Op-Ed

Maxine Waters Works to Shrink Wealth Gap

Published

10 years ago

March 30, 2015

By Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.
NNPA Columnist

One of leading freedom fighters in the United States Congress is none other than the extraordinarily dynamic Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). Congresswoman Waters does not bite her tongue. Not only has she gained the top Democratic seniority position in the House Committee on Financial Services, she also continues to speak truth to power on all the critical public policy issues that affect the quality of life of Black Americans.

It is important to support Congresswoman Waters’ latest courageous act of leadership in the U.S. Congress: introducing the “Wealth Gap Resolution” that addresses the widening wealth gap in America and its devastating impact on Black Americans and other communities of color.

There are serious economic disparities and inequalities between White and Black Americans. During the past decade, these inequities have increased. We are all more than aware of the current declining economic base of the Black American community.

Maxine Waters explained how that gap can fundamentally alter the quality of one’s life.

She said, “Wealth is the difference between sending your children to college or not…. It’s the difference between retiring with a comfortable nest egg or relying on Social Security. And it’s the difference between starting your own business or working at a low-paying job. So when we talk about the wealth gap and economic equality, we’re not just talking about numbers. We’re talking about pulling families out of poverty, keeping them out of poverty, and ensuring that their children and their grandchildren never fall back into poverty again.”

Waters’ resolution should not only be taken seriously by the U.S. Congress, but by President Barack Obama and the White House public policy advocates as well. During the last two years of the Obama administration, we should intensify efforts to end poverty in America. But in Black America, ending poverty through wealth creation and other strategies to create more sustainable economic development in our communities has to be a top priority.

According to research done by Congresswoman Waters’ staffers, the median wealth of White American households is 20 times the median wealth of Black American households and 18 times the median wealth of Latino American households. Other research also documents that income inequality in the U.S. is today the highest of all Western democracies. And of course the racial income inequality gap throughout the country continues to widen. That is why I believe that the national alert that is being issued by Waters is so timely and crucial to understand.

We know that homeownership is a major factor that provides the foundation for fundamental wealth building. We know that Black Americans disproportionately were injured during the last economic recession and housing crisis. Home foreclosures since 2008 have wrecked financial havoc for Black America and our communities still have not recovered from that economic crisis. All of these financial challenges are confronting Black America at a time when there appears to be a resurgence of predatory lending and racial discrimination in the housing sector of the economy.

The “Wealth Gap Resolution” thus far has attracted more than 50 co-sponsors that include members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Progressive Caucus. Waters concluded, “Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged just how harmful inequality and the wealth gap are for many middle class families. The time is now to meet words with actions. We have a moral obligation to address this crisis with substantive solutions.”

We thank Maxine Waters for her leadership on this issue. It is time for us to wake up and to take the necessary steps to close the wealth gap in our communities. We must not relent. We cannot afford to stay mired in poverty. Instead of generational poverty, we all should be creating generational wealth. The future is in our own hands. Let’s all work together to close the wealth gap.

Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is the President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and can be reached for national advertisement sales and partnership proposals at: dr.bchavis@nnpa.org; and for lectures and other professional consultations at: http://drbenjaminfchavisjr.wix.com/drbfc.

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Oakland Post Endorses Barbara Lee

Barbara Lee will be able to unify the city around Oakland’s critical budget and financial issues, since she will walk into the mayor’s office with the support of a super majority of seven city council members — enabling her to achieve much-needed consensus on moving Oakland into a successful future.

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Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Courtesy photo, Office of Rep. Barbara Lee.

Former Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Courtesy photo.

As we end the celebration of Women’s History Month in Oakland, we endorse Barbara Lee, a woman of demonstrated historical significance. In our opinion, she has the best chance of uniting the city and achieving our needs for affordable housing, public safety, and fiscal accountability.

As a former small business owner, Barbara Lee understands how to apply tools needed to revitalize Oakland’s downtown, uptown, and neighborhood businesses.

It is notable that many of those who fought politically on both sides of the recent recall election battles have now laid down their weapons and become brothers and sisters in support of Barbara Lee. The Oakland Post is pleased to join them.

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Actor, Philanthropist Blair Underwood Visits Bay Area, Kicks Off Literacy Program in ‘New Oakland’ Initiative

These community activations were coordinated with the San Francisco-based non-profit program “Room to Read.” Ray said he is also donating his time to read and take pictures with students to encourage their engagement and to inspire them to read more. The inspirational book “Clifford Ray Saves the Day” highlights Clifford Ray’s true story of saving a dolphin.

Published

3 months ago

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Blair Underwood (left) and Barbara Lee (right). Courtesy photo.

By Paul Cobb
New Oakland Series
Opinion Part 3

The Post mentioned three weeks ago that a number of our local luminaries were coming together to support the “New Oakland” movement. As this current national administration continues to eliminate our “legacy” institutional policies and programs left and right, most communities find themselves beyond “frozen” in fear.

Well, esteemed actor, long-time Bay Area supporter, and philanthropist Blair Underwood returned to Oakland this week to speak with city leaders, community trust agents, students, the Oakland Post, and local celebrities alike to continue his “New Oakland” initiative.

This week, he kicked off his “Guess Who’s Coming to Read” literacy program in some of Oakland’s middle schools. Clifford Ray, who played the center position of the 1975 World Champion Golden State Warriors, donated close to 1,000 books. Ray’s fellow teammate Charles “The Hopper” Dudley also gave Converse sneakers to students.

Underwood also spent quality time with the Oakland Ballers ownership group and visited the amazing Raimondi Park West Oakland community revitalization site. In the 1996 TV film Soul of the Game, Underwood played the role of the legendary first Black Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson and commended the Ballers owners.

“This group of sports enthusiasts/ philanthropists needs to be applauded for their human capital investment and their financial capital investment,” Underwood said. “Truly putting their money and passion to work,” Underwood said.

Underwood was also inspired by mayoral candidate Barbara Lee’s open-minded invitation to bring public-private partnership opportunities to Oakland.

Underwood said he wants to “reinforce the importance of ‘collaborative activism’ among those most marginalized by non-empathic leadership. We must ‘act out’ our discomfort with passionate intentions to create healthy change.”

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Councilmembers Ramachandran, Kaplan, Unger Identify Funds to Save Oakland Fire Stations

Our budget crisis – one of the worst in Oakland’s history – is compounded by the fact that people do not feel safe coming to Oakland due to our public safety crisis. By investing in our fundamental public safety resources today, we can send a signal to the world that Oakland is open for business. We have such a rich and vibrant culture, arts, and food scene that is worth celebrating – but we can only showcase this if we are able to keep our neighborhoods safe. Having fully functioning fire stations are absolutely essential to these efforts.

Published

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Councilmember Janani Ramachandran. Courtesy photo.

By Janani Ramachandran

There is no greater concern to the people of Oakland today than public safety. Fire stations are the bread and butter of essential city services – and every day that we have stations shuttered, we imperil the lives of our community members. In response to widespread outcry over the current and planned closure of stations, myself, along with Councilmembers Kaplan and Unger, have painstakingly worked to identify millions of dollars of new funding to save our stations. The legislation we introduced on Thursday, February 13th, will amend our budget to prevent the closure of four fire stations that are currently on the chopping block due to our budget crisis and will re-open two closed stations that have already been closed – Station 25 and 28 – in the near future. The resolution that will provide the funding to keep our stations open will go before the full City Council for a vote at our meeting on Tuesday, March 4^th at 3:30 PM – and we invite you to join us at City Hall to share your perspective on the topic.

With the devastating Los Angeles fire at the top of people’s minds, terrible memories of Oakland’s own wildfires are re-surfacing from the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm to the Keller fire just a few months ago – and how essential fire stations are to mitigating these catastrophes. But in Oakland, our fire stations don’t just fight wildfires – they also provide emergency medical services to our most vulnerable constituents, put out structural fires and encampment fires, and much more.

We recognize that there are a number of competing interests and important initiatives fighting for sparse City resources. But from my perspective, core safety services are the most pivotal functions that a City must spend its resources on – especially given the outcry we have heard around fire stations.

The fight to save our stations is not over. The resolution we introduced is a critical first step, and there are hurdles to overcome. If you support keeping our fire stations open, we invite you to be a part of the solution by making your voice heard at the March 4^th City Council meeting at 3:30 pm.