One Question: How Should Biden Address Racial Injustice?

NADIA E. BROWN

Associate professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Purdue University

The Biden-Harris Administration owes a large part of their victory to Black womxn who overwhelmingly voted for them and mobilized others to do the same. Therefore, the administration should prioritize the policy concerns of Black womxn, and acknowledge that Black womxn and girls view racial justice as a set of human rights that affirms their lived experiences and challenges the structures that marginalize them.

Racial justice can only happen when community policing and defunding the police as we know it occur. This means justice for Breonna Taylor, who was denied dignity and honor when a grand jury refused to indict her killers. It means passing Medicare for All, along with other policies that keep Black womxn and our families healthy.

Black womxn should also have a healthy environment that is free of environmental racism. Passing the Green New Deal is essential. Lastly, Black womxn require financial opportunities and stability. The minimum wage needs to be raised.

These four policy prescriptions each fall under the umbrella of racial justice for Black womxn, who require more than a single axis approach to fixing race-based inequality.  

KEVIN POWELL

U.S. civil and human rights activist and author of a new book, When We Free the World, about the present and future of the United States of America

President Joe Biden needs to start with a national conversation on race and racism in America. Not just race, but the system of racism. In this country’s history, there have only been a couple of occasions where racism has even been discussed seriously, with an eye toward solutions: Reconstruction, the civil rights movement, and now in this era of Black Lives Matter.

Clearly, Black lives, Latinx lives, Asian lives, Native American lives, Arab lives, the lives of people of color, do not truly matter to many.

And, clearly, when you look at everything from COVID-19 disparities, to economic and educational opportunities, to the prison-industrial complex, to how police treated BLM protesters in Washington, D.C. (versus how they treated Trump loyalists), white supremacy and white privilege remain the norm in the United States.

So to me, before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can do anything else, a real and sustained conversation needs to be started on race and racism. And it should run throughout his term in office, because anything else would just be Band-Aids to the horrific cancer that is racism in America.