An Hour of Power

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. PLASKETT. Thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to be here with my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I am so humbled and honored to be with the gentlewoman from Ohio, Joyce Beatty, who is an example to us freshmen and who fights, along with the gentleman of New York, Hakeem Jeffries, not just for the people of their district and not just for African Americans, but for all Americans, because that is what we are all here in this Congress to do.

By pointing out the inequalities, it is not to cast aspersions on all of America, but to make us to be better people than what we are today.

When Dr. King so eloquently delivered his famous ``I Have a Dream'' speech 50 years ago, he did so with every hope and expectation that that Nation would rise up and live out the true meaning of that creed. He hoped that the tenet all men are created equal would, in fact, one day be a truth held self-evident.

We cannot allow simply moving past the glaring bigotries of Jim Crow, however, to be a benchmark for success. Doing so would ignore the more subtle bigotries that continue today.

These subtle bigotries are, in fact, as deeply rooted and extreme in their effect as those glaring bigotries Dr. King and so many others fought vigorously and valiantly to overcome.

We are still achieving the dream. Today it is not just social injustice, but also extreme inequality that constrains economic mobility for the African American community and, therefore, for all of America.

Whether it is State-sanctioned attempts to roll back voting rights in Alabama, the outright denial of equal voting rights to citizens living in the Virgin Islands and other territories, or the years of neglect that have led to the poisoning of residents in Flint, Michigan, the persistent wealth and opportunity divide in this country is rooted in the legacy of racial discrimination dating back to Reconstruction and to slavery, indeed.

Although we have achieved much since the days of separate, but equal, there are still structural barriers to achieving the American Dream for too many minority families in this country.

There is racial disparity in nearly every index of the American Dream, and those disparities place families of color further behind in their plight to achieving the dream.

A recent study by the Corporation for Enterprise Development shows that families of color are two times more likely to live below the Federal poverty level, almost two times more likely to lack liquid savings, and are significantly more likely to have subprime credit scores.

A lack of liquid savings among families of color often lends to further disparity and wealth loss, as evidenced by the proportion of student debt by race and ethnicity.

African American college students rely more on student loans to pay for college than do other racial groups and are less likely to pay off the debt, according to a report by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab.

While unemployment in this country has fallen to 5 percent, African American communities like my home district of the U.S. Virgin Islands continue to experience double-digit unemployment rates.

Many of these communities of color have experienced decades of systematic divestment of funding and resources that can only serve to widen the wealth and opportunity gap.

That is benign neglect, a benign neglect that has led to failing public and alternative education systems, crumbling infrastructure, and, in some cases, the slide to bankruptcy, bankruptcy not just due to mismanagement and corruption, which is the convenient answer, but a systematic lack of investment, support, and adequate funding, which causes places like Detroit, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands to mortgage their children's futures in bonds to make ends meet.

African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, but have only 2.7 percent of total wealth.

This Congress has within its power to reverse the years of benign neglect to these communities through supporting legislation to invest in infrastructure and education through fighting against voter suppression efforts and supporting student loans and other finance reforms.

Closing the wealth and opportunity gap should not be a dream in post- racial America. It is the responsibility of this Congress to uphold the principles to which we were founded, to not only adhere to those powerful words that preamble our Constitution, but also to provide for the general welfare and ensure that justice, liberty, and prosperity are afforded to all and not just some.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source