448,000 BLACK AMERICANS ESTIMATED TO BE DEAD FROM COVID-19 BY CHRISTMAS
CONCERNED BLACK AMERICAN CITIZENS CALLS FOR $2.4 TRILLION IN COVID-19 RELIEF FOR BLACK DESCENDANTS OF AMERICAN CHATTEL SLAVERY
Nationwide (BlackNews.com) — Scientists have determined that the COVID-19 virus infects humans indiscriminately. On a call April 9th with the Congressional Black Caucus, Dr. Ebony Jade Hilton stated that “over 1.4 million Americans would die by Christmas”. However, as the death tolls continue to rise, the coronavirus has clearly identified the most vulnerable among us as its most perfect hosts: Black descendants of American chattel slavery (BDOACS), aka Negros, aka Coloreds, aka African Americans, aka Americans.
While Black Americans represent 13% of those living in places releasing data by race, they have suffered 32% of the COVID- 19 deaths in those places. Based on that data, Concerned Black American Citizens, an ADOS family interest group, estimates that 32% or 448,000 Black Americans could be at risk of dying from coronavirus by Christmas.
Indeed, historically specific circumstances have created the poverty experienced by Black America and the health outcomes reflect these facts. That Black Americans are dying at exponentially higher rates from coronavirus is definitive proof of the compounding effects of pre-existing health and generational poverty in the Black community. The root of their existence the racial wealth and income gap created by slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration and job discrimination. The infection and death rates are evidence of the specific devastation and harm resulting from structural and systemic anti-Black racism against the descendants of enslaved African Americans.
“African Americans, in particular, are more likely to suffer from health problems that are some of the main triggers for COVID hospitalization, including asthma, diabetes and obesity. On each one of those health conditions, African Americans are above the national average by a percentage point or more – and farther above the numbers for white, non-Hispanic Americans.” — NBC News 4/12/2020
Exacerbating this financial health crisis is misinformation about the disease, lack of priority testing, unequal medical care and even exclusion from the CARES Act.
Further, Concerned Black American Citizens rejects Surgeon General Jerome Adams, recent admonishment that the African American community “step up and stay away from alcohol, tobacco and drugs.” Sadly, each of these vices are made readily accessible in Black communities nationwide. There were no calls to eat fresh produce, to exercise or pledge to eliminate food deserts. There were no promises of priority testing or mass N95 mask distribution. There was no announcement of a targeted informational campaign. There were no assurances. As with the 1980’s crack epidemic, Black Americans are now being scapegoated for bringing death to their own communities from foreign lands they have never set foot upon.
Racial hatred and discrimination are the root causes of the generational poverty amplifying of the impact of the coronavirus on the Black community. Decades of the Democratic party’s Benign Neglect Policy, and the Republican party’s Southern Strategy; has allowed this country to fail paying its debt of land inheritance, legalized redlining into overly crowded, environmentally hazardous food deserts with poor transportation and no hospitals. The disparity of resource allocation in Black versus white communities is stark. This means we will suffer disproportionately from the negative financial consequences associated with having scant resources, while bearing the greatest risk to our health by leaving our homes.
Infections also result in death more often in the Black community due to our overrepresentation among hourly workforce where we get no paid sick leave nor adequate, or affordable health care coverage. We are largely employed in front-facing essential positions where social distancing, one of the primary protections against the virus, is reserved for the privileged and not the Black American Essential worker. The group’s position at the bottom of the economic ladder dictates this dilemma. Further, in the aftermath of Obama’s Great Recession, Black American homeownership collapsed, destroying generations of accumulated wealth and inheritance. There is little cushion left to soften the blow of a fatal pandemic. Here at the beginning of the pandemic, already 50% of the homeless are Black descendants of American chattel slavery.
REPAIRING A SPECIFIC HARM DONE TO A SPECIFIC GROUP-BLACK DESCENDANTS OF AMERICAN CHATTEL SLAVERY
When the Civil War ended almost 3,000 white slaveholders were paid reparations of $300.00 for every slave they emancipated. Beneficiaries of this windfall include Senate Majority Leader and multimillionaire, Mitch McConnell. Meanwhile, ex-slaves were freed into poverty, sickness, hunger, homelessness and abuse by the US Government. The US government’s failure to pay to its debt of forty acres and a mule to emancipated slaves led to over one million deaths of newly freed slaves from starvation, smallpox and cholera from 1862-1870. Generational poverty has been accumulating in Black America since 1619 and continues to deepen. Sadly, in 2020 the Black community is faced again with a similar loss of life and financial devastation from COVID-19.
It is with great urgency and obligation that Concerned Black American Citizens calls for a $2.4 trillion Emergency BDOACS relief plan that will enable the black community to sustain and defend itself from hunger, homelessness, sickness, joblessness and racial lineage discrimination.
I. COVID 19 EMERGENCY BDOACS RELIEF PLAN
1) Immediate guaranteed funding of an “emergency BDOACS COVID 19 relief plan”, in the amount of $2.4 trillion directly payable to non-immigrant, Black American descendants of chattel slavery, aka African Americans, aka Black Americans, and be subject to a 24 months review:
a. Eligible recipients should be compensated by $6,000.00 per month, tax free.
b. Social Security recipients should be compensated an additional $2,000.00 per month, tax free.
c. Black Veterans should be compensated an additional $5000.00 per month, tax free given discriminatory practices of the VA in addition to supplemental health care and mental health counseling
d. Minor children should receive $500.00 per month each, tax free.
Eligibility: Must be a non-immigrant, Black American who has identified as colored/black/African American on federal documents for the last 12 years.
2) Medicare health insurance coverage and supplemental health care for Black Veterans
3) Guaranteed Grants versus forgivable loans of up to $25,000 or two times (2X) business sales for the trailing 18 months period for micro businesses, and sole proprietorships with no employee or collateral restrictions.
4) Increased funding for halfway houses, shelters for ex-offenders, and housing for the homeless.
5) Government subsidized one percent (1%) interest mortgage recapitalizations
6) Funding state mortgage down payment and rent assistance programs to reduce mortgage and rental rates at market levels from Financial Year 2000
7) Ex-offenders, regardless of legal status or criminal record shall be eligible for all relief programs, grants and loans described herein or in the future and are not to be excluded in any way. Ex-offenders also imprisoned under the 1994 Crime bill for marijuana position should be compensated a minimum of $50,000 for each year that has been served.
8) Emergency funding for K-12 educational support in the form of computer and internet access, year-round supplemental support such as tutoring and social services.
9) No federal taxes shall be assessed on any relief measures described herein. Nor should any of these relief measures be garnished for payment of back child support or payment to loans or creditors, even in the case of the financial institution listed for direct deposit.
10) Plumbing Infrastructure shall be repaired if possible or replaced in BDOACS communities to ensure basic public health and sanitation needs are met.
It is important to note the distinction between Black descendants of American Chattel Slavery and immigrants. Black immigrants did not arrive in America in significant numbers until after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed, and then primarily as students. The 1980’s are when the Black immigrant population grew from over 800,000 to over 3.7 million today. With a median household wealth of $60,000.00 compared to $200.00 for native Black American, they are more highly educated than BDOACS and able to access “affirmative action”. They benefit along with other majority minorities: white women and “people of color/choice”, at the expense of whom the entitlements were meant. Median household wealth of Black descendants of American chattel slavery is expected to fall to zero by 2053 as the slavery wealth gap continues to widen and now stands at 20:1. However, the arrival of the Coronavirus has fast forwarded that event to 2021. Moreover, most of our households have already reached that bottom. Meanwhile, the median white household wealth at the bottom 20% of the income distribution is greater than the median household wealth of the entire population of Black Americans descended from chattel slavery.
According to Moody’s Analytics, 80 million jobs will be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and many jobs wont come back, especially in customer-facing service jobs such as hotel & leisure, retail, and fast food service industries where BDOACS are overrepresented relative to other demographics. Black unemployment has been consistently and persistently higher than all other demographics even before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. According to Concerned Black American Citizens it is imperative that a plan be put in place immediately so that Black descendants of American chattel slavery can survive, regain health, feed their families, buy homes, start businesses and receive their rights of full citizenship as determined by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution.
II. POST-COVID 19 BDOACS EXTENSION PLAN
1) Eligibility: Participants must be a non-immigrant, Black American who can identify one set of grandparents on the 1870 United States Census, and
a. must have identified as colored/ negro/ black/ African American on federal documents 12 years prior to the onset of Post-COVID BDOACS Extension Plan.
b. immigration records can be used as a cross reference to verify eligibility.
2) Continuation of “COVID 19 Emergency BDOACS Relief plan” direct payments through 2031.
3) Full medical coverage BDOACS, no premium, no copays.
4) Federal Job Guarantee which guarantee employment to all eligible, able-bodied BDOACS. All employment would be compensated commensurate with training and experience and carry full benefits federal employee benefits.
a. Educational program designed to incentivize and train BDOACS in the medical field as doctors, nurse practitioners, mental health counselors, and midwives.
b. Community Health Centers with BDOACS staff
c. Community Food Pantries with BDOACS staff
d. Fully fund United States Postal Service with BDOACS staff
5) Re-establish and narrow the definition of Affirmative Action, by restoring its original purpose: to set aside educational, job and business opportunities for a group that has suffered discrimination based specifically on BDOACS lineage, not race or sex.
6) Required that all colleges and universities that are designated as Historically Black Colleges and Universities have a study body representative of fifty percent or more of native Black Americans, no less than fifteen percent of Black Americans represented in each department, and an administration representative of the percentage of Black American population of the city for which it resides.
7) Establish a new government agency to administer the Federal Jobs Programs and other social services to the BDOACS community.
8) Free public and private vocational technical/ undergraduate/ graduate/ doctorate education with guaranteed positions in their chosen professions.
9) Ensure that no less than fifteen percent of construction or public work contracts goes to Black-owned construction companies that comprise of fifty percent or more employees that are native born Black Americans.
10) Banks, particularly those found to be legacy beneficiaries of the institution of slavery shall be required to lend to BADOCS for homeownership and businesses loans. Banks will be required to provide semi-annual audit reports demonstrating equal access to capital. Any banks selling predatory loans will have to repay the excess interest earned and restitution for any financial harm caused by said loan.
11) One percent interest BDOACS student and business loans.
12) Percent of the total RFP/contract dollar values on all federal, state and municipal RFPs and contract bids must hire/engage BDOACS at a rate equal to the its percentage of state or local population, whichever is greater; or a minimum share of 30% of local state and federal
13) Enact legislation making price gauging and fraud of BDOACS a federal hate crime.
14) Establishing BODACS as a protected class, with all violent crimes against us being deemed as a federal hate crime.
15) Immediately release all non-violent criminals or persons convicted of victimless crimes that reside in private, local, state and federal jails, and penitentiaries. Re-enfranchisement of all BDOACS regardless of financial status.
16) Forgiveness of all fines, fees, penalties, bail and warrants for non-violent/victimless crimes and minor drug offenses.
17) “Ban the Box” on job and housing applications to prevent discrimination against the formerly incarcerated.
18) Formerly incarcerated and the incarcerated shall not be excluded from any part of the Extension Plan.
The circumstances of our poverty are specific to our shared lineage as the descendants of American Chattel slaves. The institution of slavery redlining, Jim Crow laws, lynching, state sanctioned terrorism, mass incarceration, the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill, exclusion from Federal programs (Land Grants, The New Deal, GI Bill, Farm Aid, and full participation in Capitalism) have decimated the BDOACS Community. There is no immigrant group legal or illegal, OR religious group that has suffered on any level, or to the extent of 401 years of ongoing abuse, degradation, asset theft and oppression as have Black American descendants of chattel slavery. No other group in America was kidnapped, bought and sold by its own government and its fellow white citizens. No other group in America was forced into chattel slave labor to build the foundation and infrastructure of wealthiest nation in modern history only to be deprived of legal compensation and inheritance.
These facts explain why the heirs, Black descendants of American chattel slavery, BDOACS, live in the third world conditions that have made them specifically susceptible to death from the Coronavirus and why immediate action is required.
Concerned Black American Citizens, an ADOS interest group, values the ideals promised in the Constitution of the United States of America that all men are created equal. They believe that these ideals can only become a reality with the moral and economic restoration of the Black family. Learn more at www.cbacusa.org or contact them at info@cbacusa.org
