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."
Tubi Daily News Powered by Cheddar for the morning of November 11th, 2018
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Nov. 19, 2018.
These are the top stories, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Michelle Obama's memoir, "Becoming," hit shelves this week, with a rollout that felt more like a concert tour ー including appearances by Oprah, packed stadium events, and near-universal morning TV coverage.
British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan had a turbulent rollout this week, but the British Trade Commissioner for North America said the path to a successful exit from the European Union is still on track. "So far, we are on course for the path that she set out just after the referendum almost two years ago," Antony Phillipson said Friday in an interview on Cheddar.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is fighting back after the New York Times published an investigation into how the company failed to address Russian meddling in the 2016 election. California officials doubled the number of people missing as a result of the wildfires to more than 600. And Bill Oliver, director of the new sci-fi drama 'Jonathan,' joins Cheddar to discuss his new film starring Ansel Elgort.
Facebook's latest scandal has raised serious questions about founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's oversight of the troubled media giant.
A federal judge made a limited ruling Friday that the White House must immediately restore press access to CNN correspondent Jim Acosta on Fifth Amendment grounds.
After a machine recount of ballots in the U.S. Senate race in Florida between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson found them still within a hair's breadth of each other, the state is now endeavoring to recount, by hand, millions of the votes cast. Cheddar's J.D. Durkin reports from Palm Beach County on the latest developments.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Nov. 16, 2018.
