City of Brotherly Love” bring in $5 million each year through forfeiture of cash and property.

Roughly a third of those whose property is seized are never convicted of a crime—and African-Americans are even less likely to have been convicted. “An estimated 7 out of 10 people whose cash is taken by Philadelphia law enforcement even though they have not been convicted of a crime are African-American,” the report explained. “One explanation for this disparity is that innocent African-Americans are more likely to be subject to unfounded arrests and property seizures in the first place, which then spawn more forfeiture petitions.”

Under Pennsylvania civil asset forfeiture laws, prosecutors need only meet a low standard of evidence to subject property to forfeiture. The burden of proof falls on the property owner. Most walk away rather than fight what could be a costly and lengthy battle to get their property back.

There are legislative remedies to restore justice. Ideally, a criminal conviction would be required before property is seized by law enforcement and the profit motive that often drives seizures would be removed by directing proceeds from forfeitures to a neutral account, beyond the grasp of law enforcement. Importantly, the burden of proof should always—without question—fall on the government.

These steps may not solve all the problems with policing in the United States, particularly as they relate to law enforcement and people of color. But civil asset forfeiture reform could be a good first step toward improving relationships with communities that look skeptically at law enforcement.

Shay,* mother of 17-year-old Lamar and a participant in my research with low-income African-American mothers in Washington, D.C., reminded me of this. A few months before I interviewed her, she had called the police to take her son away. “He looked at it like I had set him up because I had to get him to the house for them to get him,” Shay explained. “He was being a disrespectful child, talking back and being aggressive, not listening.”

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Shay had grown increasingly alarmed by Lamar’s behavior in recent months. He was hanging out with friends who committed petty crime, and he had even gotten a few court summonses for minor offenses, appearances he usually skipped. Despite Shay’s distrust of police—a skepticism honed growing up in one of D.C.’s most violent housing projects—she reached out to them. She hoped they would link Lamar with resources he could use to avoid criminality, such as effective counseling and expanded educational and employment opportunities—resources she had not been able to provide.

Lamar wound up in a youth detention facility out of state. The statistics on long-term outcomes for teens who spend time in juvenile detention are not especially promising, but Shay insists that she made the best decision. “He knows now that mommy saved him,” she said.

The conventional wisdom is that poor African-Americans have nearly universal disdain for police, seeing them only as an occupying force. Yet research shows that African-American women living in high-poverty neighborhoods are part of groups most likely to report crime and disturbance to the police, even when researchers control for the higher crime rates they tend to experience. The key, though, is that when these women (especially mothers) call the police, they aren’t calling because they have faith in police officers’ crime-solving prowess or trust that police have their best interests at heart. They make the difficult choice to rely on police because they are one of the most readily available providers of social support—help that police are actually ill-equipped to furnish.

Of course, mothers are well aware that calling the police, especially on teenage sons, is risky. Those risks have gained national attention only recently, but nothing that Black Lives Matter activists brought to light is news to them.

Pam, another mother I interviewed, rattled off grievances against the police, including the shooting of an unarmed boy in a high-poverty, predominantly African-American neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. some years ago. “There’s a lot of police brutality going on out there, a lot of crooked stuff. What can we do?” she lamented. Yet she reports calling the police on her drug-addicted son several times, hoping he could take advantage of a diversion program and get into drug treatment. Much to her chagrin, he’s now incarcerated instead.

For mothers living in poverty, the stakes of choosing not to contact police when a child is truant, addicted, or out of control can be high. Child welfare investigation is a regular occurrence for poor mothers, especially if they are African-American and living in central cities. Although calling the police can trigger a child welfare investigation, it can also serve as a gesture of diligent parenting. Thus the risk of reporting can seem worth taking to avoid the appearance of child neglect, a charge that could put the entire family in jeopardy.

Raising children is a tough task for anyone, particularly when those children are prone to misbehave. But when wealthier kids misbehave, their parents have better options for seeking help. They can redirect their children’s energy toward organized activities. They can find private counseling, or they attend schools where good counseling is more readily available. And, because child welfare agencies rarely investigate their homes or assume the worst about their parenting skills, they need not worry that one child’s misbehavior will threaten custody of all their children. When poor kids misbehave, these options are harder to come by. The social safety net, toilsome to access and often punitive in its own right, leaves mothers with few alternatives to the police department.

Against the backdrop of police bias and misconduct, police organizations have taken to publicizing dancing, jumping rope, and making music with children of color as if dance-offs will render forgettable the legacy of violence. These displays of goodwill are positive initial gestures. But long-term delivery of effective and respectful policing, coupled with a more robust and more usable landscape of non-criminal social services, is what’s really needed for violence reduction and police legitimacy. A dual strategy of police reform and safety net reform can ultimately aid in the fight against poverty by stemming the tide that inexorably pushes poor parents and kids toward penal entanglement, which tends to exacerbate hardship.

This moment invites deeper questions about the functions and scope of police work. It beckons us toward reconsideration of how police regulation fits into a broader reform agenda. Body cameras and use of force standards are reasonable places to begin, but it will take more than police-specific reform to recast the work of police in communities. The Ferguson Commission, for example, integrated child well-being and economic opportunity into its agenda for change. Other proposals have suggested that multidisciplinary teams that include social workers respond to police calls, a helpful proposal even though it still operates in a crime control framework. Most towns and cities aiming to avoid becoming the next Ferguson, the next Baltimore, have turned their attention to police regulation, but they have not simultaneously sought ways to make social support more accessible in heavily policed communities beyond the criminal justice system.

As governments redefine the contours of policing, they can also tackle the deeper challenges of parenting in the toughest communities. They can make decisions like Shay’s and Pam’s less necessary.

*Name has been changed to protect confidentiality

It’s a question I’ve been mulling over ever since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—the revered gatekeepers of America’s film industry—announced the nominees for their 88^th Academy Awards ceremony, also known as the Oscars. In a bold feat of tone-deafness (read: overt racism), the Academy chose not to nominate a single Black actor in any of their four acting categories—again.

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I wasn’t surprised by the Academy’s casual racism in refusing to recognize Black performers at this year’s ceremony. Hollywood’s diversity problems aren’t new. The fact that there are still people who blithely question whether Black performances are even worthy of recognition speaks to the existence of pervasive bigotry within the institution. It’s why Black people (along with other historically marginalized communities) have banded together to create our own institutions to recognize our work: without celebrations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Awards—and yes, even the BET Awards—daring to uplift Black performers in Hollywood, where else could we go to applaud and honor our stars?

What did surprise me was how some high-profile individuals like Helen Mirren, instead of grappling with the issue of the Academy’s accountability to Black actors, blamed this year’s lack of Black nominees on broader race and power dynamics within the industry. The Academy’s lack of racial sensitivity, she argued, is a symptom of a deeply engrained culture of racial bias that disadvantages Black professionals; as a result, one should not read racist intent into the Academy’s nomination decisions.

It isn’t entirely wrong to deflect blame onto the wider industry. As many have rightfully pointed out, diversity in the industry starts in the boardrooms where casting and business decisions get made. But in our hurry to write off the Oscars’ diversity problems as the logical byproduct of Hollywood’s ubiquitous racism, we shouldn’t dismiss the Academy’s distinct responsibility to recognize Black artists. More than mere pageantry, the Oscars award ceremony represents an issue of economic justice because of its role as a public evaluation of people in the film industry. Neither the Academy nor the Oscars operates in a vacuum; the Oscars is where Hollywood ascribes value to the artistic and cultural experiences that move and define us, and by proxy the performers whom embody these stories.

Moreover, the awards aren’t just a competition for cultural value: they double as an assessment tool that helps pick the industry’s economic winners and losers—in full view of the adoring public. While mainstream recognition from an institution like the Academy is not necessary to validate the contributions and experiences of Black performers, it still carries significant implications for the economic realities of the movie industry. Because the vast majority of Black artists don’t receive the same opportunities for exposure as their white counterparts, they aren’t given access to the same springboard that launches other workers in the industry. For the working actor, the value of an Academy Award is concrete: increased exposure to the best directors, casting agents, and managers, combined with greater leverage for higher pay and more favorable working conditions. Even receiving a nomination can make it easier to book the next job and sustain a career.

And as resilient as Black people are—Black entertainers especially—it is not enough for us to simply create spaces where we validate our own work if those spaces do not wield the same access to economic opportunities. Dismantling systemic racism goes hand-in-hand with ending economic inequality, and it’s imperative to the liberation of Black people that we tackle them in tandem. And so, we must fight for inclusion in mainstream spaces where our economic futures are at stake, and also create spaces for Black achievement to be validated in a way that honors and respects us.

The whitewashing of the Academy Awards presents a unique economic challenge to Black performers and other Black workers in the industry. In addition to shaking our fists at the intersecting systems of oppression that permeate Hollywood, we must call equal attention to the Academy’s actions—specifically, because they speak to a larger ethos for how Black work and Blackness go unrecognized and devalued within the film and greater entertainment industry.

This national trend is reflected in the wealth and earnings of Southern states like Georgia, where the median household of color has only $7,113 in net worth (compared to the $85,499 in net worth owned by white households). In Virginia, the median white household has a net worth nearly 12 times that of the median African-American household.

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One of the more striking findings from the Corporation for Enterprise Development’s (CFED) 2016 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard is just how wide the economic disparity is between whites and African-Americans in the South. The data in the Scorecard reveal a twofold truth: that family financial security is worse in the South than in any other region of the country; and that these stark disparities are inexorably tied to the racial inequality that has defined life in this nation since its founding.

That’s why CFED is calling on the next President, in his or her first 100 days in office, to take executive action to conduct a racial wealth divide audit. To execute this audit, the President would direct every federal agency to review existing federal policies and how they contribute to or alleviate this economic wealth disparity.

Wealth is about more than just money in the bank—it’s about assets of every type. There are a range of economic inequities that work in concert to limit the ability of households of color in southern states to achieve economic security at almost every turn:

• Savings: One reason for the low net worth of African-American households is their relative lack of savings. More than two-thirds (67 percent) of African-American households are liquid asset poor—meaning they don’t have enough savings to live at the poverty level for just three months if they lose a job or face another income loss—compared to 35 percent of white households. This includes 62 percent of African-American households in both Virginia and Texas, and over 80 percent in Alabama.

• Housing: Without the ability or means to save, African-American households are effectively shut out of the home purchase market. Today, fewer than half (44 percent) of all African-American households in southern states own their homes, compared to roughly 72 percent of white households. As a result, the majority of African-American households are forced into the rental market, where they pay a far greater percentage of their income on housing costs than do white households.
  The median white high school dropout has more wealth than the median African-American or Hispanic college graduate.
  

• Education: In four southern states—Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee—fewer than 10 percent of all African-American eighth-graders tested at a proficient level or above on math exams. At 4.8 percent, Alabama’s abysmal proficiency rate is the lowest in the country. This achievement gap bleeds into higher education as white students in the South graduate high school at a rate roughly 10 points higher than African-American students, and white adults hold four-year college degrees at a rate over 12 points higher than African-American adults. But the racial wealth divide seen across the country is not merely a function of the achievement gap: even after graduating from college, African-Americans and Hispanics accrue far less wealth than do white households. In fact, the median white high school dropout has more wealth than the median African-American or Hispanic college graduate.

• Jobs and Entrepreneurship: In the South, wage-earning African-Americans are unemployed at a rate (10.2 percent) more than twice that of white workers (4.6 percent). However, the disparities don’t end with unemployment as even African-American entrepreneurs in the South find themselves struggling to overcome sizable gaps in opportunity. On average, white-owned business in the southern states are worth 9.6 times ($694,877) that of the average African-American-owned business in the same southern states ($72,679).

These racial inequalities are not new, but they are persistent and growing, aided and abetted by bad public policy. These policies are choices—choices that we need to stop making.

Historically, one of the greatest contributors to the creation and expansion of the racial wealth divide has been racially-biased federal policies. The federal government has played an important role in helping families build wealth. However, many of the federal initiatives used to expand economic opportunity for white families systematically discriminated against households of color. Past transgressions include the exclusion of farmworkers and domestic workers from the Social Security Act in 1935; the racially biased implementation of the GI Bill; and the widespread practice of redlining by the Federal Housing Administration which shut out entire communities of color from purchasing a home. This discrimination continues to have an impact today, as white families transferred their wealth to successive generations, while families of color were denied that same opportunity. The result is a racial wealth divide that has left white households with nine times more wealth ($110,637) than households of color ($12,377).

Moreover, these types of bad policies are not just historical relics. Today, for example, tax policies such as the Mortgage Interest Deduction and reduced tax rates on capital gains not only overwhelmingly benefit wealthy households, but they also disproportionately concentrate benefits in white communities. And because states are allowed to opt out of expanding Medicaid, a new health care coverage gap has emerged for a great number of the country’s most vulnerable communities, including 1.7 million adults of color.

In order to address widespread wealth inequality in the South and elsewhere, policymakers have to intentionally address the policies that continue to leave communities of color behind. A racial wealth divide audit conducted by every federal agency will help us create policies that will ultimately help to close the racial wealth divide.

With the new knowledge provided by an audit, federal policymakers will be able to take—and citizens will be able to demand—the actions necessary to rectify racial economic inequities that have been fueled by generations of discriminatory policies.

Last month, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) delivered his fifth State of the State address, a ceremonious speech that typically presents the governor’s legislative priorities and vision for the year ahead. But instead of talking about pressing priorities—such as the need to reform the state’s public education system, improve its job market, or invest in its infrastructure—Gov. Snyder was forced to apologize for his government’s failure to provide clean, safe water to the people of Flint, Michigan.

The Flint water crisis began in April 2014 with an effort to cut the budget. Government officials chose to switch water access from the clean Lake Huron to the more corrosive and polluted Flint River. Almost immediately residents began complaining of hair loss, rashes, and tap water that looked and tasted strange. Yet, despite calls from concerned residents, city and state officials assured the community that the water was fine. Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling (D) even drank the water on television to dissuade any further concerns. For months, nothing was done.

LISTEN: Curt Guyette, a journalist for the ACLU, speaks with TalkPoverty Radio on the Flint water crisis

At the heart of current national outrage is the impact that tainted water will have on Flint residents—especially the city’s children. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that even minimal lead exposure can cause cognitive and behavioral issues, including an increased propensity toward violent behavior. In fact, children with lead poisoning are seven times more likely to drop out of school and six times more likely to become involved in the juvenile justice system than those not exposed to lead. Moreover, the impact of lead exposure is irreversible.

The Long History Of Environmental Racism

In the midst of this knowledge, it is hard to ignore the facts that 56 percent of Flint’s population is African American and most of the city’s residents live paycheck to paycheck. According to the 2015 Census, more than 40 percent of residents are living below the federal poverty level. Once the booming Vehicle City where General Motors was born, Flint has since lost its industrial base and, with it, government investment in all forms of infrastructure. Support for the city’s schools, public transportation, and employment has fallen by the wayside.

Still, how is it possible that, in 2016, low-income, black Americans are denied access to clean, safe water? Unfortunately, the roots of this injustice run deep.

Environmental racism is entwined with the country’s industrial past. At the beginning of the 20th century, zoning ordinances emerged as a way to separate land uses in order to protect people from health hazards. Over time, however, city planning and zoning ordinances focused less on public health and more on creating idyllic communities, protecting property rights, and excluding “undesirables.” In other words: The least desirable communities were reserved for discarding waste and marginalized people alike. 

By the 1930s, federal leaders began to make large investments in creating stable, affluent, and white communities in the suburbs, while giving local governments the autonomy to neglect low-income communities and communities of color. New highways and waste facilities were constructed in marginalized communities, where they cut through businesses or homes and exposed residents to excessive pollution.

In his seminal book, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality, Professor Robert Bullard, considered the father of environmental justice, wrote:

The problem of polluted black communities is not a new phenomenon. Historically, toxic dumping and the location of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) have followed the “path of least resistance,” meaning black and poor communities have been disproportionately burdened with these types of externalities.

Environmental racism is an issue of political power: The negative externalities of industrialization—pollution and hazardous waste—are placed where politicians expect little or no political backlash.

For this reason, ZIP codes often has more of an effect on health than genetic codes. Despite legislative efforts to dismantle segregation, it remains a pernicious problem in America today. Affluent communities still adopt exclusionary zoning codes that keep less affluent households from moving in, and African American home buyers are still shown fewer homes than whites and are often steered away from predominantly white neighborhoods.

“African Americans, even affluent African Americans are more likely to live closer to and in communities that are more polluted than poor white families that make $10,000 a year,” according to Bullard. In essence, the nation’s laws are executed mostly to protect white households and leave the rest of the country to inhale the toxic fumes of racism.

A recent study in Environmental Research Letters noted that the highest polluting facilities in the country are disproportionately located near communities of color. One of the most notorious examples of this disparity is Cancer Alley, the 85-mile stretch between Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and New Orleans that is home to more than 150 industrial plants and refineries. The deadly corridor earned its disreputable name due to the sheer number of cancer cases, inexplicable illnesses, and deaths that have afflicted its residents. The ExxonMobil refinery in Baton Rouge alone is 250 times the size of the Superdome with a surrounding population that is 78 percent people of color. Black communities and industrial sites are so closely intertwined that a number of Cancer Alley refineries include old black cemeteries that hold the remains of former slaves—a blunt reminder of just how little black lives matter on these grounds.

Standing Up for Environmental Justice in Flint and in the Nation

The road ahead for Flint is a very long one. After the immediate crisis has been addressed, it will be years before the nation can fully realize how the state affected the lives of the children it poisoned. These families need and deserve a lifetime of support. And while the country’s outrage is correct, the injustice in Flint must be viewed as one example of a widespread problem. In order to address the root causes of environmental racism, the nation must demand government accountability and effective industry regulations, support clean energy, and commit to furthering fair housing.

All levels of government must focus on investing in and modernizing infrastructure that will protect the building blocks of our society—specifically in areas where there is historic underinvestment. A $1 billion investment in infrastructure creates about 18,000 jobs, while the same size tax cut would generate 14,000 jobs and no new public asset. There is much work to be done to ensure that all communities are safe, stable places where people can thrive.

Many Americans believe that racism can be boiled down to a sin marked by slurs and men burning crosses under the cover of night. Flint serves as a stark reminder that racism is in the air we breathe, flowing freely into our homes and down the stretch of blocks riddled with liquor stores but begging for a supermarket. There is a societal cost to this reality.

The crisis in Flint has refocused the public spotlight on environmental justice. Voters and policymakers across the country should seize this moment to address the environmental racism that persists in too many communities. If the nation does not stand up against the injustice of environmental racism, communities of color will continue to be targeted. As the country becomes more ethnically and racially diverse, communities of color must have equity in the level and quality of government-provided services. Americans must lend their voices to support not just Flint residents, but also the residents of countless other communities where racism still takes a physical toll.

This article was originally published by the Center for American Progress.

Political agendas are often foisted onto moments of pop culture in clumsy and disingenuous ways. But for many Black people, myself included, The Wiz has always been more than a cultural interpretation of the beloved children’s book—it stands as a shining example of Black excellence and social progress.

In 1974, when the original stage musical premiered at a regional theater in Baltimore, Maryland, The Wiz epitomized the progress of the era. Social and economic reforms catalyzed by the Civil Rights Movement had created new entry points to the middle class and increased opportunities for African-American representation. These changes paved the way for a bold retelling of author L. Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s classic with an all-black cast and brazen cultural bend. That it went on to win seven Tony Awards, including the award for Best Musical, demonstrated a growing celebration of Black culture and identity.

Even more than the incarnations before it, The Wiz Live! carries on this affirmation of Black life through a progressive political lens, particularly in its decision to highlight feminist and queer themes within the show’s broader context of racial liberation. For example, Dorothy is presented as a savvy young woman who is endowed with a principled agency to act on behalf of herself and others; she is wide-eyed and innocent, sure, but she is also a cunning and charismatic leader who isn’t afraid to shut down casual micro-aggressions of sexism and patriarchy.

Queer culture and identity, too, are openly embraced in the world of The Wiz Live!—from Queen Latifah’s gender-bending portrayal of the Wiz, to choreographer Fatima Robinson’s Emerald City homage to the art of vogue, a style of dance that originated in the Black queer ballroom scene of the 1980s.

Moreover, the reimagined world of The Wiz Live! establishes economic justice as a central pillar of a broader racial justice movement. In this Oz, evil frequently operates at the intersection of moral and economic considerations: the insidious danger of the Poppies lies in their penchant for pressing their unsuspecting victims into harsh tours of indentured servitude; likewise, the Wicked Witch of the West, Evillene, runs a massive sweatshop empire fueled by corporate greed and worker exploitation.

These dangers are juxtaposed against the interests of a cadre of central characters who are vividly portrayed as working class: Dorothy who comes from humble rural roots; the Scarecrow, who is literally begging for change so he can purchase the ability to forge a better life for himself; and even the Tin Man, a day laborer by trade who is rusted solid while on the job. Together with the Cowardly Lion, their journey to see the Wiz becomes a salient example of collective action for economic justice—they are unable to achieve their ultimate goals separately, so they join together to overcome their shared challenges.

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The show’s examination of the value of Black work takes on added meaning when one considers the effort that made the live production possible. In the same manner that past incarnations of The Wiz epitomized Black excellence for previous generations, The Wiz Live! demonstrated modern Black excellence at it’s finest, filled with dazzling artistic and technical performances. While seemingly superficial and indulgent, the fact is that the production was a record-breaking, expectation-defying success for one of the country’s largest media outlets matters. In a world where Black achievement is constantly under attack, public demonstrations of Black merit become revolutionary political acts.

The Wiz Live! was a dynamic, unabashed declaration of Black life—the joy and brilliance of Black people that undergirds our ability to thrive, even in the face of pervasive anti-black sentiment and violence against our bodies. It was a progressive political affirmation of Black beauty, talent and resilience. More importantly, it was a potent reminder that the real power to create change lies in our ability to come together around shared goals and values.

As members of Minneapolis’ Black community staged a peaceful protest against what one relative of Jamar Clark called his “execution-style” killing by police, a masked man—accompanied by three accomplices—shot five Black Lives Matter protesters outside of a police station.

Activists who were on the scene say that police nearby did nothing to protect the protesters and that it took approximately 15 minutes for ambulances to arrive.

The shooting of peaceful protesters by white vigilantes is terrorism, plain and simple. The victims were shot as they exercised their right to free assembly. The horrific act should have been met with a state response that takes these ongoing threats seriously and did not perpetuate the devaluing of Black life. Instead, the response by the City demonstrates that the policing and criminal justice systems in Minneapolis are irredeemably broken.

The police in Minneapolis were aware of threats to the protesters but took no action to avert this tragedy. All four suspects managed to get away after drawing guns and shooting five protesters only a block away from the Fourth Precinct police station. Activists reported that during the chaos of the shootings, not only did police fail to protect the demonstrators, but they taunted and maced them. In the past week, the Minneapolis Police Department further escalated tensions by using a chemical irritant against protesters.

The shootings in Minneapolis took place on the same week as the one-year anniversary of the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. They also occurred the week that first-degree murder charges were filed against a Chicago officer in the merciless shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.  Indeed, Minneapolis is the latest example that our criminal justice and policing systems are not designed to keep Black communities safe. All around the country, Black people are finding that they are as under-protected as they are over-policed.

We must address not only this current crisis but the root causes that created it.

We need meaningful community control of police and support for Black communities to address safety concerns. Communities are experts in the type of policing they need and must have the power to set police priorities, determine policing tactics, and make hiring and firing decisions. Police departments in San Francisco and Newark have introduced programs in which local communities have a meaningful say in setting priorities for the department, but there are currently no existing ideal models for community control of local police.

We need to ensure that our communities are protected not only from white vigilantes, but from other forms of violence ignored by the state, including poverty, a dearth of employment opportunities, failing education systems, homelessness, and a lack of mental health services. We know that investments in education, affordable housing, mental health services, restorative justice programs, and higher wages are vital for rebuilding these traumatized communities.

The United States spends $100 billion annually on policing alone—this despite a steady decline in crime rates. Growth in corrections spending has outpaced growth in expenditures in other critical areas. State spending on higher education rose by less than six percent between 1986 and 2013, yet corrections spending jumped by 141 percent.

If all of the energy and resources that go towards policing and incarceration were instead redirected toward these basic needs and opportunities, we would see a kind of safety we have not seen in this country since its original sin.

Legislators and state officials have stripped our communities of basic resources, preyed and profited on our exploitation, and continue to fill prisons while shutting down schools. The killing of Jamar Clark and the terrorist event in Minneapolis are the latest symptoms of our great American tragedy.

In my case, that gig was working as an editor-writer at a magazine, and I jumped at the chance. As a 29-year-old writer, I didn’t see any opportunities for growth in St. Louis. This was a town, after all, that had slowly sucked civic pride right out of me. Underneath its veneer of friendliness, St. Louis felt like a dystopian world in which everyone is in play or being played by forces known and unknown.

It was a place, in fact, where a group of CEOs and wealthy elites working under the mantle of “Civic Progress” made the real decisions about the city’s direction. The benefits of said “progress” never extended to me or other members of my community—not in terms of adequate jobs, housing, education or anything else that would offer us the opportunity to thrive.

On August 9, 2014, these tensions between the powerful and the disregarded boiled over when an 18-year-old black teenager was shot by a 28-year-old white police officer. I was in St. Louis at the time, celebrating my mother’s 70th birthday with families and friends. Our joy quickly turned to sorrow, frustration, and anger. We gathered around the television and watched as police officers, dressed for war, met protesters with batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets.

These events added to the sense of exclusion and disaffection that I had experienced during my years growing up in St. Louis—feelings that persisted until this September when I downloaded the 16-person Ferguson Commission report. Instead of burying the institutionalized racism and poverty my community has struggled with, the authors state an unequivocal truth: “We know that talking about race makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But make no mistake: this is about race.”

In painstaking fashion, the report details how multiple municipalities in the region use poor, black citizens as veritable cash machines, collecting fines and fees from them to fill the city coffers. The Commission adds to the findings of an Arch City Defenders report, which had revealed that one town, Bel Ridge—about the size of a square mile with a population of 2,700 people, 81 percent of whom are black and 42 percent in poverty—filed almost 8,000 cases in municipal court. Almost a quarter of the city’s revenues came from court fines and fees.

For me, reading the report evoked a memory going back some thirty years when I watched the police try to arrest my mother.

My father was out enjoying his morning routine, grabbing coffee at White Castle and reading the paper, when two police officers—one older and gruff, the other younger and visibly apprehensive—came to the door and announced that my mother was under arrest for amassing parking fines; fines that were all incurred in front of our house, mostly for alternate-side parking violations. Forking over cash for fines just didn’t rank as high as other needs like paying the mortgage and buying food.

Neither officer was expecting Angela Davis, but that’s what they got. My mother sat on the staircase in the foyer and said she wasn’t getting up. They threatened her and tried to pick her up, but she pulled away and yelled. Things escalated when the older police officer shouted at my grandmother who was slowed by a stroke and trying to calm the situation. The front door was open and a crowd gathered.

The older officer unbuttoned the holster to his service revolver and placed his hand on the grip. My mother said, “Well, it’s a good goddamned day to die.”

Thirty years later she tells me she has never been more scared—or more defiant—than at that moment. Like so many others who have had similar experiences—some of whom are included in the Ferguson report—her resistance was not rooted in hatred of the police. Her brother, her father, two of her uncles—they were all in law enforcement. This was about respect. My mother offered to pay the fine in person on Monday, but the officers wanted it their way.

Just as I thought the arrest was about to become terrifyingly violent, my father came home. I remember how he shifted from confusion to fear to anger.

Now that I am about the same age as my father was then, I realize he had felt what so many black men feel in situations like that: emasculation. My father, the Marine, the civil engineer, with no criminal past—the man who talked philosophy with friends and could handle himself around roughneck construction workers—was forced to navigate a path that a white man of the same socio-economic status would likely not encounter. They didn’t have that history of police harassment; black male subjugation in the face of a baton or gun; and the gut punch of knowing that the man behind the badge has total control over you.

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Thankfully, a higher-ranking police officer, who was black, arrived on the scene. He sorted it out and reprimanded the lead officer. The next day my parents paid the fine with a little help from a family member. If my mother had been arrested, the cost to my parents—bail, a lawyer, court fees, the fine itself—would have financially crippled us.

The Ferguson report demonstrates that my family’s experience was not unique, and that the truths laid bare in the document don’t just apply to Ferguson, the St. Louis area, or Missouri. In fact, the report is an indictment of a country that is breaking the backs and hopes of the poor and people of color.

But the report also offers sweeping reforms that would help us move beyond the current, unjust status quo—actions raging from police training and consolidating police departments, to court and sentencing reform, to increasing healthcare coverage for the poor and addressing hunger, to raising the minimum wage, ending predatory lending, and investing in quality job training for disconnected youth that leads to employment.

In recognizing the lived realities of African Americans—and offering reforms that speak to those experiences—the Ferguson report is a blueprint on how to tear down the racial wall that divides us. Now we need to respond with action, until young black people no longer have to leave repressive hometowns in search of opportunity as I did.

Until recently, the history of political participation in America was one of forward progress, a timeline marked by an ever-increasing expansion of voting rights. The 15th Amendment in 1870. Women in 1920. And after decades of bloody struggle, the Civil Rights Movement—with the strong participation of Americans of faith—seemed to achieve true equality in 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act is most celebrated for protecting the right to vote for African Americans, but it has also helped ensure that students, low-income Americans, and the elderly have been able to cast their ballots.

However, in 2013 the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act—one that required states with a record of racially-motivated voter disenfranchisement to get approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before making any changes to voter laws.

The result? A flood of new restrictive voting laws are now blocking low-income people, people of color, students, and others from the ballot box. According to an analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice, during the 2015 legislative session alone lawmakers from 33 states have introduced or carried over 113 bills that would restrict access to registration and voting.

What do these laws look like?

They impose barriers that keep low-income people, people of color, disabled people, and other historically disenfranchised communities away from polls. Among these barriers are strict photo identification requirements, cuts to same-day voter registration, and reductions in the number of early voting days. In a state like Alabama, which implemented a strict voter ID requirement last year and just last month closed 31 DMV offices, the result is that poor, rural voters—large numbers of them African-American—will not have easy access to the IDs they need to vote without traveling to a different county and likely missing shifts at work to do so. Faced with these kinds of barriers, and struggling to get by in our age of extreme income inequality, how many low-income Americans can actually afford to pay these 21^st century poll taxes to make it to the ballot box on Election Day?

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Before the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, laws like these would have likely never won approval from the Department of Justice. They would have been recognized and stopped for what they clearly are—attempts to disenfranchise certain classes of voters. Now, many are being challenged in the courts, but they’ll likely languish there for years in never-ending legal battles as election after election passes by.

Congress’ hyper-partisan “leadership” has refused to move forward with a badly needed reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act that would mend what the Supreme Court has broken.

What can people of faith—and all Americans—do about this moral crisis? Together, we need to convince Congress to act while also doing everything we can to protect voting rights in the states we call home. That means marching, protesting, petitioning and making our voices heard. We must expect no compromise, no consideration from those who seek to warp the electoral system in their favor.

To start, join the thousands of Americans who are calling on Congress to restore voting rights protections by signing the VRAforToday petition.

If you want to go a step further, look for opportunities to join protests and actions of civil disobedience. My organization, Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, for example, recently organized vigils across the country to draw attention to voting rights. You can expect more actions like this from us and many other groups if Congress continues to stall on the bill before next year’s crucial national election.

To take direct action that protects voters, volunteer as a poll monitor with organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. They need help assisting voters who are facing hardship or confusion from new voting or registration laws, or monitoring polling sites for discrimination on Election Day.

Other organizations doing great work on this front include the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Rock the Vote. Sign up for emails from these groups and you will find many more opportunities to get involved.

This is a tough fight, but it’s a fight we can win if we all pitch in. Together, we have the power to force congressional action just as our parents and grandparents did fifty years ago when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.  Let’s make them proud.

The new rule improves the reporting requirements of lenders under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). Signed into law in in 1975, HMDA was enacted as a response to widespread urban disinvestment and redlining—the systematic exclusion of neighborhoods of color when marketing and offering home mortgage loans. Under the HMDA, mortgage lenders are required to report information about their applicants and loan decisions, including the race and ethnicity of borrowers and people who have been denied. But lenders haven’t had to disclose any data on applicant creditworthiness. As a result, the law has been severely limited in its ability to reveal discriminatory practices.

With the CFPB’s new rule in effect, there will be increased attention paid to the creditworthiness of applicants, including information on their debt-to-income ratios and credit scores—data that are key to uncovering discriminatory lending patterns and determining whether financial institutions are meeting the housing needs of the communities they serve. The new rule also requires more specificity in reporting on the ethnicity and race of applicants—a vital measure to ensure that HMDA data reflect our nation’s increasing diversity.

Prior to this new rule, while HMDA reporting requirements had been useful in shedding some light on mortgage practices in the Black and Latino communities, they have been completely inadequate for capturing the experiences of other communities of color, especially Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. This is because HMDA data—like numerous other statistics—currently treat AAPIs as a uniform racial group, despite the fact that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders represent more than 30 countries and ethnic groups that speak more than 100 languages.

The results of data analysis on AAPIs are therefore often misleading. For several years, HMDA data have portrayed the mortgage outcomes of the group as much better than those of other borrowers of color, thus reinforcing the “model minority” myth which asserts that people of color should follow the example of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. While it’s true that many hard-working AAPIs have done well in the US—getting a good education and good jobs, becoming homeowners, and building wealth—we also know that this story by no means applies to all AAPIs.

In fact, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are not only one of the fastest growing populations in the United States, but also one of the fastest growing populations in poverty since the Great Recession. They come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and therefore arrive in the US under widely different circumstances. They have a relatively high median household income compared to African Americans and Latinos, but this is largely due to the fact that AAPIs tend to have larger households and are geographically concentrated in the most expensive states—Hawaii, California, New York and New Jersey.

As a whole, the AAPI poverty rate is 12.6 percent. But if we look at individual groups within the AAPI community, we see just how misleading that figure is. Many individuals and families—especially refugees from Southeast Asia—are among the poorest people in the US. The Hmongs have a poverty rate of nearly 39 percent and Cambodians have a poverty rate of 29 percent—two percentage points above the African American poverty rate. AAPI homeowners were also hit very hard by the housing market crash. Falling housing prices, high rates of foreclosures, and low property values have resulted in a significant loss of wealth in this community. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have also endured the largest percentage decline in homeownership rates of any racial group.

Southeast Asians have been particularly vulnerable to foreclosures, as they have higher concentrations of workers in low-wage sectors, lower education levels, and higher rates of linguistic isolation than the broader AAPI community. The Central Valley in California—home to one of the largest concentrations of Southeast Asians—is among the areas that have been most devastated by the foreclosure crisis. Along with the Inland Empire area of Southern California, Central Valley counties feature the highest concentration of foreclosed/Real Estate Owned (REO) properties—and loans at risk of foreclosure—in the state of California. In 2010, the City of Merced had the third worst foreclosure rate in the country at 11 percent. Hmong and Lao comprise 25 percent of the residents in the Merced neighborhoods that were targeted for foreclosure programs.

Like other people of color, many AAPIs still suffer from disparate treatment when looking for housing: one in five AAPIs experience discrimination in the rental and home buying process. Addressing the barriers to housing faced by a diverse AAPI community and others is critical to ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to build wealth for their families—essentially, to achieve the American Dream.

Kudos to the CFPB for taking a powerful step in the right direction.

Unlike some, I don’t see official Washington as a soulless place. Many here are hungry for something better than the politics we have now. One reason Pope Francis’s visit resonated so deeply was that he repeatedly called us to our better selves. He believed all of us—including our political leaders—could heal the “open wounds” that surround us, and that gave many of us hope.

One of my favorite passages from Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Laudato Si’, reads: “Our goal is … to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.”

As he also said to the prisoners he met in Philadelphia: “Any society, any family, which cannot share or take seriously the pain of its children, and views that pain as something normal or to be expected, is a society ‘condemned’ to remain a hostage to itself, prey to the very things which cause that pain.”

Just prior to the pope’s visit, I led our fourth annual “Nuns on the Bus” trip. Our goal was to meet with people in communities from St. Louis to Washington, and gather stories of their suffering and their work for the common good. We are now sharing these stories with our elected officials, and an iPad of the collection was also given to Pope Francis during his visit.

Today, in contrast to the pope’s vision of justice, we see a disconnected Congress mired in hyper-partisanship, so removed from the lives of people like those we met on our tour that some legislators actually consider shutting down the government a useful strategy. Never mind how many people would be harmed by a loss of services and pay, or the pope’s calling on Congress “to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good.”

Rather than scolding Congress for its shortcomings, however, Pope Francis chose to raise up four Americans as representative of who we really are. Everyone could readily identify Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, but many of us were deeply touched when he included the lesser-known Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton.

An ardent pacifist, Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker movement that continues to feed and shelter people in poverty. Thomas Merton sought to bring people together, promoting peace and dialogue so we could truly become one united family. Both led controversial lives and represent the “bruised, hurting and dirty” church that Pope Francis seeks, “rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” (Joy of the Gospel 43).

With some urgency, Pope Francis has called all of us—especially our lawmakers and key economic players—to create an economy of inclusion, one in which all can thrive and no one is shut out. He once wrote that “growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programs, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.” (Joy of the Gospel 204).

Even though the pope didn’t mention them explicitly, there are actions Congress can take right now to help fulfill his vision. Legislators should raise the minimum wage and make permanent key improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit that are set to expire in 2017, while expanding the EITC to include younger childless workers and noncustodial parents who are presently taxed into poverty. Congress can also make sure that all people have access to healthcare by strengthening rather than attacking the Affordable Care Act, and encouraging all states to expand Medicaid coverage. As the pope told Congress, “Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a ‘culture of care’ and ‘an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded’….”

The son of immigrants, Pope Francis often reminds us that immigrants deserve to be treated justly and with compassion. “The rights of those who were here long before us were not always respected,” he said last week. “…When the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past.”

When I think about our nation’s current broken immigration system, I think about Katherine, a 15-year-old we met in Kansas City during our bus tour. When her parents went to pay a traffic ticket, they were deported. She and her five siblings moved in with their grandmother, a major financial burden on the family. Most heartbreaking was when Katherine’s 11-year-old sister attempted suicide because she thought one less child would help makes things “better” for her distraught grandmother.

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With that kind of suffering so prevalent among so many people who are trying to build a better life for their families, there is no excuse for congressional failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform. They must do so now.

Finally, we all know that racism is at the core of many of our problems. When I think about the crisis of systemic racism, I think about the pain of African American mothers whom I met in Saint Louis during a conversation with “Mother 2 Mother.” This discussion group meets regularly to talk about the differences between raising black and white children in the U.S. One woman spoke about the horror of seeing Michael Brown’s body in Ferguson: “I remember the blood triggering me to a state of anger like I had never been there before because I could only imagine if that was our boy, if that was our grandboy… What’s the difference between Michael Brown and my grandson? Nothing.”

If #BlackLivesMatter to our politicians, they must respond to the unique challenges confronting communities of color, including fear and racism within our police forces that have led to the unjust killings of black and brown people, housing discrimination, food deserts, a lack of opportunities in jobs and education, and much more. By honoring Dr. King, the pope reminded us how this civil rights icon moved our nation toward justice. We can and must continue in that quest.

Let us live out Pope Francis’s message to bridge divides and transform our economy and our politics. We the People know that our country must move toward justice for all. I pray that Congress heard what Pope Francis said and will work with us to make that happen.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 80 percent of New Orleans was under water, thousands of people were displaced, and at least 1,800 people were killed. The country watched in disbelief as residents—a disproportionate number of whom were black—pleaded for help on rooftops as then-President George W. Bush watched from afar—first from Washington, D.C., then overhead from a helicopter. All the while, the city’s poorest community, the Lower Ninth Ward, had up to 12 feet of water sitting stagnant in some areas for weeks. It was the last place to have power and water service restored, and the last to have the flood waters pumped out.

Despite the dire circumstances, news outlets and law enforcement quickly began to label the black residents as “looters.” They were not viewed as people trying to survive, but rather as criminals who needed to be reined in. New Orleans Police Department Captain James Scott instructed police officers that they had the “authority by martial law to shoot looters.”

And that’s what they did: All told, 11 people were shot by law enforcement officials following the storm. The most well-known incident occurred six days after Katrina hit, when members of the NOPD—unprovoked and armed with assault rifles—stormed the Danziger Bridge and began firing on a group of unarmed civilians in search of food. Two people were killed, including a mentally disabled man who was shot in the back and a 17-year-old high school student. Four more were seriously injured, including three members of the Bartholomew family. Leonard Bartholomew suffered a gunshot wound to the head, his daughter was wounded in the abdomen, and his wife Susan lost an arm due to the severity of the gun blast that hit her. Five officers were arrested and convicted. Ten years later, the Bartholomew family’s civil suit remains unsettled.

The feeling that black lives did not matter was most famously summed up by rapper Kanye West when he stated firmly during a primetime telethon that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”

As Hurricane Katrina revealed, the consequences of poverty, segregation, police brutality, and environmental racism coming to a head have tragic results.

Amidst the growing threat of climate change, this perfect storm must not be forgotten. While an extreme weather event, such as a flood, heat wave, or hurricane may seem like an equal opportunity force of destruction, in reality these events exacerbate the underlying injustices that exist in our communities year round. Understanding just how vulnerable low-income, black communities are to these threats is critical to protecting black lives in the 21st century.

Today, much of New Orleans is back to normal, with more than half of the city’s neighborhoods reaching their pre-storm population levels. However, that’s far from the case for the infamous Lower Ninth Ward. In the years following Katrina, only about 37 percent of households have returned home. Black residents who wanted to rebuild simply couldn’t afford to as federal aid was allocated based on home values rather than the cost of construction. The average gap between the damage accrued and the grants awarded to residents of the Lower Ninth Ward was $75,000, more than twice the average household income of the residents there.

As Professor Beverly Wright of Loyola University New Orleans explained, “pre-storm vulnerabilities continue to limit the participation of thousands of disadvantaged individuals and communities in the after-storm reconstruction, rebuilding, and recovery. In these communities, days of hurt and loss have become years of grief, dislocation, and displacement.”

Hurricane Katrina exposed that even in our hour of greatest need, black people are often not afforded the tragic gift of vulnerability. Instead, we are an ever present threat.

Today’s #BlackLivesMatter movement—a national call to action and response against “extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes” —is focused on just that. The movement demands accountability of law enforcement, while affirming the need to invest in low-income, black communities “in order to create jobs, housing and schools.” It is this last demand that is often left out of media discussions of the movement, but is critical to the health, wealth, and well-being of African American families.

Read the full text of Tracey’s column here.

For further commentary from Tracey on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, check out the latest TalkPoverty Radio podcast, which she co-hosts with Rebecca Vallas.

Historically, the VRA derived much of its power from Section 5, which was often referred to as the heart of the bill. It recognized that racial discrimination interfered with voting rights and varied in severity by state. The section mandated that states with an established history of racial discrimination needed federal approval before they could overhaul their voter registration laws. This “preclearance” was determined by a formula established in Section 4 of the VRA, which Congress voted to renew in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006.

This bipartisan consensus changed quite suddenly in 2013. A conservative-led U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a controversial 5-4 decision that Section 4 was obsolete – that “our country has changed” – and repealed the preclearance formula. The ruling effectively dismantled one of the most important protections in the VRA because, without the preclearance formula, Section 5 applied to no states at all.  The New York Times Magazine eloquently summarized the result: “on June 26, 2013, we had less voting rights than we had on August 6, 1965.”

Within 24 hours of Section 4’s repeal, several states moved to enact voter identification laws that would intentionally and effectively limit the right to vote. For example, the state of Texas (a preclearance state) passed a law that required Texans to prove their citizen status with a passport or copy of a birth certificate, which can be costly and present increased barriers for lower-income or older Americans to access the ballot. And as predicted, the law did, in fact, lead to decreased voter registration and turnout. Across the board for all races in the state, voter registration dropped between 2010 and 2014, with communities of color seeing a larger decrease than whites. The law was struck down just yesterday by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals as racially discriminatory, a decision that will likely be appealed to the U.S Supreme Court.

As such, it should be no surprise that when the Center for American Progress Action Fund released its Health of State Democracies report earlier this summer, the state of Texas received an “F” grade for ballot accessibility (a metric used to identify potential barriers to the voting process for eligible voters). Other preclearance states that have recently passed changes to their voter registration laws include: Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. And every single one of these states scored a D+ or worse when it came to ballot accessibility, underscoring the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s decision.

This right to vote is a cornerstone of our democracy. It is, in fact, the fundamental right that our forefathers considered as they fought a revolution to enshrine it in our Constitution. It is absolutely imperative, therefore, that we seek solutions to expand that right. House Democrats recently did just that. In order to bridge the preclearance gap created by the Supreme Court, they called on Speaker Boehner to advance legislation. Their plan, the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015, would only affect states that were found to have violated the VRA within the past 25 years – approximately 13 states. But Speaker Boehner and Republican House leaders have blocked the law from moving forward in the legislative process.

The reason to bolster voting rights here in America has never been clearer. If America is going to live up to its credo as the “leader of the free world,” we must ensure that all Americans are able to vote. We cannot continue to stifle the voices of people simply because we do not like the way they vote. The time to act is now, and we must ensure through legislation and action that all Americans are politically enfranchised.

It is within this context that the new book, REACH: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading, and Succeeding, must be understood.

Co-edited by former NAACP President Ben Jealous, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, the book celebrates black men through the personal essays of entrepreneurs, artists, teachers, philanthropists, and activists.  By chronicling each man’s path to success, the first person narratives in Reach also serves as a counterpoint to the negative images of black men that saturate the media.

One of the more subtle yet significant aspects of the book is how it reveals the critical role that communities play in the black experience. Contributors address everything from Jim Crow laws and the Great Migration to life in inner cities and current concerns over gentrification.

Derrick Johnson, State President of the Mississippi NAACP, captures some of the most seminal moments in the rise and fall of black communities when he writes: “The previous generation of my family had migrated to Detroit from the South in order to get good jobs in the auto industry, but after Reaganomics and the decline of the unions, those jobs went away.” He continues, “By the early 1980s, when I was coming up, it was drugs and poverty all around.”

Every contributor shares his unique story, and stitched together, they form a tapestry of the black experience in towns and cities across the country.

More importantly, the book reveals how the community you grow up in shapes your long-term life prospects. For example, Dr. Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, recalls an incident when a young man was shot outside of his Chicago home and his father came to the man’s aid. Shortly afterward, Carson and his family moved a short distance away for better opportunities.

“I had moved thirty blocks, and all of a sudden, everything was in front of me – I was told every opportunity could be mine if I worked for it,” he writes. “And yet I had friends and family in the old neighborhood who were not going to be exposed to the same opportunities.” He continues, “We don’t have a society where we can say that success is random. Success is determined by your zip code, by your race and ethnicity, and by your parents’ wealth status.”

Carson’s words summarize the consequences of living in concentrated poverty, and how the opportunity to live in a better area can change the trajectory of one’s life. In fact, research shows that a person’s zip code has more to do with their life expectancy than their genetic code. For instance, poverty has been shown to genetically age children, and exposure to neighborhood violence impairs cognitive ability. Further, living in high poverty communities often means having little or no access to services that many people take for granted. Shaka Senghor, Director of the Atonement Project at the University of Michigan, highlights this at the beginning of his powerful essay. After becoming a victim of gun violence, he explains, “I was bleeding profusely waiting for the ambulance as long as I could – you know, in the ‘hood, we have no expectations of the ambulance coming.” He goes on, “I was exposed to probably every horrific thing you can imagine in that environment.”

Given that Reach takes on the heavy burden of combating the negative images of black men that flood America’s collective conscious, it would be tempting to select stories of individuals with spotless backgrounds. Instead, Jealous and co-editor Trabian Shorters rightly include the stories of men who were tangled up in crime and violence, highlighting how their communities became fertile grounds for such destruction. As Yusef Shakur, CEO of YBS Consulting, writes of his own turn down the wrong path: “When we think of ‘undeveloped’ places, we tend to think of third world countries. But here in Detroit we have third world neighborhoods. These communities don’t have the nurturing influence of families, of strong businesses or strong churches. The mentality of the streets is filling those voids.”

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Inclusion of these stories is significant as black men are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. Due to structural racism and hyper-criminalization, black men are incarcerated at a rate six times higher than that of white men, and 49 percent of black men have been arrested by age 23. Not only is it important for young black men who may have criminal records to see that the paths to success are often winding, it is also critical for the public to understand the humanity of people who have borne the weight of handcuffs.

It would be easy to point to these stories as evidence that it is possible to “pull yourself up from your bootstraps,” but that interpretation entirely misses the important lesson of the book. We shouldn’t be satisfied with people succeeding despite the conditions of their communities; we want people to succeed because of them.

Reach serves as a reminder that there are children of color living in communities across the country who are still waiting on this nation’s promise of opportunity. Leaders must work together to right the wrongs of past policies that created these communities, and ensure that, as President Obama stated in announcing the Promise Zones Initiative, “A child’s course in life should be determined not by the zip code she’s born in, but by the strength of her work ethic and the scope of her dreams.”

After a four-decade incarceration binge, the state is taking steps to reduce prison populations, which have come at ruinous costs for state coffers and for the disproportionately black and Latino individuals and families who are affected.

The latest step came last month, as California voters approved a ballot measure to reclassify a number of low level offenses from felonies to misdemeanors.  Under Prop 47, offenses such as shoplifting, writing hot checks, and drug possession would be punished less harshly.  This would potentially allow 10,000 individuals currently imprisoned to petition to have their sentences reduced and to return to their families sooner.

In recent years, California has served as an intriguing case study for reducing prison populations without harming public safety.  After the state was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 to address its prison overcrowding crisis, lawmakers responded with a policy of “realignment,” which shifted supervision of non-violent offenders and parole violators to local communities.  In 2012, California voters approved a ballot proposal to ensure that the state’s notorious Three Strikes Law would not send people to prison for life for non-serious offenses.

The effect of these and other changes has been dramatic.  Between 2006 and 2012, California’s prison population decreased by nearly a quarter and while doing so, its drop in violent crime exceeded the national average.  These developments, along with similar developments in New York and New Jersey, show increased support among both policymakers and the public for a public safety strategy that is less reliant on incarceration.

But the largely untold story of criminal justice reform in California is what could happen with the savings.

Under Prop 47—of the hundreds of millions of dollars of projected state prison savings each year—a significant portion will be allocated to preventing crime from happening in the first place.  This will include investments in mental health and substance abuse treatment, programs to reduce school truancy and prevent dropouts, and support for victim services.

Research—as well as common sense—suggest that such interventions can be more effective in reducing crime than incarceration.  But that is not the way our nation has been operating.

Like other states, California has for decades used the criminal justice system to respond to social problems.  Following the failure of other institutions to provide opportunity and education—and yes, to deal with behavioral problems—police, prosecutors, and prisons have taken on roles that used to be left to schools, parents, social workers, and others in local communities.

This is particularly true with the war on drugs, which is a primary driver of mass incarceration and racial disparities.  Today, about 75 percent of incarcerated individuals have a history of substance abuse.  One of every six has a history of mental illness.  Many were abused.   About two-thirds of individuals imprisoned on a drug charge are black or Latino, even though people of all races use and sell drugs at roughly the same rates.

Though we have initiatives aimed at early childhood education, therapeutic interventions for at-risk youth, and treatment for substance abuse and mental illness, they are painfully underfunded compared to the scope of the problem.  Instead of investing in such interventions, we have turned to the criminal justice system, which is an extremely expensive way to address these problems.  Few would dispute that incarceration is sometimes necessary, but the question we should be asking is whether incarceration is the most effective way to ensure safe and healthy communities.

In a definitive report earlier this year, the National Research Council concluded that the rise of mass imprisonment in the United States has “transformed not only the criminal justice system, but also U.S. race relations and the institutional landscape of urban poverty.”

To truly address America’s mass incarceration epidemic, we will need to divert people to substance abuse and mental health treatments rather than sending them to prisons and jails.  We’ll need to remove barriers that keep people with criminal records from starting a new life.  And above all, we’ll need to shift resources away from prisons and invest them in communities.

Prop 47 is only a start, but it may mark a new day for criminal justice reform.

Fast food and home care workers—the vast majority of them minority women who are living in poverty—have been striking for a living wage. Middle class and low-income families across the country are struggling to make ends meet. And while they are busy fighting to provide for their families and earn a living, their constitutional right to vote—to participate in democracy, to voice their opinions on the policies that shape this country—is under attack.

On a recent press call to discuss grassroots efforts to engage voters in Minnesota, Alice Flowers, a grandmother, spoke of her own experiences with economic insecurity.  But the point she made that really stuck with me was about the threat she feels to her voting rights.

“I can’t help but think we’re having to fight the same battles my parents fought in segregated Mississippi,” she said. “And that’s just not right.”

Under some states’ new restrictive voter ID laws, individuals must have a state-issued photo ID that matches the name on their voter registration cards. For women in the low-wage workforce—approximately two-thirds of whom are women of color—the time and cost of acquiring a photo ID are real barriers.

Imagine you live in Texas, several hours away from the nearest DMV. You’re a working mother with a chaotic shift schedule, trying to pay bills and care for your family. Maybe you were married and hyphenated your name, and now your photo ID and voter registration card don’t match. Maybe you never even had a state-issued photo ID to begin with. In these kinds of instances, the new laws will prevent you from voting, even if you were a registered voter in the past.  Under the guise of protecting our democratic process, these laws succeed only in disenfranchising low-income women of color and others, and threatening our democratic process.

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Women are consistently overrepresented in the number of people who are affected by these voter restrictions. In North Carolina, for example, women represent 54% of voters in the state, but they comprise 64% of the voters who are unable to vote under the new laws. That’s more than 200,000 disenfranchised women voters, and for women of color the data is even worse. While black women represented less than 24% of all women registered to vote in the state in 2012, they made up more than 34% of the registered women voters who didn’t have the necessary photo ID.

Texas has one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the nation.  In fact, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos blocked the state from enforcing it, concluding that Republican lawmakers had intentionally acted to decrease voter turnout of the growing minority population.  Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is allowing the law to be implemented in the upcoming election while it is appealed, and as a result more than 600,000 registered voters might be disenfranchised, including a disproportionate number of minority Texans.

These laws are being pushed at the state level by conservative lawmakers who claim that they are protecting elections from voter fraud, but the voter fraud doesn’t exist. A report by the US Government Accountability Office in September 2014 found that the Department of Justice reported “no apparent cases of in-person voter impersonation charged by DOJ’s Criminal Division or by U.S. Attorney’s offices anywhere in the United States, from 2004 through July 3, 2014.” But there is certainly evidence that voter ID laws keep many women from voting on the issues that matter to them—like increasing the minimum wage, requiring equal pay for equal work, creating paid family and sick leave, and providing affordable child and elder care—and from kicking out the politicians who support these discriminatory laws.

Ultimately, the new voting restrictions need to be struck down by the Supreme Court.  But until then, those of us who can vote, must vote—and must use our vote to ensure that the voices of women of color are heard at the polls.

But we don’t just punish people for being poor.  In some cases, we punish them for being punished.

Consider the felony drug ban, which imposes a lifetime restriction on welfare and food stamp benefits for anyone convicted of a state or federal drug felony.  Passed in the “tough on crime” era of the mid-1990s, the ban denies basic assistance to people who may have sold a small amount of marijuana years or even decades ago and have been law-abiding citizens ever since.

Because the felony drug ban was adopted with little debate, it’s hard to know exactly what Congress intended.  But we can measure the law’s effect.  Last year, The Sentencing Project found that the legislation subjects an estimated 180,000 women in the twelve most impacted states to a lifetime ban on welfare benefits.

Given racial disparities throughout the criminal justice system — particularly related to the war on drugs — banning benefits based on a prior drug conviction has brutally unfair consequences for people of color.  About 60% of people in America’s prisons are racial and ethnic minorities.  Of those individuals serving time for drug offenses, about two-thirds are black or Latino.  Further, blacks are three to four times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses than whites, even though they use and sell drugs at roughly the same rates.

People who cannot meet basic needs may be more likely to turn to dangerous activities.  A study by researchers at Yale Medical School found that women who are denied food assistance due to a drug conviction are at greater risk of hunger. These women are also more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior such as prostitution in order to get money for food.

The felony drug ban is just one of many collateral consequences that formerly incarcerated individuals face as they strive to reenter society.  Some of these barriers are informal: an employer who will not hire a person with a criminal record; a university application that requires all applicants to “check the box” for a prior arrest or conviction.

But private sector discrimination has been compounded by laws that erect barriers and cut services for people sent to prison.  In the 1990s, Congress barred Pell grants for incarcerated individuals — ensuring that most could not receive a college education prior to release — and restricted access to public housing and financial aid for higher education for some former prisoners.

Felony disenfranchisement laws – which date to colonial times but were tailored in the post-Reconstruction era to exclude black voters – place voting restrictions on an estimated 5.85 million Americans.  In the upcoming elections, more than one in five black adults will be denied the right to vote in Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia due to a criminal conviction.

Fortunately, as public attitudes about mass incarceration have changed, there is a growing recognition that fair sentencing can meet the mutual goals of punishment and rehabilitation.  Imposing collateral consequences after a criminal conviction is not only vindictive but also counterproductive to building safe and healthy communities.

In recent months, federal lawmakers in both parties have introduced legislation to remove some of these barriers and promote a safer transition into society.  The REDEEM Act, introduced by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rand Paul (R-KY), would allow the sealing of criminal records and lift the ban on benefits for some people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.  Though the bill should go much further — for example, by also lifting restrictions on housing and education benefits — it is a good first step toward restoring access to assistance for individuals who urgently need it.

Former President Bill Clinton — who signed the felony drug ban into law — recently told a group of mayors and law enforcement officials that some measures intended to address crime have been misguided and others have gone too far.  Clinton predicted that criminal justice reform would be debated in the 2016 presidential race.  If so, it will represent a major shift in our politics, which have too often focused on getting tough on crime rather than on promoting healthy communities.  But for millions of people who are still being punished long after completing their sentences, 2016 is too long to wait.

It is an injustice to punish people for being poor.  It is doubly unjust to punish them after they have already been punished.

My Brother’s Keeper: Toward a More Inclusive Nation

Lisalyn R. Jacobs: Can My Brother’s Keeper Fulfill Its Promise Without Keeping Sisters Too?

The President’s announcement of the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) initiative did not surprise me.  I advocate on behalf of a women’s rights organization; I worked through several sessions of Congress with the offices of then-Senator Barack Obama and Representative Danny Davis on their fatherhood bill.

I was, however, frustrated by the announcement and I remain so.

The initiative contemplates a public-private partnership with the federal government primarily using the power of the bully pulpit – though Administration officials have also taken part in community outreach and listening sessions, and spent a considerable amount of time and effort to gather, synthesize, evaluate and submit a first report to the President.  But MBK looks past struggling girls and at-risk young women while urging that time and resources be spent on at-risk boys and young men.

Let me be clear:  I think that programming that supports children and young men and women in at-risk communities is vital, and desperately needed.  I salute the President for acknowledging the need for a focus on the needs of youth in communities that are—as we have seen in Ferguson this summer—under siege.

What troubles me, however, are two things:  The suggestion that the problems being faced by boys and young men of color are so unique – or so much worse than those that girls and young women face – that they need their own initiative; and the related but in some ways more dangerous idea that the violence that young men face is more deserving of focused attention.

In a recent editorial, the Washington Post summarized the “men of color are at greatest risk” argument this way:  “That minority men are at disproportionate risk throughout their lives has largely been seen as unavoidable.”

What this observation fails to acknowledge is that the minority males that are the focus of MBK live in places where crime rates are high, homicides are commonplace, and schools are oftentimes failing, and consequently, that these are problems for everyone in the community:  struggling families and their boys and girls, alike.

For instance, schools compound the problem by disproportionately sanctioning youth of color, from preschool age and up. Black girls are suspended at rates higher than girls of any other race and most racial groupings of boys as well. The fact that the suspension rate for African American boys is 20 percent – versus a 12 percent rate for black girls – should send a message that the education system needs to do better by all youth of color; not that young men should be the chief focus of the Administration’s first major initiative to examine the enduring and entrenched problems experienced by youth of color in at-risk communities.

Additionally, whether you look at educational attainment or economic prospects, black and Hispanic men and women are doing worse both in absolute terms and relative to their white counterparts.

Nevertheless, I’ve encountered too many people who have fallen prey to the notion that MBK and similar programs that exclude or marginalize at-risk girls are the solution. Two problems stem from this view:  1) providing more opportunities in at-risk communities will not change the preconceptions and bias that felled Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride, and most recently Mike Brown; 2) focusing on young men exclusively (or primarily) overlooks the fact that young women are similarly situated and that the unique challenges they face might very well be ignored by this type of “trickle down” programming.  To paraphrase a post-Ferguson tweet I saw recently, “you can’t [save just] half the community.”

People point to the salience of the verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder case, and now, the killing of Mike Brown to explain the narrow focus of MBK on young men.  The concern in these cases grows, at least partially, out of this country’s ugly past, which is strewn with black and brown bodies that were lynched or otherwise dispatched for reasons trivial to non-existent, and never with the sanction of a court.  So, it’s crucial to recall that black women were lynched, too, with the earliest records dating back to the late 19^th century.  And it’s equally important to recognize that women of color, including trans women, continue to be brutalized and murdered, whether by law enforcement or private citizens (see here, here, and here).  Moreover, we cannot hope to begin the work of dismantling the systems that permit this kind of institutionalized oppression to continue unless we acknowledge that Asian, Arab, Latino, and Native communities are at-risk as well.

As we observe the 20^th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act this month, it’s important to point out that the type of violence that women of color experience is simultaneously similar to and distinct from the kind of violence most often experienced by men.  Young women in many of the above-mentioned communities also struggle with staggering levels of domestic violence and sexual assault (see also here).   This violence is particularly difficult to identify and respond to because of underreporting, which is connected to the pervasive levels of police mistrust in of color, Native, immigrant, and LGBT communities.  And, as we’ve been reminded recently, the failure to report can also be a result of crimes of sexual violence being perpetrated by the police.

There is a deep reservoir of expertise within the Administration when it comes to providing culturally appropriate services in communities that are rightfully dubious of law enforcement, and supports for children who have witnessed violence.  These are among the approaches that MBK should assess and replicate in the months ahead.  As the Administration contemplates the way forward for MBK, it is also vital that the program includes a focus on the ways in which violence and other obstacles – including poverty, maternal morbidity, reproductive justice, underemployment, limited access to apprenticeships and job training – manifest in the lives of girls and young women of color.  Until both MBK and its well-financed external counterpart, the Boys and Men of Color Initiative, widen their focus to include girls and young women of color, at-risk communities will have neither the tools nor the resources necessary to ensure that they can move forward and flourish.   Make no mistake:  there is no going forward, unless we all go forward together – boys and girls, young men and young women, are our collective future.

The fact is that the challenges at-risk boys and girls face are community challenges.  Until we are all safe and prospering, none of us will be.

Lisalyn R. Jacobs is V.P. of Government Relations at Legal Momentum.  She leads the organization’s federal advocacy on violence against women, poverty, and economic issues.  A single mother, she lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. with her 6 year-old son. On Twitter:  @LRockL

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Sam Fulwood III: My Brother’s Keeper: Toward a More Inclusive Nation

Not long after President Obama announced his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, an ambitious effort to rally public and private support for boys and men of color, a group of concerned activists mounted a high-visibility campaign to alter – some might say, to undermine – the White House plan.  Surprisingly, this rear-guard action came, not from the ranks of right-wing conservatives, but from the President’s skeptical, left-most flank.

The African American Policy Forum, which describes itself as “an innovative think tank connecting academics, activists, and policy-makers to dismantle structural inequality and engage new ideas and perspectives to transform public discourse and policy,” assumed leadership in the effort to compel the White House to include women and girls in the “My Brother’s Keeper” Initiative.  The group collected signatures of more than 1,000 women of color demanding gender equality in the President’s program and rallied 200 black men to publish an open letter in a major newspaper.

While their argument packs the emotional wallop of seemingly protecting the interest of girls and women, the logic is faulty and the public shaming tactic is divisively misguided. Arguments that President Obama’s initiative to support boys and men of color is somehow disrespecting or ignoring the plight of black girls and women strikes a hollow and discordant note. Worse yet, it comes from within the ranks of those who profess to share the President’s ultimate objective of creating a fairer society and more opportunity for all.

To be clear, those critical of the “My Brother’s Keeper” effort are focused on tactics and resources, not the end goal. Like politicians, social activists must marshal money and media attention to drive public support to its cause. In and of itself, that’s neither a good, nor bad thing; it’s the way of the public policy world.

But public policy is just that, serving the greater good of the entire society. If the policy is well-crafted and executed, the larger society will benefit.  The acid test of a targeted effort, such as “My Brother’s Keeper” would be whether all – not just boys and men of color – prosper. True, women and girls of color, too, have challenges deserving focused attention. So do communities of immigrants and people with disabilities and folks in the LGBT communities.

But in a universe of short attention spans and limited (to nonexistent) resources, can we target all at once? Where does the President (or any socially conscious group) draw a line when seeking to reach the greatest public policy end?  Or, stated another way, is support for one cause, by definition an affront to another?  It doesn’t have to be.

Indeed, such fallacious zero-sum thinking is at the heart of the opposition to the “My Brother’s Keeper” Initiative. “My Brother’s Keeper” draws one set of targeted efforts to protect boys and men of color, but there’s nothing about it that excludes anyone – including women and girls.  Quite the contrary, if the President’s initiative is successful, the totality of America will benefit.

Valerie Jarrett, the Senior Advisor to the President, argues that line of reasoning in defending the White House and pointing out its efforts to assist girls and women. “I think the flaw in logic is not understanding that this is not either/or, this is both/and,” Jarrett said in a recent appearance television interview to defend the initiative.

The same logic undergirded a recent White House Summit on Working Families, where the President made it clear his focus is on improving the life opportunities for all Americans, including women and girls.

And here is a critical point:  All too often, these issues are thought of as women’s issues, which I guess means you can kind of scoot them aside a little bit.  At a time when women are nearly half of our workforce, among our most skilled workers, are the primary breadwinners in more families than ever before, anything that makes life harder for women makes life harder for families and makes life harder for children.  When women succeed, America succeeds, so there’s no such thing as a women’s issue. . . .This is a family issue and an American issue — these are commonsense issues.

john a. powell, director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California at Berkeley, and Maya Rockeymore, chief executive of the Center for Global Policy Solutions, are convincing in their support of “My Brother’s Keeper’s” targeted approach.   In an essay for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, they draw an analogy to public debates over to the Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990 and outlawed discrimination based on disability and provided protections for the disabled. It was a targeted law that proved to be beneficial to a much larger, public body. They write:

We can understand this idea if we think of individuals who are in a wheelchair trying to reach an upper floor. An escalator will not support those individuals in the same way as it would those who are able-bodied. It is not the disabled group that needs fixing but the structure. The goal is to convey everyone to the upper floor, and it is universal. But the strategy to achieve this goal must be targeted toward the disabled individuals to address their circumstances, which differ from those of other groups. We call this strategy “targeted universalism.”

Does this mean that we should only focus on the individuals in the wheelchair? No.

But neither does it mean that we treat all groups attempting to get to the upper floor the same. A targeted universalism approach is concerned about the mobility of all groups while recognizing that some groups will require targeted strategies to get there.

Should we remain concerned about groups that are still not being targeted or well served, such as women and girls of color? The simple answer is yes.

Notice that if we build an elevator, it benefits not only the wheelchair-bound group but also everybody else. When we transform structures to work for marginalized groups, it can often benefit all groups, and it certainly doesn’t harm any of them, including those with unlimited mobility.

Unfortunately, rational reasoning falls hard on the ears of advocates who imagine an overflowing gravy train of administration focus on men and boys of color and their exclusion from the philanthropic largess. They’re wrong. And worse, in their crabs-in-a-barrel attacks, they do harm to an initiative that offers promise to help move us toward a fairer, more inclusive nation.

Sam Fulwood III is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Director of the CAP Leadership Institute. His work with the Center’s Progress 2050 project examines the impact of policies on the nation when there will be no clear racial or ethnic majority by the year 2050.

Let’s flesh this out: it’s worth a reminder that poverty is defined as living at or below the poverty line, which for a family of four in 2013 was $23,834. Yep, that is not a typo—there isn’t supposed to be a “6” where the “2” is. Not sure how anyone makes a living with less than $30K but that is another topic for another day.

Now back to the numbers: 14.5 percent of Americans lived in poverty in 2013—that represents more than 45 million people, including 13 million Latinos.  While this poverty rate is lower than in 2012, it is a decrease of only .5 percent.  Among Latinos the decrease was a respectable 2 percentage points—down from 25.6 percent in 2012 to 23.5 percent in 2013.

The Latino child poverty rate also fell for a third year in a row. In 2013, the poverty rate among Hispanic kids was 30.4 percent, compared to 33.8 in 2012 and 34.1 in 2011.  But it’s clear we still have a long way to go: there are 5.4 million Hispanic children in poverty, more than any other group; and our kids have among the highest poverty rates of any racial and ethnic group at more than 30 percent.

While the economy improved in 2013 that hasn’t translated into significantly better economic outcomes for the low-income workers or the middle class.   Median family income stayed virtually the same between 2012 and 2013, continuing its 14-year decline due in large part to stagnant wages.  Although income for Latinos did rise from $39,572 to 40,963 in 2013, it is still lower than the $43,025 that Hispanics earned in 2006.

It is also worth underscoring that millions of Latinos are working at poverty-level wages.  While the unemployment rate for Hispanics declined between September 2012 and August 2013—from 8.9 percent to 7.5 percent—more than 40 percent of Latino workers earn poverty level wages.

These poverty numbers are not a reality that we can’t change.  As my colleagues Rebecca Vallas and Melissa Boteach write there are policy solutions that can reverse these trends. For example, raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour would benefit 6.8 million Latinos; good jobs—with fair pay and benefits such as paid family and medical leave, and paid sick days—would also make a difference in lifting people out of poverty.  Moreover, key investments in education, job training and child care would improve the livelihoods of all Americans, including Latinos.   And let’s not forget immigration reform to help workers who are already contributing to this nation’s economy earn a good living that supports their families.

But Congress seems intent on making things worse. In 2013, this Congress enacted across-the-board cuts in education, job training, and child care services, alongside reductions in nutrition assistance, housing, and other vital programs for low-income families. Congress must change course and invest in job creation, pass comprehensive immigration reform, raise the minimum wage, and enact measures to improve the economic security of all families.

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For Latinos the stakes are high.  While the reduction in poverty in our community is good news during an otherwise disappointing time (given the lack of movement on issues that we care about—like immigration reform), much work remains. This new set of numbers are yet another reminder that we need to grow our power and influence so that we elect leaders in Congress who will focus on creating and strengthening the ladder of opportunity for all Americans—including Latinos.

In 1998, Congress passed the CTC with the aim of bringing children in low-income families out of poverty. Depending on a family’s income, the CTC provides a tax credit of up to $1,000 per child; the credit increases as a family’s income rises, with higher-income families receiving a larger credit.  The CTC has successfully achieved its goal: in 2012, the program lifted more than 3 million Americans out of poverty.

Currently, immigrant parents of US citizen children are able to receive a Child Tax Credit by filing with an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN). The IRS created the ITIN in 1996 so that immigrants who are not eligible for Social Security numbers would be able to file taxes. In practice, many ITIN filers are undocumented immigrants who are living and working in the United States.

These workers contribute much needed revenue.  In 2010, undocumented workers contributed $13 billion in payroll taxes.  In recent years, more than 3 million immigrants have filed taxes using an ITIN, contributing nearly $1 billion in income taxes. This system has clearly allowed immigrants without Social Security numbers to come forward and strengthen the coffers of the US while receiving needed assistance for their children.

So how would things change if conservatives had things go their way with this bill?  The short answer: 4 million US citizen children would be at risk of falling into poverty.

By requiring that all taxpayers use a Social Security number when claiming the Child Tax Credit, this bill would strip immigrant parents of US citizen children of their right to receive the credit. Currently, over 2 million people use an ITIN to file for the CTC, therefore 4 million US born children would be deprived of this crucial financial assistance.

This would be a devastating blow to these families.  In recent years, the average family income of ITIN filers claiming the CTC was just over $21,200, and their average refund through the CTC was $1,800.  As the annual cost of raising a child in the US steadily increases, and real wages grow sluggishly, low-income families need the CTC more than ever.  Eliminating the ability for immigrants to claim it on behalf of their children would simply push millions of Americans into poverty and create greater costs to our country now and in the future.

Adding insult to injury, the conservative bill comes after a year of inaction in the House on immigration reform.  By failing to pass immigration reform, House conservatives denied immigrants the ability to get right with the law and obtain a Social Security card. Now they are attempting to punish US citizen children whose parents don’t have a Social Security card.

Eliminating the CTC for those who file and pay taxes under the ITIN would take food off the table and clothes off the backs of US citizen children. Unfortunately, and to the shock of no one, yet another bill is targeting some of the most vulnerable Americans in an attempt to help the already fortunate few.

On nearly every indicator that we use in the United States to measure progress, people of color are falling further behind. And it starts early.

A recent report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Race for Results: Building a Path to Opportunity for All Children,” provides a national and state scorecard for how we are providing opportunities for children of color, using 12 indicators, such as percentage of children enrolled in preschool, high-schoolers who graduate on time, and number of children who live in low-poverty areas. There isn’t one minority group that’s meeting all of these benchmarks, and even middle-class families of color have a very tenuous hold on their economic status.

In addition, the recent data from the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection show that we are exacerbating these disparities by essentially sending our children of color to schools that are not providing them with a high-quality education. For many of our children, schools become a pipeline into the criminal justice system. According to the data, Black students are suspended at much higher rates than White students, and the problem has become so pervasive and insidious that it extends to preschool. Despite representing just 18 percent of preschool children, Black children make up nearly half of all out-of-school suspensions in preschool.

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This school-to-prison pipeline – one in which African Americans and Latinos are grossly over-represented – is in stark contrast to their under-representation in the higher education system, where the non-Hispanic White population is well ahead of other groups in ultimately attaining a college degree or more.

The economic inequalities we see resulting from these educational inequalities are frightening. The unemployment data released earlier this month by the Department of Labor – revealing continued job growth but stagnant wages – still show that Black and Brown people are having the hardest time riding out this lengthy economic recovery. The official unemployment rate for African Americans is more than double the unemployment rate for non-Hispanic Whites. The rate for Hispanics is lagging behind, too.

When the numbers of under-employed and discouraged workers are factored in, the crisis is even more severe for workers from every background.

With the foreclosure crisis, the financial crash, and the great recession, the inequalities of wealth have actually increased. As the Urban Institute reports, Non-Hispanic White families before the recession had about four times the wealth as non-White families, a figure that jumped to six times by 2010. Hispanic families lost 44 percent of their wealth – and Black families lost 31 percent of theirs – between 2007 and 2010. By contrast, White families lost just 11 percent of their wealth over the same period.

This broadening racial wealth gap is scary, as is the school-to-prison pipeline, and it won’t be solved overnight. But we can start by reinvesting in our nation’s children, who all deserve equal access to a quality education – one that doesn’t leave their economic future imperiled. The federal government has a number of options that it can pursue to address this crisis, including taking on a more robust role in guaranteeing the right to education; greater and more equitable investment of resources in the public school system; and tougher enforcement of existing civil rights laws. Taken together, such actions would do much to improve the lives of our children, both now and in the future.

Sixty years after Brown, it’s the least we can do.