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."
Christine Hallquist, the first transgender gubernatorial candidate to be nominated by a major party, faces an uphill battle in Vermont, where she is trying to unseat the popular Republican governor.
Cannabis represents a fourth pillar of Constellation Brands' beer, wine, and spirits strategy, says the CEO Rob Sands. The company, which makes Corona beer, Svedka vodka, and Robert Mondavi wine invested $4 billion in the Canadian marijuana company Canopy Growth ー the largest weed deal by a major publicly traded company.
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Constellation Brands, the alcoholic beverage giant, is making a big bet that marijuana will be legalized in the United States by upping its investment in the Canadian cannabis company Canopy Growth. With legal marijuana coming to Canada in the fall, investors are preparing for a potential legal U.S. market to open up soon.
Rep. Tom Reed says he plans to propose a ban on House members serving on corporate boards, a bipartisan proposal designed to eliminate "potential conflict and the appearance of impropriety." The move comes a week after his New York Republican colleague Rep. Chris Collins was indicted on insider trading charges.
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A year after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the country continues to see an upsurge in racism, says Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. But Cullors also says she sees more people "joining together in this moment to stand up for our rights."
Marc Lotter, former press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence, says Omarosa Manigault Newman's decision to record a conversation with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in the Situation Room was a violation "of every protocol
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Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" opened nationwide on Friday, on the eve of the anniversary of the Charlottesville riots ー and that's no coincidence. The movie recalls the true story of Ron Stallworth, a black Colorado Springs police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.
