Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, joins The Brian Lehrer Show’s Stimulus Check-In on the eve of the bill’s anniversary.
Listen to the audio below.
[25 minutes | Download MP3]
This post originally appeared on The Washington Post’s “Health Care RX” weekly panel discussion, in response to the question: “Recent polls show declining support for President Obama’s handling of the health-care issue. What should he do to get the effort back on track?”
What are we even arguing about again?
Though the volume of the health-care debate has never been louder, it has never been more silent on what really matters to the real lives and real struggles of everyday Americans.
During the campaign, President Obama and his team were geniuses at keeping an even keel and steadily pushing on a single narrative — hope — that was both powerful and flexible. But during the health-care fight, they have been unfocused. Of course, it’s hard to have a consistent message when you’re bargaining with 535 potential legislative partners at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue (not to mention the dozens of TV and radio hosts who wield inordinate power in the modern media landscape).
Obama must take a step back and remind all Americans why we need to reform health care in the first place.
He needs to fill a town hall with people who have faced death or bankruptcy because of insufficient insurance or no insurance at all. Participants shouldn’t be hard to find — all of us have friends or neighbors or family members who have faced this harsh reality (or just go to Andrew Sullivan’s site where he has spent the past several weeks collecting dozens of heartbreaking “Views from Your Sickbed”)
Obama is a master of policy detail and — If he weren’t so politically savvy — would have made a terrific technocrat. But he must stress the big picture here.
We all know the health-care system is broken. We all know dealing with insurance companies is a maddening, often-frightening task. And we all know people will die needlessly unless we get some kind of reform now.
We need Obama to remind us of this fact. Every day. Every hour. The real pain of real Americans needs to become the center of this debate again, not the pitched voices of ill-informed mobs.
I attended an event yesterday that was more than 30 years in the making.
As I looked around the White House Office of Urban Affairs listening tour meeting at a packed Philadelphia warehouse space and saw low-income residents and local leaders mingling with some of our nation’s most powerful people (including two cabinet secretaries!), I thought back on where the fight for equitable access to healthy food started for me.
It was 1979 and I was recently out of UC-Berkeley Law School and working for the public-interest law firm Public Advocates when a group of residents of a low-income, African-American neighborhood in San Francisco approached me to see if I could help stop their community’s one and only supermarket from leaving. In my hometown of St. Louis, I had seen first-hand the neglect and despair that festered after supermarkets left poor communities there.
No one had ever tried before to find a legal theory that would provide communities access to healthy food, so we were on uncharted legal ground. Using interviews with more than 150 residents of local communities threatened by a lack of food access, we eventually filed an administrative petition with then-Gov. Jerry Brown seeking redress to the problem of the exodus of supermarkets from low-income communities. The Governor was remarkably responsive: appointing a commission that held hearings throughout the state.
Because of the determination of those residents, California began a slow move toward improving healthy food access for millions of our neighbors; the petition sparked farmers’ markets, cooperative buying clubs, a few cooperative markets-but, unfortunately, not one supermarket.
In the years since, equitable food access has been mostly relegated to a local issue, with fights cropping up sporadically in neighborhoods as local supermarkets threaten to leave. We had seen some successes - like San Diego’s Market Creek Plaza or the Pathmark in Harlem - but the victories had been hard to come by.
That is, until about five years ago, when Pennsylvania’s Gov. Ed Rendell and State Rep. Dwight Evans began to listen to the ideas and innovation of their constituents and the leadership of The Food Trust and The Reinvestment Fund. Out of that collaboration came the Fresh Food Financing Initiative, a remarkable program that has helped open dozens of markets and seed more than 3,700 jobs in under-served communities.
Now, through the tireless efforts of residents and advocates, the White House Office of Urban Affairs has shown real interest in learning about this proven program, hopefully to take the ideas and solutions to the national scale. White House leaders want to lift up the program and hear how it is impacting real people. For the first time, I can see the fight for equitable food access is winnable.
I cannot stress enough how important and exciting it is to have a White House willing to listen to new and innovative ideas. This administration - in virtually every office and agency - seems to recognize that all Americans deserve to live in a community of opportunity.
But that does not mean progress will happen on its own. Far from it. The most important attribute the equity movement has going for it is our tenacity. Thirty years ago, when those residents came into my office to ask for help in improving their community, I knew it would be a long, hard fight. But sitting in Philadelphia this week, I felt emboldened to keep fighting, to keep pushing, because success is always within our grasp.
We must demand equity now.
PolicyLink CEO Angela Glover Blackwell has a short piece in this issue of Sojourners magazine, alongside more than a dozen other political and spiritual leaders answering the existential question:”What Sustains Me?”
Here is her piece, though you should check out the full post for more thoughtful answers:
Seek Goodness in All, by Angela Glover Blackwell
I remind myself while spending time with people in the airport or on the bus that at the core, people are always nicer than they seem. It is important to do this because sometimes the problems that we are trying to correct seem overwhelming and the reality that we are trying to create seems out of reach. I am a hopeful person so I try to reinforce for myself that the goodness is there, and it is my job to help people see an issue they haven’t thought about, or see a path they haven’t thought of before. Constantly finding that goodness in people keeps me grounded.
Angela Glover Blackwell is the founder and chief executive officer of PolicyLink.
The Applied Research Center is holding a special call-in forum April 28 to focus on racial justice in the first 100 days of the Obama.
On April 28th, the Compact for Racial Justice Forum will review the highs and lows of the first 100 days of the Obama Administration. For the past 90 days ARC has moved a national discussion around race and the economy, jobs, health care, immigration, civil rights and immigration.
Featured Speakers Include:
• Angela Glover Blackwell, Chief Executive Officer of PolicyLink
• Tarso Luis Ramos, Director of Research, Political Research Associates
• Deepa Iyer, Executive Director, South Asian Americans Leading Together
ARC’s Director of Strategic Partnerships, Tammy Johnson, will moderate the discussion.
Click here to RSVP.
For all you folks in the DC area, check out this event next week co-sponsored by PolicyLink and the Center for American Progress:
Recovery Package = New Jobs
How Do Low Wage Workers Fit Into the Equation?
February 17, 2009, 9:30am - 11:00am
Coffee will be served at 9:00 a.m.
Featured Panelists:
Heather Boushey, senior economist, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO, PolicyLink
Ian Kim, green-collar jobs campaign director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Mala Thakur, executive director, National Youth Employment CoalitionModerated by:
Joy Moses, Policy Analyst, Poverty Program, Center for American Progress Action FundWith U.S. unemployment reaching 7.6 percent and a loss of 3.6 million jobs since the beginning of the recession, job creation is a priority for the Obama administration and 111th Congress. The still-pending American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes substantial investments in infrastructure, green jobs, and technological improvements that are aimed at getting America back to work. What will these efforts mean for disadvantaged and low-wage workers? How do we ensure that low-income people and communities of color benefit from this major national investment to get our economy back on track?
This panel will provide an overview of the current state of unemployment and jobs, the impact of the recession on low-wage workers, the job creation potential of a recovery package, and federal and state-level advocacy efforts to ensure that disadvantaged communities are not left behind.
Location
Center for American Progress Action Fund
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Map & DirectionsNearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center
In an op-ed in today’s La Opinion (the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper), PolicyLink CEO Angela Glover Blackwell says it is time to confirm Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor. You can read the Spanish-language version here or just check out below for the English-language version:
Solis Must Be Confirmed
By Angela Glover Blackwell
The Republican roadblocks preventing Rep. Hilda Solis from taking the reins as Labor Secretary should trouble all working Americans, especially the low-income Latinos and African-Americans on whose behalf she has fought her entire career.
Rep. Solis (D-Calif.) is a passionate and progressive advocate for the needs of working people. Her appointment was roundly cheered by labor advocates and people like myself who desire a more fair and inclusive America.
In a letter in the New York Times today, I argue that the stimulus package needs more to help the poor than just a boost in social services like food stamps and unemployment benefits.
We need to make real investments in all of our communities — especially those that have been left behind for so long already.
Here’s the letter:
To the Editor:
Your editorial about the stimulus package’s lack of attention to the concerns of low-income Americans (“Sins of Omission: The Forgotten Poor,” Feb. 2) was right on target. Though the package does include expansion of food stamps and jobless benefits, social services alone will not meet the needs of the poor.The huge infrastructure spending already included in the package could easily be retargeted to dramatically improve the lives of millions of low-income Americans and their communities. By expanding mass transit and providing operating funds for cash-strapped transit agencies, we can create and save thousands of jobs and connect residents to economic opportunity throughout their region.
By using tax incentives to lure grocery stores to poor neighborhoods, we can create long-term retail jobs and ensure much-needed access to healthy food. By investing in successful job training programs, we can build a vibrant 21st-century work force.
The stimulus package provides a once-in-a-generation chance to make good on America’s promise of equal opportunity for all. Smarter social and infrastructure spending is vital to making that promise a reality.
Angela Glover Blackwell
Oakland, Calif., Feb. 2, 2009
The writer is the founder and chief executive of PolicyLink.
Cross-posted on Huffington Post
With the economic recovery plan still streaking through DC, Salon began an interesting series today in which they invited advocates, economists, labor leaders and private-sector folks to write about how the package should be constituted.
PolicyLink CEO Angela Glover Blackwell prepared the first installment, continuing to argue that equity must be the top concern in the package:
What kind of recovery package would make sense?
Three words: big, smart and fair.
The current economic crisis has hit low-income people and communities of color first and worst. We have to rethink how and where we make these investments. By just pushing $700 billion (or more) down the same pipeline we always have, we will end up with many new car-choked suburban highways and plenty of pet projects for the politically connected, but we would miss a truly historic opportunity to improve our economy, our environment and our communities. We need to put a down payment on a prosperous and inclusive America.
You can also check out Angela’s similar commentary on NPR’s Marketplace this past Friday:
Illustration by Mignon Khargie/Salon.
Thirteen, the New York PBS affiliate, listed Angela Glover Blackwell’s speech at the New School earlier this month as one of “NY’s Best Lectures.” Normally, we try not to toot the PolicyLink horn too loudly at EquityBlog….but this speech, “The Time is Now: An Equity Agenda to End Poverty,” could be an incredibly important one to ensure we seize this singular moment for change.
Across the nation, equity advocates are doing yeoman’s work pushing for opportunity, democracy and inclusion. Angela’s speech highlights some of the leading ideas and offers a way to move forward together.
If you have a bit of time during this holiday week, please watch the speech…and share your ideas for how to seize this precious and potentially fleeting moment.
(Note: Angela starts speaking at about the 11:55 mark, after two very kind introductions)
