In Maryland, the Montgomery County Council has introduced a resolution deeming racism a public health crisis.
In an interview with Cheddar, councilmember Will Jawando says disparities the black community faces are staggering. Recent social uprisings might have lit the flame under Jawando to introduce the resolution but the issue of racial inequality goes back hundreds of years, he said.
"Racism is the direct result, for 401 years, we've been either property or legally discriminated against for most of that time," Jawando told Cheddar.
In Montgomery County, systemic racism is not limited to just over-assertive and sometimes lethal policing of the black community, he said. It's also running rampant in the healthcare system. As COVID-19 continues to ravage communities of color nationwide, 18 percent of the black population in his county makes up a quarter of the deaths related to the virus.
For Jawando, racism in the Washington DC suburb is simply a reflection of society on a smaller scale.
"If you look at maternal health and childbirth, black women die at three times the rate," he said. "When they come in with problems, often doctors — look at Serena Williams — don't believe that they're sick."
Introducing the resolution, which he expects to pass next week, is a first step for curing the public health crisis in his county, Jawando said, but he hopes the measure is eventually recognized on both the state and federal levels. He also supports other methods of combating racism including the growing call to defund police departments nationwide.
"We shouldn't have stats driven by policing," he explained. "De-escalation, that should be rewarded just as much as we reward arrests and tickets."
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The Senate approved a resolution that will allow a final impeachment vote on Wednesday, after both the Iowa caucuses and the State of the Union address.
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While the sitting president faces charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, his two predecessors are also facing a reckoning in the Guantánamo Bay military tribunal. President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial and the Guantánamo Bay tribunal both hinge in large part on the same unresolved issue: how much information can the executive withhold in the name of national security?
Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told reporters during the break that Republicans have the ”momentum” to move to end the trial tomorrow without witnesses.
Lead House Manager Adam Schiff in Trump's impeachment trial brought a little incredulous humor into the proceedings when he pointed out the Justice Department's contradictory position on subpoenas being presented in federal court on the same day.
The Committee met twice last week but held off making the designation that allows the organization to ramp up the international response to the coronavirus.
