By Elishya Perera
New York, US (CWBN) _One of the most memorable moments at the final presidential debate last Thursday (Oct 22) was the mention of Abraham Lincoln’s name. As the debate turned to the issue of racism in America, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden mocked President Donald Trump for his earlier boast that no president since Lincoln has helped Black people more than he has.
“Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history,” Biden said of Trump. “He pours fuel on every single racist fire”.
“I didn’t say I’m Abraham Lincoln,” Trump clarified. “I said, not since Abraham Lincoln has anybody done what I’ve done for the Black community”.
The question is, how accurate is this claim made by the president?
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said yesterday (Oct 26), “One thing we’ve seen in a lot of the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President (Donald) Trump’s policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they’re complaining about. But he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful”. Many parties believe this statement sketched a more honest portrait of the White House’s views toward the country’s Black community.
Time and time again President Trump has made many racially divisive comments, for instance, calling the Black Lives Matter mural outside of Trump Tower a “symbol of hate,”, and referring to Mexicans crossing the southern border as “criminals, drug dealers, rapists”.
However, he insists that he has a good relationship with the black community. At the final presidential debate Trump claimed that by providing long-term funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, he got very friendly with them. “They like me and I like them,” he said.
The President insists that African Americans have achieved historically low unemployment under his watch, and has initiated criminal justice reforms, prison reforms, as well as the Opportunity Zones programme, which, according to the President, will benefit the black and Hispanic communities the most.
However, the unemployment rate within the black community has spiked during the pandemic-related economic downturn and remains nearly twice that of whites. Home ownership rates for African Americans continue to dramatically trail that of other groups.
Unemployment
In August 2019, African Americans experienced a record low unemployment rate of 5.4%, and the economic damage caused by the pandemic only aggravated the matter; in September this year, 12.1% of Black Americans were out of work, followed by 10.3% of Latinos and 9.9% of Asians, as opposed to 7% of whites. On the other hand, prior to the pandemic, Black Americans were employed in low wages, making it difficult to build up the savings needed to stay afloat during tough times.
Home ownership
Homeownership for Black Americans ticked up slightly this year, but still significantly lags behind whites; since last year, the national homeownership rate for white households increased from 73.2% to 73.7%, while for black households, the increase was from 41.1% to 44%. This is mainly owing to historically racist policies which hindered the opportunity for people of colour to purchase and hold onto property. For instance, many Black Americans are often confined to crowded, underserved neighborhoods, while policies such as redlining, restricts African Americans from getting loans.
Stocks
President Trump is known to measure economic stability by relying on a soaring stock market as evidence. However, black households are less invested in the stock market than their white counterparts, since they have less money to invest in equity. According to data from the Federal Reserve, just 33.5% of Black households owned stocks last year, as opposed to a 61% of white households which participated in the stock market.
Police reform and public safety
A few months ago, protests and rallies took place across the US, against racism and police brutality, sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who died in police custody. The movement called police reforms and justice for several high-profile police killings of Black people this year.
Sen. Tim Scott’s JUSTICE Act, the Republican-led police reform bill is expected to encourage police departments to use less excessive force, would require states and local government to report use-of-force incidents that result in deaths or serious injuries, and would create a commission to study the use of no-knock warrants in drug cases.
However, lead Democrats in the Senate, including Sen. Harris, claim that the bill is “lacking in substance”, and is “deeply, fundamentally, and irrevocably flawed”.
During the vice presidential debate Sen. Kamala Harris noted Trump’s failure to appoint people of color to positions of power. She pointed out that not one person among the 50 that Trump has appointed to the Court of Appeals is Black. Harris also criticised Trump for not condemning white supremacy at various points during his presidency, as the President urged the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group, to “stand back and stand by”, during his previous presidential debate.
The Democratic party and people of colour
Even though the Democratic Party will formally present its historic ticket in Sen. Kamala Harris, the first Black woman and first Asian American woman running mate for a major party, this will not be sufficient to claim the votes of non-white Americans, who make up about one-third of the 2020 electorate.
“Democrats will root out structural and systemic racism in our economy and our society, and reform our criminal justice system from top to bottom, because we believe Black lives matter,” the Democratic National Committee’s platform reads.
However, time and time again, the Republicans criticise the former vice president for his part in crafting the controversial 1994 crime bill, that some argue contributed to mass incarceration, especially the incarceration of tens of thousands of young Black men who had small amounts of drugs in their possession.
During the final presidential debate, Biden admitted that it was a mistake. “I’ve been trying to change since then particularly the portion on cocaine. That’s why I’ve been arguing that in fact we should not send anyone to jail for a pure drug offense, they should be going into treatment across the board,” he said. Accordingly, the former vice president claimed that he intends to set up drug courts for this purpose.
When Trump inquired why Biden failed to implement this during the Obama administration, Biden pointed out that they began the process when 38,000 prisoners were released from federal prison, and over a thousand people were given clemency.
On the other hand, the Biden campaign has proposed the Democrat-led police reform bill, The Justice in Policing Act, would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants at the federal level. It would also require states to report any incident of excessive force on a civilian or police officer to the Justice Department and calls for a national registry on complaints, terminations, and disciplinary records.
Economic fallout from COVID-19
Black people faced the highest rates of unemployment, followed by Latinos and Asians, as opposed to their white counterparts. On the other hand, according to a June report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, African American-owned businesses dropped by 41% and the number of Latino business dropped by 32%, owing to the pandemic’s economic fallout.
Biden’s Build Back Better plan intends to provide business development resources, including expanded access to small business loans, to federal procurement contracts, and providing education to minority entrepreneurs, as a part of his effort to advance racial equity. His plans also call for the construction of 1.5 million affordable homes and public housing units, reforms to credit reporting, and fairer housing regulations.
According to Pew Research Center, this year, non-white Americans make up one-third of registered voters in the US, as Hispanic and Black registered voters each account for 11% of the total, and those from other racial or ethnic backgrounds account for the remainder.
Across the country, Black voters are turning out in huge numbers, since the stakes are high, as nothing less than their health and safety is on the ballot. Certain African– Americans believe this election is more important than the 2008 one for Barack Obama, due to racial injustice and police brutality, on top of a raging pandemic that has killed more than 226,000 Americans and ravaged the lives and livelihoods of Black communities.
