Winter 2019 Your Opinion Matters


The Government Shutdown and the Collateral Damage


The HBCU Advocate 13


White Churches Have a Moral Responsibility to Stand Up


BY REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, SR. Photo Courtesy of Sitinmovement.org


In 2019, we will commemorate BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX As I write this, our federal


government has been shut down for 27 days. At first, it seemed like a gamesmanship joke, like who was going to blink first. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and (CA) Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) didn't look like they were blinking when 45 said he would "own" the shutdown to get his wall. He's not owning it now – he didn't go to Mar-a-Largo to golf, and he indicated how acutely he felt the shutdown by serving Clemson football players cold fast food.


Furloughed federal workers will be


paid, thanks to legislation 45 signed on January 16. The fact that people will get paid when the shutdown is over (which 45 says may take "months" or "years") is reassuring, but it helps few with their day-to-day obligations. A 2018 study from the Federal Reserve Bank says that 40 percent of all Americans can't absorb a $400 emergency without going into (further) debt, borrowing or selling something to meet a minor expense like a faulty car engine, a busted heating system, an emergency room copay, or some other ordinary challenge. So for many, delaying even one paycheck is likely to cause a seismic shock in family finances.


Many will piece it together, but


they may miss credit card, mortgage, rent or other payments. In a month or so they'll be caught up, but what about their credit rating? Catching up may mean getting current on bills, but it does not mean overcoming the ding that will inevitably appear on one's credit score. It may take months, even years, for some to transcend that, especially if their credit was shaky to begin with.


Our nation runs on debt, our


economic growth is dependent on folks going into debt, but economic growth is also dependent on people being able to pay their debt. People who live paycheck to paycheck won't pay debt back until they get paid. And hundreds of thousands aren't being paid because a deranged adult is having a tantrum about a wall.


Four in five Americans live in


debt, mostly because of mortgages and student loans ($1.5 trillion total) that strangle people's ability to live in financial freedom. While mortgage and student loan debts are the most significant contributions to our nation's debt crisis, medical debt is the most frequently cited cause for personal bankruptcy in our country. The fact that so many have medical debt reflects the crisis in our national health care system.


Bottom line – the shutdown not only affects people's ability to manage


their day to day finances but will also affect their long-term credit score and have consequences for those at the margins. From the data on emergencies, nearly half of all Americans are living at the margins. These are the folks who Trump and his minions say should "make arrangements" during the shutdown. They should, some say, have contingency plans. What is your contingency when you live paycheck to paycheck?


Furloughed workers will get


back pay and, though impaired, will manage. What about those who work for government contractors. Nobody has their back. Many are high-rolling, highly-paid contractors who will take a hit but won't be knocked out. Then, there are the women of color (mostly) who clean federal office buildings at night. They won't get back pay. They won't be compensated for their services. They will take it in the shins, and taking it means managing to live without pay for weeks. Even those who are sensitive to the economic impact of this shutdown have not spoken up for the contract workers who have been disadvantaged.


A government shutdown also


means a benefit shutdown for people who receive government benefits – food or housing assistance, or more. While many are optimistic that things will be adjusted, the fact is that people's expectations are not being met and people are scrambling! The


scrambling is not restricted


to any race, to any party. The man who calls himself President seems to be under the mistaken impression that most government workers are Democrats. The fact, according to the Government Business Council, is that there is a pretty even split, with 44 percent of government workers being identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning, 40 percent identified as Republican or Repub- lican-leaning, and the remainder undecided, with a significant number of these


identifying Our entire social and economic


fabric is frayed thanks to this petulant government shutdown. Democrats, Republicans, and everyone else will pay for this thoughtless absurd public tantrum. This shutdown is nothing more


than a disturbing public


outburst. Where do we go from here?


400 years since the first 20 slaves were transported by ship from Africa by white slave traders and landed in Jamestown, Va.


Now four centuries later, race


remains a central dividing line. Today, for example, the racial wealth gap exposes a stark difference. The median wealth of a white household (median means half are above and half below) is 12 times greater than that of a black household. The median wealth of a white household is $134,430, of blacks it is $11,030.


This is virtually all about equity in


a home, the leading source of middle income wealth. African-Americans still suffer from de facto segregation, after years of being red-lined from decent neighborhoods.


In the financial collapse, African-


American households suffered the worse. Black unemployment rose twice as much as white unemployment in the Great Recession. Middle-class black families, lacking inherited wealth, were targeted for the most aggressive and leveraged home loans. When the bust came, they were the most at risk and suffered the greatest loss of homes.


The wealth gap is not erased by


educational attainment, by full-time employment, by getting the right occupation. The typical black family with a head of household working full time has less wealth than a white family whose head of household is unemployed. Median wealth for a black family whose head has a college degree is about 1/8 that of a median white family similarly educated.


African-Americans are constantly


told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. In the black church, for example, ministers repeatedly preach the need for discipline, self-reliance, faith and hard work. Yet even those who succeed still remain behind.


The divide has deep historical themselves


as "conservative." All of these government workers are collateral damage, thanks to 45!


roots. Two-hundred forty-six years of chattel slavery (1619-1865), only twelve years of Reconstruction (1865-1877), 19 years of Black Codes, KKK and white citizen council violence (1877-1896), 58 years of legal apartheid with nearly 5,000 African- Americans lynched and, even since the 1954 Brown decision, ongoing racial discrimination


elections, I was constantly asked whether African-Americans would vote in high enough numbers and margins for


During the recent Democrats midterm so that


candidates white and black had a chance to be elected. Democrats seem almost satisfied if 20 to 30 percent of whites turn out to vote for black or progressive white candidates.


people have to register and turnout for progressive


What responsibility do white black


and


Democrats running for office The nation


white is facing many


morally relevant social, economic and political crises — voter suppression, income and wealth inequality, criminal justice reform and climate change —that now pose an existential threat to the next generation. Why does the white church remain so silent in the face of these mounting crises and denial of justice and opportunity?


In Birmingham in 1963, with


dogs biting children, high-pressure fire hoses knocking down peaceful protesters, bombers blowing up churches and Dr. King in jail, many white church leaders chose to attack Dr. King’s non-violent methodology rather than to fight for a non-discriminatory


Public


Accommodations Act. One would have thought when


the four little girls were bombed


in the 16th Street Baptist Church, white churches would have at least held prayer services or services of reconciliation. Instead, most attacked Dr. King as an outside agitator, as if he had set the bombs.


Recently in Alabama, I witnessed


a stark contrast. One extreme was the excitement in anticipation of the Georgia/Alabama SEC championship football game. When a young African- American athlete, Jalen Hurts, replaced an injured Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback, every Alabamian of every political persuasion, right, left and center, was pulling for him.


With Hurts’ remarkable display


of skill, Alabama won the game. He not only won the game, he arguably beat George Wallace and the legislators who earlier locked blacks out of the University of Alabama. He beat Bull Connor who unleashed the dogs on demonstrators and the KKK on Freedom Riders. He beat the KKK bombers who watched as the church was decimated and four little


were murdered. The other extreme was witnessed


in Hoover, Ala., where E.J. Bradford was shot in the back by a policeman. That police officer is still on the payroll. The patterns and prejudices of the old South are hard to overcome.


Here once more, the white church has the opportunity and the responsibility to stand up, to serve as a Christian witness. White voices of moral


authority deafening. and inclusive


leadership are needed now as much or more than ever.


That is why the silence seems so


girls


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