Racial Equity

As an African American woman, attaining racial equity is personal to me. Trying to succeed in America is difficult for many people, structural inequities can make this especially true for Black Americans. The racial climate in the wake of the COVID-19 and the tremendous health disparities, which exist in Black communities has demonstrated the extent of the problem many Blacks have understood through lived experience.

Over the last decade, the Supreme Court and courts across the country have dismantled and gutted crucial aspects of the Voting Rights Act, opening the doors to the reverberation of discriminatory voter suppression laws. Decades of a lack of access to employment, healthcare, housing, and quality education were exasperated by the global pandemic, and the eyes of the world have been planted on the US, as the issue of militarized policing and disparate treatment of Black citizens have re-emerged as one of the biggest challenges in our lifetimes. Similarly, when the US Supreme Court ended race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions, this opened the doors for attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in U.S. companies and within organizations. The ruling could lead to increased scrutiny of DEI initiatives under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin. But, these issues only scratch the surface of the problem of institutionalized racism.

Real change is needed in Washington DC. Once the cameras pan away from the issues of the day, blacks continue to be subjected to a lack of access to colleges and universities, underrepresentation in corporate America and in higher paying jobs, over-policing, racial profiling, unfair treatment in our nation’s courts, leading to mass incarceration; denied access to lending institutions for business and consumer lending vehicles, leading to a lack of businesses, limited homeownership and the inability to build wealth through traditional channels.

As a member of Congress, I will bring substantive representation and much-needed change to the issues that Black Americans face at the hands of systemic racism and inequities. We must ensure that every American has equal access to the American Dream!