Trump Holds Dallas Roundtable On Race Relations & Policing, Fails To Invite Top Black Local Law Enforcement Officials
TEXT: CLOSING ARGUMENT.</s>CUOMO: The argument starts here with Trump's Economic Adviser saying this.</s>LARRY KUDLOW, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT & DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: I don't believe nowadays we have systemic racism.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said you don't believe systemic racism exists in the United States?</s>KUDLOW: I do - I do not.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At all in the U.S.?</s>KUDLOW: I do not.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't think there's any systemic racism against African-Americans in the United States?</s>KUDLOW: I will say it again. I do not.</s>CUOMO: All right, this isn't believing in something like the tooth fairy, all right? It's about fact. He is wrong. It's not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. And it is fact that you see everywhere you look in black and white. The immediate proof is in the Cabinet. Trump has one Black cabinet member and one Black Domestic Policy Adviser. Kudlow is the President's Economic Adviser. So, let's start with the economy. White people make more money than Blacks do. Period! Even if they have the same level of education, even if they're in the same jobs. In fact, that fundamental divide is as wide now as it was the year Dr. King was shot, so much for Trump's economy being the "Best-ever" for Black people. Not relatively. And relativity matters. Black people are not only more likely to be unemployed, they're also more likely to be underemployed. For all Mr. Kudlow's talk about the stock market, Blacks don't invest nearly as much as Whites. Even when you include 401(k)s, systemic racism extends to government programs as well. Going back to the New Deal, the Federal Housing program that helped build the suburbs was often off-limits to Blacks. Lending practices, redlining, you know, drawing an area around Black neighborhoods, illegal, but their effects linger. Blacks are far less likely to own a home than Whites, a gap that's only widened since 2004. And those that do buy a home have to put down more money, the equity cushion it's called. And they have to pay for a higher mortgage, meaning what, that even when banks do lend to them, they have tougher terms, even when similarly situated to Whites. Then, there is the question of how you get between work and home? The highway system, this may not seem like a big deal, but just think about it, in terms of your existence, a marvel of American ingenuity by White America, but its design skipped over Black neighborhoods. Even if there were as many on-ramps in their communities, many people of color are less likely to own a car because of incoming credit challenges. Thus, they're more likely to depend on public transportation. We invest in buses and trains at a fraction of what we spend on the highway. So again, systemically, they are disserved. Then there is the question of what to do with your kids. Black families work more and, as we've seen, earn less. What does that mean? It makes taking care of your kids harder. You don't have the time and you don't have the money. Childcare, tough decision. Once they get into the school system, and this is big, because this is all about the roadway to opportunity. The impact of history still hangs over their head. 58 years between Plessy versus Ferguson, separate but equal, and Brown versus the Board of Education, mandating integration, that period wound up influencing how our school system works, more arguably than the 62 years since the Little Rock Nine. And here's the proof for that suggestion. Districts with mostly students of color get $23 billion less in funding than White school districts, despite serving about the same number of kids. Less money means less power, right, less pay for teachers, less access to extra- curriculars, and services and systems, right? We generally pay for schools with things like property taxes, right? And Black communities can't support the kind of tax base that power schools in many White communities. And even when you adjust for poverty, more is still spent on White students. Why? Systemic racism. Even how we discipline kids in schools is affected by systemic racism. How do we know? A White kid gets in trouble, a fight at school, the results often look like this, trip to the Principal's office. Black kid gets in trouble at school, more likely to be disciplined. How? Suspended. Wind up in juvenile justice. Why? Systemic racism, built into the fabric of the nation, is built in as the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. Why? Because they are all worse in places of poverty. Remember Flint, the faces of that suffering? They still suffer today. The faces are still the same color. Even how we connect, it doesn't matter how much you get paid. If you're Black, you got less access to the internet. It's quite literally a matter of life and death as well. Look at the Coronavirus pandemic. Who is getting sick the most? Who's dying the most? Who are the largest percentage of essential workers, working in the midst of this risk, in our healthcare system? Minorities. And they're less likely to have insurance. They're less likely to have access to good care. They have more premature births. They have shorter life expectancy. They check more of the boxes of chronic conditions. The American Academy of Pediatrics, last year, identified the root cause of health problems, over a lifetime, is racism, not race itself, the disparities caused by race-ism. Finally, the Black communities' ability to change these disparities should be through our democracy. But their voting rights are compromised. Gerrymandering, OK, voter suppression, this is what Trump should be talking about, but he doesn't. Not "Mysterious Illegals," but real legalities like we arguably just saw in Atlanta. And then, yes, there is policing. I don't say "The Police" because this is about more than people or bad apples. It's about the orchard. It's about the system. And again, systemic policies and tactics work against Blacks disproportionately. Cops are more likely to pull over Black drivers, even when you adjust for daytime and nighttime stops that may make it hard to tell who is driving. People of color are more likely to be searched while stopped, even though Whites are more likely to actually have drugs on them. Our prisons, overcrowded, filled with a disproportionate number of Black faces. END