Month: November 2020

By Executive Order 13950, the Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping, federal entities are now barred from using federal funds for workplace diversity trainings, anti-racism trainings, and scholarship. The irony within this Executive Order states, ”This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country, that people, simply on account of their sex or race are oppressors.”

The EO restricts what can be taught, even if it is the real and full story of our past history, and prohibits education on types of discrimination and institutional racism.

My DEI colleagues are already feeling the chilling effects of the order. They have until Nov. 21 to revise their DEI training contracts in which they agree to reassess their curriculum and make necessary changes. Their trainings are now federally regulated. Other are reporting canceled workshops, courses, and lectures.

A joint letter from the CEOs of the AMA, AHA, and ANA – organizations representing nearly 5,000 hospitals and health systems, more than 1 million physicians, and more than 4 million registered nurses, called on the current Administration to rescind Executive Order 13950. “Each of the actions outlined in EO 13950 would effectively reverse decades of progress in combating racial inequality.”

A coalition of attorneys general joined together to urge that the Executive Order be rescinded as it prohibits implicit bias trainings for federal contractors and federal grantees. Instead, the coalition wants to see the trainings aimed at understanding and combating racial injustice expanded.

I received an email from the African American Policy Forum, a coalition of critical race scholars and advocates of anti-racist work and free expression, taking the threat of suppression seriously and mounting a response. To better understand and broadly communicate the impact, they ask anyone affected by EO 13950 to please leave a brief testimony via the Google form linked here: nLINK TO FORM FOR RESPONSESnAll submissions will be kept confidential. You may also email them at ,info@aapf.org with any questions or to contribute further.

With court challenges already underway, and a House bill to rescind has 49 co-sponsors, Executive Order 13950 will likely be overturned by the new President. But much more public attention needs to be drawn to an Executive Order barring citizens from acknowledging the origins of racism in the history of their country.

#EO13950 #DEI #systemicracism #antiracism #whitesupremacy #implicitbias #criticalracetheory @AAPolicyForum @pattiev @culturgrit @2leafpress @gdavid01

I am the proud daughter of a 33-year career Navy veteran, Lt. Cmdr. Earl Ross Baker. The photo shows the cherished display case with his military medals. In my first book, An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility, I wrote about the pageantry of daily flag ceremonies for the children of the neighborhood led by my father. When I think back on those post-WWII days, I’m reminded of who I am and where I come from. I feel pride when I see the flag, and goosebumps when I hear the national anthem. These two important symbols signify respect and loyalty towards my country. But there is a grievous wrong that must be acknowledged and repaired.

I was shocked to learn that the VA-backed mortgages and the economic opportunities of homeownership my family enjoyed were not awarded to veterans of color. The VA backed the low-interest GI mortgages, but they did not administer them. The state and local white-run financial institutions, therefore, had free reign to refuse mortgages and loans to veterans of color. The result was the G.I. Bill of Rights did not apply equally to veterans of color who served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. This was, by definition, institutional racism.

These practices are today illegal, thanks to the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But look at this: when the Civil Liberties Act was signed in 1988, it was accompanied by a formal apology and $20K for Japanese internment camp survivors and their heirs; in 2004 the State of Virginia established the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Fund for GED classes, community college, four-year degrees, and master’s programs available to any Virginia residents who were locked out of public schools between 1954 and 1964 when the schools closed to avoid desegregation; in 2016, the Jesuit order of Georgetown University formally apologized to the descendants of 272 slaves sold in 1838 to pay the university’s debts, and preferential admissions are now given to the descendants of those slaves; and billionaire Robert Smith paid off all the students loans of the 2019 Morehouse graduating class. These are examples of completely feasible federal, state, and private reparations.

Veterans of color and their heirs are owned much more than a salute and a “thank you for your service” in 2020. It’s time for truth-telling and accountability for systemic racism once leveled against these servicemen and women of color. Similar to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, this accountability must include a formal apology and specific economic actions of repair. At a minimum, reparations should include cash to all veterans of color and their heirs who were denied property ownership, and free college preparatory tutoring and tuition for themselves and their heirs.

This Veteran’s Day, let our nation move forward to accountability for the dis-service done to the 1.2 million men and women of color who served in WWII, and in Korea, and Vietnam. Award these veterans their full GI Bill of Rights, as promised. True patriotism, respect, and loyalty require nothing less. With much love and respect.

#VeteransDay2020 #Reparations #ReparationsNow #Racism #RestorativeJustice #Reconciliation @2LeafPress #anunintentionalaccomplice

In this national election week, when patience is a virtue, we are witnessing both a societal transformation and a deeply divided country. The question on my heart and mind is, “How do I handle this?” Whatever one’s political party may be, we all are finding ourselves at the same juncture this week. What is the road to repair and restoration? For me, it is a commitment to holding myself, my leaders, my lawmakers, and my president accountable.

There is no way forward without dealing with our nation’s past history of slavery and genocide. Even the Electoral College itself is in part tied to America’s history of slavery.  In the October 30th NPR Throughline podcast, Carol Anderson, professor of African American studies at Emory University said, “The Electoral College is really about the fears of the Southern states at the founding of this nation that the larger Northern states would dominate. They wanted guardrails all the way through the Constitution that would protect slaveholder power.”

The last efforts to abolish the Electoral College were the Bayh-Cellers Amendment of 1969 and the Every Vote Counts Amendment of 2005, both of which failed. The Every Vote Counts Amendment was reintroduced in 2009, along with two similar resolutions, and all three died in committee.

With the first element of accountability being truth-telling, I’m reminded of a quote by James Baldwin that was the catalyst for my book, An Unintentional Accomplice: A Personal Perspective on White Responsibility. “This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.”

It starts with acknowledging that all have been harmed by this “innocence which constitutes the crime.” Then a repair is owed by anyone who participated in or benefited from this harm – as individuals, in private and public conversations; as leaders in business; as elected officials across all jurisdictions. Actions of accountability mean substantial resources allocated to communities harmed by violence, including mass incarceration. There are numerous world-wide, highly successful, restorative justice models we can follow to rise up via accountability such as Rwanda’s Truth Commission, or the National Unity and Reconciliation Committee.

This Thanksgiving season, let us commit to doing the individual and collective work of reckoning and seize the opportunity for all of us to reap the benefits of creating a nation better than it ever was.

#election2020 #slavery #electionresults #ElectoralCollege #reparations #unity #reckoning #accountability #racism #blacklivesmatter