CALLS ON BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO CENTER RACIAL JUSTICE

After an election in which unprecedented numbers of voters came to the polls, especially from Black communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color (BIPOC), Race Forward celebrates the victory of President-elect Joseph Biden and the historic election of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as the first Black and Asian American woman to hold that office. In recognition of the role that BIPOC communities and the multiracial movement for racial justice played in this election, Race Forward also calls upon the Biden administration to center racial justice in the development of its policy platform for the first 100 days and beyond.

“Black communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color and white supporters of racial justice formed the foundation of the wave that carried Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to victory,” said Glenn Harris, President of Race Forward. “We call upon President-elect Biden to begin the work of not only undoing President Trump’s attacks on us over the past four years, but moving a new agenda that advances us to a just, multiracial democratic society.”

In particular, Race Forward calls upon the Biden administration to move in its first 100 days to:

• align itself with the racial justice movement by reversing Trump’s Executive Order ban on racial justice work in the federal government; and

• address the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on BIPOC communities, including protecting access to healthcare, ensuring stable housing by halting evictions and foreclosures, providing economic relief to unemployed people, small businesses, and cultural institutions, and ending utility shutoffs; and

• announce a plan that extends a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented people, ends policies of family separation by halting deportations and detentions, ends exploitative guest worker programs, and restores a humane asylum policy.

In addition, we call upon the Biden administration to take steps to:

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o center health equity in his efforts to expand health insurance to all and to end a pandemic that has taken the life of 1 in every 1000 African Americans, and disproportionately impacted the health of Latinx, Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders; and

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o advance a long-term economic agenda that eliminates the racial wealth gap, protects and expands jobs, fosters collective power and dignity at work, and supports reparations for Black and Indigenous people, including deep investments in education, homeownership, healthcare, and community-based and cultural institutions; and

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o support communities of color across the country who are calling for divestment from police and prisons, and investment in health, education, housing, arts and culture, and the environment. We call for support for additional policy changes that undo systemic racism, such as establishing a national database of decertified police officers, and ending cash bail; and

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o recognize and support the central role that artists and culture bearers play in the resilience and advancement of communities by backing the Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice; and

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o heed the calls of BIPOC communities and young people and address the climate crisis and environmental justice by joining the fight for the Green New Deal; and

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o advance a modern-day package of proposals to protect voting rights, especially those of BIPOC and poor communities, and end voter intimidation, suppression, and disinformation.

“President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris can move a progressive agenda that speaks to the deepest values of Americans,” said Harris. “Together we can all decisively turn our nation away from the backlash politics of the last half-century and move us forward to building what Vincent Harding called ‘a possible America’.”