Tag: African Americans

(AP Photo/Chris Gardner, File) The Associated Press BALTIMORE (AP) — The portrait used to hang in the hallway, welcoming children and parents to the Archbishop Borders School in Baltimore: A smiling Dr. Ben Carson in surgical scrubs, rubbing together the careful, steady hands that helped him become the nation's most famous black doctor. "The person who has the most to do with your success is you," it reads. That was before Carson's presidential bid, before he withdrew from the race and endorsed Donald Trump, before he was tapped to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Carson's story of growing up in a single-parent household and climbing out of poverty to become a world-renowned surgeon was once ubiquitous in Baltimore, the overwhelmingly Democratic city where Carson made his name. But his role in the Trump administration has added a complicated epilogue, leaving many who admired him feeling betrayed, unable to separate him from the politics of a president widely rejected by African-Americans here. Carson declined to be interviewed for this story. Instead, he sent a written statement. Shaun Verma, a Ben Carson Scholarship recipient and Johns Hopkins graduate, says Carson's use of his story of hard work and determination to justify scaling back the safety net for the same communities that raised and revered him "is really, really disappointing." Some Maryland conservatives view Carson differently. When assistance is scaled back, those accustomed to the status quo are bound to be disappointed, he said, adding that Carson "is learning" how to sell his policies to skeptics.

After the latest round of midterm primary elections, the question facing Democrats, particularly in light of the clearly unacceptable and racially charged comment President Trump made about former White House assistant Omarosa Manigault Newman, is simple. Make no mistake, it is unacceptable for anyone, especially the president of the United States, to refer to someone as a “dog.” In terms of political campaigning, however, the fundamental key is how do we influence voters, not how do we express moral outrage. To me, there is a very clear answer, which I discussed on a panel this month at Martha’s Vineyard, hosted by Henry Louis Gates and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research of Harvard University. My argument is that Democrats need a moderate agenda that focuses on the needs of working people generally and African Americans specifically. To be sure, Democrats need an answer to the issue of the job growth that has occurred in the African American and Hispanic communities, as well as in all the lower segments of society, during the Trump administration. The president, despite the abhorrent language he has used recently about CNN broadcaster Don Lemon, NBA basketball star LeBron James and his former aide Omarosa, has a point here. We simply do not have a series of targeted initiatives to help increase wages for working people who are most vulnerable to another recession. As the Democratic Party continues to play identity politics against a Republican Party which, despite the economic good news, is clearly out of touch, it is important to refocus on another huge opportunity that has come up. Regardless of whether or not the next Speaker is Clyburn, we need new leadership. Moreover, African Americans need to play a significant, if not the most significant, role in framing the Democratic agenda and offering leadership to a party that desperately needs a new direction.

Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former White House aide, has released fresh audio recordings that she claims show she was offered “hush money” by Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. Manigault Newman has already made several serious and provocative accusations about Trump and the White House in her book Unhinged, including that there are recordings of Trump using the N-word. The White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said earlier this week she was unable to guarantee that any such recording did not exist. During an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday, Manigault Newman played excerpts of an apparent phone conversation between her and Lara Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, which Manigault Newman claims was recorded shortly after her dismissal from the White House. However, she noted that if Mangault Newman joined the campaign, everything she would say about Trump would have to be “positive”. Manigault Newman, a former Apprentice contestant who was once the most prominent African American in the Trump administration, told MSNBC she saw the offer as “an attempt to buy my silence, censor me and pay me off – $15,000 a month”. Asked if she saw it as “hush money,” Manigault Newman responded: “Absolutely.” In the course of the conversation, Lara Trump noted “the only thing we have to consider where we’re talking about salary as far as the campaign is concerned is that, as you know, everything is public”. Manigault Newman said that Lara Trump was clear during their phone conversation that the impetus for the phone call came from Donald Trump. She went on: “[I am] absolutely shocked and saddened by her betrayal and violation on a deeply personal level.” Manigault Newman refused to rule out releasing further recordings. “Every single time the Trump people challenge me, I bring the receipts,” she said of the criticism she has received for making the recordings, and making them public.

On Tuesday, the WH defended the president's use of the word 'dog' in reference to former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman. The panel discusses the ways in which Trump refers to African-Americans and other minority groups. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc…

A long-running tradition in Iowa politics, the Soapbox this year will feature candidates running for Congress, governor, secretary of state, secretary of agriculture, auditor and treasurer. Saturday, August 11 11:00 a.m.: Democrat Rob Sand, running for state auditor. Swalwell serves as California's 15th District representative and chaired the Martin O'Malley PAC's Young Professionals Leader Circle in 2014. Gannon currently works as a farmer on his family’s 900-acre century farm near Mingo, worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, and served with former President Barack Obama's Iowa campaign. Sunday, August 12 None scheduled. Monday, August 13 10:30 a.m.: Libertarian Jake Porter, running for governor. 4:00 p.m.: Republican Paul Pate, running for state secretary of state. Wednesday, August 15 10:30 a.m.: Republican David Young, running for Congress in the 3rd District. 4:00 p.m.: Republican Christopher Peters, running for Congress in the 2nd District. Scholten, running for Congress in the 4th District.

OPINION — In January 1959, in a Virginia courtroom, Mildred and Richard Loving pled guilty to “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” and accepted a cruel sentence that spared them jail time but separated them from their families. … The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” The couple, each of a different race, was forced to leave their Virginia home and not return together for at least 25 years. There can be no doubt. It’s no little matter. It must be confronted intellectually and politically and defeated. This election, this past election, and much that has flowed from it, gives us a rare opportunity to arrest these trends and to confront them.” That may sound righteous to some. But reading that Virginia’s judge’s ruling from not that long ago was a reminder of how religious belief can be sincere yet twisted to serve the prejudices of all-too-human beings. Consider this: While the Supreme Court decided in the Lovings’ favor in 1967, striking down state laws against marriages between people of different races, Sessions’ home state of Alabama, in a symbolic move, took until 2000 to remove the law from its books. You would think those who backed that baker would see the ruling as an example of the system working for them. While Sessions mentioned Department of Justice protections for Muslim, Jewish and Hindu religions under the task force, it is conservative Christian groups that seem to be what the Attorney General had in mind when he said that American culture has become “less hospitable to people of faith.” (How aggressive will the Trump administration be in defending Muslim communities’ mosque-construction plans?)

The Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia is the central character in one of the most intriguing political campaigns of 2018, as she bids to become the nation’s first female African American governor. But just as much or more could depend on whether Georgia turns out to be the new Virginia or next Alabama, or instead becomes the latest example of Democrats’ hopes being dashed in a politically changing state. First elected to the legislature in 2006, she rose to become Democratic leader in the state House at a time when Republicans were in control. Kemp is the Georgia secretary of state, a former state senator and a small-business owner. But with provocative television ads and the late support from Trump, he ran away with the runoff, winning with about 69 percent of the vote. Republican strategists say Kemp must make economic issues more prominent in his campaign than they were in the primary. In 2016, those suburban voters backed Clinton over Trump. Female voters will be crucial to Abrams’s hopes of winning. But they see differences between Georgia and those other two elections. Abrams’s hopes could depend on whether she can accelerate the changes underway in Georgia by changing the November electorate dramatically in her favor.

People won’t ask each other, “Which generation are you voting for?” And they definitely won’t vote based entirely on way-insider technical issues. The question might be this: Black rose to success 20-40 years ago. If you don’t believe me, watch the faces of young people next time you catch an older person speaking to them about race, gender or national origin. But it may mean the election could turn on questions that speak to broader sensibilities, like rewilding the Trinity River, expanding the trail system, creating neighborhoods where poor people can live on the same street with middle-class people and the middle-class people won’t pass out every time they see them. Those issues are so deep, so close to the bone that people just read them in each other by mental sonar. And may the best sensibility win. But it’s going to get worked out as personality. You could almost say the reason we have politics in the first place is so we won’t all have to work on drainage issues. Say this for the technical side of politics: With that tiny a sliver of the city’s potential voters making the decision on vote day, any candidate who can push the stack by even a few thousand voters one way or the other will have an enormous advantage. I wish they could all be mayor at the same time.

During a lecture at the Library of Conservatism in Germany, British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton described conservatism as a philosophy that recognizes and acknowledges that good things are easily destroyed but not easily created, such as law, peace, freedom, civility, the security of property and family life. He states “the work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating.” “The work of creation is slow, laborious and dull.” For the African American, the journey from captivity to slavery, to eventual freedom was indeed painful and laborious. The life and community they once enjoyed were easily destroyed. Out of their struggle was born “Black Conservatism” that became inherent to future generations. The emphasis was born out of their struggle and was a means by which they could preserve themselves and their developing culture and heritage. African Americans are the quintessential example of it means to be conservative. Black Americans have not benefited from their loyalty to experimental and foreign beliefs of the left. African Americans can no longer be indifferent to this failure and must return back to their conservative roots and be skeptical of both political parties, while spreading their influence with their vote to both parties, enabling the maximization of political power, while conserving and preserving their interest. As Sir Scruton accurately stated, it is easy to destroy, but to create is a slow, arduous and dull process. That is not to say that Republicans should automatically get the African American vote because that trust must be earned, but the African American can slowly dictate the future of the Republican Party by participating in selecting the best candidates who are representative of Conservatism that has the interest of African Americans.

The catalyst for North Carolina’s assault was simple: black people had dared access their 15th amendment rights. Since 2000, African American voter registration had increased by 51.1% in the state, and blacks also had a higher voter turnout “rate than white registered voters in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections”. Effective black access to that public space, the voting booth, triggered, as the federal court noted, a targeting of African American voters “with almost surgical precision”. And, as Think Progress reported, the GOP slashed the number of early voting sites in Guilford county, which is nearly 30% African American, from “16 in 2012 to a single location” in 2016. There was a similar elimination of early voting sites in Mecklenburg county, home to the city of Charlotte and 15% of the state’s African American population. Similar to North Carolina, Indiana’s GOP realized how essential early voting was to black voter turnout. Once again, the targeting was clear. Only three counties in Indiana have more than 325,000 people and account for 72% of the state’s black population. Then, in 2014, Kemp put his crosshairs on the New Georgia Voter Project, an organization determined to register some of the 700,000 African Americans in the state who were not yet on the voter rolls. In 2016, pummeled by voter suppression in more than 30 states, the black voter turnout plummeted by 7%.