The 2016 elections give communities of color the chance to use our growing political power to organize and mobilize to move America forward after more than a generation in which this country has moved backward. There was a time when our nation put a man on the moon, found cures for diseases that ravaged our communities, advanced technology that we all benefit from today - jet planes to the internet. We birthed some of the greatest artists and fought against laws and practices that harmed us. We abolished slavery, and crushed Jim Crow too. We outlawed child labor, created an eight-hour day. We increased wages, and organized unions; we made school public and available to everyone.
After the election of President Obama it has become increasingly important if not imperative for any candidate that seeks the Democratic nomination to understand that the Black and Brown vote can no longer be treated as a secondary strategy for victory. In fact it is virtually impossible to win the nomination without having our vote as a deep and necessary component of the path to victory in the primary and even in the general election. While this is true it has not had a far reaching effect on the national dialogue. I have listened intently to the actual debates and public discussions. They are absent of any real and meaningful discourse about Black and Brown people short of walls being built to keep Mexicans out and a stiff- armed reference to Black Lives Matter that stops at sloganeering.
On one side of the debate we have to endure the racist and fascist rhetoric that seeks to blame radical capitalism, unchecked greed, and economic disparity on people of color. On the other hand we witness a cursory discussion around race and gender couched in a larger discussion around economic inequality and mass incarceration. While these are progressive ideals and will benefit people of color, they blatantly side step and even disregard any real discussion of structural racism and they refuse to address directly our particular and "peculiar" relationship to this country. Increasing the minimum wage is necessary but does not address the uneven access to jobs, capital, training or a mostly segregated workforce and segregated unions. More importantly it does not speak to the more than 5 decades of deep poverty and double digit unemployment of African American men.
Americans are being force fed a caricature of our worst fears; elections that have turned into vaudeville where name-calling and one-liners are more important than poverty and dying children. Where things like making sure we all have health care, a living wage, or a nation that is not a police state where millions of people are incarcerated, or a place where we expand higher learning to all Americans has become unreachable.
In America's urban centers, it is the disenfranchised communities of color that have suffered the most. As the Mayor of Newark, I can tell you that this country's problems are Newark's problems, from poor infrastructure to wage inequality- from poverty to poor access to health; the foreclosure crisis to access to quality food, housing, and safe neighborhoods. Although plagued with two decades of growing economic inequality, increasingly concentrated power in the hands of the extremely wealthy and a national government paralyzed by extreme partisanship, ironically, communities of color are in the best position to drive the fundamental changes desperately needed by our nation. By uniting the steadily increasing political influence of our communities at the local level, taking advantage of our growing numbers in the electorate, organizing in every community where we live, mobilizing our huge grassroots voter base and, yes, realizing our potential to raise money in large amounts, we can become the driving force at the state and national level for political, racial and economic justice.
As a group, we can leverage our power to impact the choice of candidates for president, governor, and major national, state and local offices. We can unite the power of our individual cities and towns in order to ensure that candidates at every level are responsive to the needs and concerns of African Americans, Latinos, and the poor of every race.
This is a year of opportunity to begin changing the direction of America, but we can realize that opportunity only through uniting, organizing and mobilizing. I am doing my part in that process by convening a meeting of our brightest minds, thought leaders, community activists, entrepreneurs, business executives, educators, artists and government officials to discuss specific topics of concern to our community and what we can do to achieve our goals. We are bringing together people of vision and achievement who have been making a difference in their various communities and areas of endeavor. We will join in a closed door roundtable discussion titled Power Politics & Community Reinvestment on the weekend of June 10th - June 11th, 2016 in Newark, N.J. at the Robert Treat Hotel.
We will be discussing plans for ongoing organization as well as mobilization around:
• Urban Marshall Plan - Setting An Agenda for Educational Reform & Exploring Avenues to Combat Five Decades of Poverty and Unemployment
• Black Lives Matter - Combating Criminalization, Mass Incarceration and Killing of Black Men & Women
• Arts & Culture - Examining The Perennial Question, Does Art Imitate Life or Does Life Imitate Art
• Coming Together - How To Achieve Unity Among Different Communities for A Common Objective
• Closing the Wealth Gap: - Technology & New Paradigms In Economic Innovation
Those who attend will be prepared to roll up their sleeves and get dirty. Discussing issues is only a starting point. The roundtable will be creating plans for action: substantive, meaningful, tangible and actionable plans to address the issues of social justice facing our communities and developing the strategies to implement those plans.
In an era when minority communities appear to be losing more than we are gaining, this "meeting of the minds," is not only about being on the right side of history, but also about having a part in shaping and making history.