6- SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2016 - THE CAROLINA TIMES
commentary
Obama and
The Elephant
In the Room
By George E. Curry
George Curry Media Columnist
It’s been whispered for years so let’s deal with the elephant
in the room: Many African Americans have privately com
plained that President Obama has catered to the needs of im
migrants more than those ofblacks.
The fact that neither group fits in a separate and unique
block notwithstanding, an examination of government figures
shows that in at least two areas - deportations and presidential
pardons - that’s not true.
Let’s first address immigration.
“Since coming to office in 2009, Obama’s government
has deported more than 2.5 million people - up 23% from the
George W. Bush years,” Fusion observed. “More shockingly,
Obama is now on pace to deport more people than the sum of
all 19 presidents who governed the United States from 1892-
2000, according to government data.
“...And he’s not done yet. With the clock ticking down his fi
nal months in office, Obama appears to be running up the score
in an effort to protect his title as deporter-in-chief from future
presidents. To pad the numbers, Homeland Security is now go
ing after the lowest-hanging fruit: women and children who are
seeking asylum from violence in Central America.
“’This is the only time I remember enforcement raids on
families of women and children who are fleeing some of the
most violent places on the planet,’ says Royce Bernstein Mur
ray, director of policy for the National Immigrant Justice Cen
ter. ‘The families came to the U.S. looking for a hand, but they
got the boot.’”
Under the headline, “Barack Obama, deporter-in-chief,” the
Economist magazine declared,’’America is expelling illegal
immigrants at nine times the rate of 20 years ago (see article);
nearly 2m so far under Barack Obama, easily outpacing any
previous president. Border patrol agents no longer just patrol
the border; they scour the country for illegals to eject. The de
portation machine costs more than all other areas of federal
criminal law-enforcement combined.”
Also troubling are accusations of racial profiling.
In February, Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Jus
tice Center (NUC) filed a federal lawsuit demanding that the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigra
tion and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release data about the
use of racial profiling in the controversial program known as
the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), formerly Secure
Communities.
Despite the soaring deportations under Obama, Republicans
accuse Obama of being soft on immigration. Meanwhile, pro
gressives give Obama little credit for advances he has made
trying to reform the criminal justice system.
“Today, the President announced 61 new grants of commu
tation to individuals serving years in prison under outdated and
unduly harsh sentencing laws. More than one-third of them
were serving life sentences. To date, the President has now
commuted the sentences of 248 individuals - more than the
previous six Presidents combined. And, in total, he has com
muted 92 life sentences, the White House said in a statement
March 30.
While Obama has commuted the sentences of 248 people,
Ford commuted 22, Jimmy Carter 29, Ronald Reagan 13,
George H.W. Bush 3, Bill Clinton 61, and George W. Bush 43.
A prisoner’s commutation of sentence involves the reduc
tion of time being served. Unlike a pardon, it does not remove
the conviction from that person’s record. Clemency reduces
the penalty but also does not remove the conviction.
Obama met last week with commutation recipients from
both his administration and
those granted by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to discuss
how the process can be strengthened.
Following lunch, Obama said, “But we’re not done, and
we’re going to keep on working on this until I leave. It’s some
thing that I’m going to keep on working on even after I leave
the presidency, because - some of you know we had an Easter
Prayer Breakfast with ministers, pastors from all around the
country of all denominations in which we read Scripture and
were reminded of Jesus’s teachings.
“And at the heart of my faith, and what I believe is at the
heart of the American ideal is, is that we’re all imperfect. We
all make mistakes. We have to own those mistakes. We have to
take responsibility and learn from those mistakes. But we as a
society have to make sure that people who do take responsibil
ity and own and learn from those mistakes are able to continue
to be part of the American family. It’s the right thing to do. It’s
the smart thing to do.”
The president’s embrace of Kemba Smith, who was given a
24.5 year mandatory sentence at the age of 24 and pardoned in
2000 by Bill Clinton, was posted as photograph of the day on
the White House website.
The White House statement, issued by White House Coun
sel Neil Eggleston, said,
“Despite the progress we have made, it is important to remem
ber that clemency is nearly always a tool of last resort that can help
specific individuals, but does nothing to make our criminal justice
system on the whole more fair and just. Clemency of individual cases
alone cannot fix decades of overly punitive sentencing policies. So
while we continue to work to resolve as many clemency applications
as possible - and make no mistake, we are working hard at this - only
broader criminal justice reform can truly bring justice to the many
thousands of people behind bars serving unduly harsh and outdated
sentences.”
' Obama has additional work to do on both criminal justice and im
migration reform.
George E. Curry is President and CEO of George Curry Media,
LLC. He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry
can be reached through his Web site, georgecurry.com. You can also
follow him at twitter, com/currygeorge, George E. Curry Fan Page on
Facebook, and Periscope, www.georgecurry.com/columns.
Child Watch
The Time is Always
Right to Do Right
By Marian Wright Edelman
President, Children’s Defense Fund
via George Curry Media
March 31 was the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last Sunday sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. in 1968
before his assassination four days later: “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” Dr. King said he believed a triple revolution was
taking place in the world - a technological revolution, a revolution in weaponry, and a human rights revolution. To face this triple revolution,
he said we must figure out how to develop a world perspective, eradicate racism and economic injustice, rid our nation and world of poverty,
and find an alternative to war and bloodshed - all with great urgency:
“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people,
but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, ‘Wait on time.’ Somewhere we must come to see
that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated
individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of
social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
We must act upon his warnings if our children, nation’s future and founding principles - subverted and still sullied by the legacies of slav
ery, Native American genocide, exclusion of women and nonproperty-owning men of all colors from our electoral processes - are to be saved.
I have said often that too many Americans would rather celebrate than follow Dr. King. Many have enshrined Dr. King the dreamer and
ignored Dr. King the “disturber of all unjust peace,” as theologian Vincent Harding said. Many remember King the vocal opponent of vio
lence but not the King who called for massive nonviolent civil disobedience to challenge the stockpiling of weapons of death and the wars
they fuel and the excessive materialism of the greedy that deprives the needy of the basic necessities of life. And many celebrate Dr. King the
orator but ignore his words about the need for reordering the misguided values and national investment priorities he believed are the seeds
ofAmerica’s downfall.
Dr. King’s greatness lay in his willingness to struggle to hear and see the truth; to not give into fear, uncertainty and despair; to continue
to grow and to never lose hope, despite every discouragement from his government and even his closest friends and advisers. Contributors
deserted him as he spoke out not only for an end to the Vietnam War but for a fairer distribution of our country’s vast resources between the
rich and the poor. Why was he pushing the nation to do more on the tail of the greatest civil rights strides ever made and challenging a presi
dent who had declared a war on poverty? Because he saw that our nation’s ills went far deeper and that fundamental structural and priorities
changes had to be made and that the War on Poverty and Vietnam War were inextricably intertwined.
In the Cathedral sermon he announced that in a few weeks he would be coming back to Washington leading a Poor People’s Campaign:
“We are going to bring the tired, the poor, the huddled masses ... We are going to bring children and adults and old people, people who have
never seen a doctor or a dentist in their lives ... We are not coming to engage in any histrionic gesture. We are not coming to tear up Wash
ington. We are coming to demand that the government address itself to the problem of poverty. We read one day, ‘We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the
pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.
“We are coming to ask America to be true to the huge promissory note that it signed years ago. And we are coming to engage in dramatic
nonviolent action, to call attention to the gulf between promise and fulfillment; to make the invisible visible. Why do we do it this way? We
do it this way because it is'our experience that the nation doesn’t move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people
until it is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct action . .. And I submit that nothing will be done until people of goodwill put
their bodies and their souls in motion.”
Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind(R) mission is to ensure every child a
Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring
families and communities. For more information go.to www.childrensdefense.org
Make Election about Economic Justice
By Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
President, Rainbow PUSH Coalition
via George Curry Media
This year’s presidential primaries have highlighted the importance of people of color to the Democratic
Party coalition. Hillary Clinton’s lead in the party’s nomination race comes almost entirely from her strength
among African-American and Latino voters. When people of color favor one candidate by large margins,
they make the difference.
That will be true in the general election as well. Democratic nominees win if people of color vote in large
numbers. If turnout is down or the vote is split, Democrats - who regularly lose the majority of white voters
- will lose.
This reality means that African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans can make political demands.
Politicians must compete to win our votes. The power of this can be seen with the Dreamers and the Demo
crats’ embrace of comprehensive immigration reform, with Black Lives Matter and Democratic candidates
putting criminal justice reform at the top of their agendas. Voting rights and equal rights under the law also
gain traction.
Missing, however, is any concerted demand for economic justice, even though African Americans and
Latinos still face a stark economic divide. African Americans lost the most wealth in the Great Recession
and have recovered the least. They were the most targeted and harmed by the fraud committed by mortgage
peddlers. The gap between black and white household wealth has tripled in the past quarter-century (with
blacks’ median level at $11,030 while the white median is $134,230). Black unemployment remains higher
and incomes remain lower.
African Americans and Latinos are more likely to be in poverty. Thirty-eight percent of black children are
in poverty, as opposed to 11 percent of whites. Worse, blacks and Latinos are much more likely to grow up in
neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. They are 10 times as likely to be in poor neighborhoods in Chicago
than poor whites are. Nearly 30 percent of poor blacks live in poor neighborhoods in St. Louis, compared
with 1.6 percent of poor whites. Concentrated poverty - what scholars term the “double burden” - digs chil
dren into a deeper hole of unsafe streets, impoverished schools, inadequate health facilities, poor markets,
poor mass transit, lousy parks and more.
We need a movement that does for economic justice what Black Lives Matter has done for criminal justice.
We need to develop a plan for targeted investment in neighborhoods of concerted poverty (many of which
are rural and white). We need a summit on urban reconstruction that brings together the relevant agencies of
government and lays, out a plan. Movements like the fast food workers calling for a $15 minimum wage and
unions need to gain real support from elected political leaders.
Some say targeted investment is inappropriate, even discriminatory. Somehow it is legitimate to target Af
rican Americans for voter registration, legitimate to target us for getting out the vote. Yet targeted investment
based on need draws objections. That doesn’t make sense.
Some say a rising tide will raise all boats, but we know that is not true. Some boats are stuck on the bottom.
Those who came here on ocean liners as immigrants came looking for ajob. Those who were brought here on
slave ships found themselves up for sale. The former worked for wages and, with struggle, were able to build
wealth. The latter worked for the lash and were stripped of any wealth they helped to create. Race-neutral
standards simply ignore a reality where race hasn’t been neutral.
African Americans and Latinos remain the most optimistic about America. We are far more likely to be
lieve our children will do better than we have. Part of this is President Barack Obama and the natural desire
to defend his presidency. Part of this comes from the progress African Americans have witnessed, with an
cestors who came over on slave ships and parents who grew up in segregation, and now an African American
in the White House.
That appreciation should not, however, stop us from pushing for economic justice. It is clear that Demo
crats can’t win without the enthusiastic support of people of color. Surely, we should insist on an agenda
commensurate with the size of our problems from those who want our support. We now have the political
opportunity that Dr. King dreamed of to demand justice. The question is whether we have the will.
Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. is founder and president of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition. You can keep up with his work at www.
rainbowpush.org