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."
A new bill in Illinois would require potential gun buyers to reveal their public social media accounts to state police. The ACLU is now speaking out against the idea, citing privacy and bias concerns. "The things that social media would show are one's political views, perhaps one's religion, and even in some instances someone's race," Edwin Yohnka, director of communications and public policy at ACLU of Illinois, told Cheddar.
For veteran congresswoman and cancer survivor Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, the issue of healthcare is both political and personal. She discussed President Trump's vow "to protect patients with pre-existing conditions" with Cheddar.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Feb. 8, 2019.
President Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow slammed Democratic tax and banking proposals as un-American in an interview with Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Thursday. "I'm afraid some of my Democratic friends are going back to a war on business," Kudlow said.
It's a topic that has evaded recent political campaigns, but thanks to a superstar representative from New York, tax and bank reform could be one of the biggest campaign issues leading into 2020. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has used her Twitter feed to call out the big banks. Pete Schroeder, who covers finance for Reuters, talked to Cheddar about how the big banks are getting ready.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.
If there's one issue on which President Trump and Congress can work together, it's infrastructure. That's according to Henry Cisneros, a veteran private equity investor and former HUD Secretary under President Bill Clinton.
President Trump laid out his vision and for the second half of his term and took a victory lap in his annual address to the nation Tuesday night, saying "the state of our union is strong."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Feb, 6, 2019.
President Trump delivered his State of the Union address from the floor of the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday night. In his speech, Trump touted the strength of the U.S. economy -- including gains for women, which were cheered by those on the chamber floor -- and called again for a border wall to prevent illegal immigration.
