The House Judiciary Committee voted this week on H.R. 40 -- recommending the creation of a commission on reparations for slavery. “The vote by the House Judiciary Committee was a major milestone for proponents of reparations, who have labored for decades to build mainstream support for redressing the lingering effects of slavery. Democrats on the panel advanced the legislation establishing the commission over Republican objections, 25 to 17. The bill — labeled H.R. 40 after the unfulfilled Civil War-era promise to give former slaves “40 acres and a mule” — still faces steep odds of becoming law. With opposition from some Democrats and unified Republicans, who argue that Black Americans do not need a government handout for long-ago crimes, neither chamber of Congress has committed to a floor vote. But as the country grapples anew with systemic racism laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic and the death of George Floyd and other Black men in confrontations with the police, the measure has drawn support from the nation’s most powerful Democrats, including President Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader. Polling suggests that public support is growing, too, though it remains far from widespread. “We’re asking for people to understand the pain, the violence, the brutality, the chattel-ness of what we went through,” Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, said during a committee debate late Wednesday. “And of course, we’re asking for harmony, reconciliation, reason to come together as Americans.””
New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that, while the number of suicides dropped overall by five percent in 2020, numbers collected in more local surveys indicate that suicides may have risen among people of color. “In the United States, the pandemic has taken a starkly disproportionate toll on communities of color: Hispanic, Black and Native Americans, as well as Alaska Natives, are more likely than white Americans to be hospitalized with Covid-19 and to die from it. Two in five Black and Hispanic Americans have lost a close friend or family member to the virus, compared with one in four white adults. People of color have also been pummeled financially, particularly low-wage earners who have lost their jobs and had few resources on which to fall back. Many who remain employed hold jobs that put them at risk of contracting the virus on a daily basis. Anxiety and depression have risen across the board, and many Americans are consumed with worry about their health and that of their families. A recent study found that one in 12 adults has had thoughts of suicide; Hispanic Americans in particular said they were depressed and stressed about keeping a roof over their heads and having enough food to eat. Some Americans plunged into poverty for the first time, shattering their sense of identity and self, said Dr. Brandi Jackson, a psychiatrist who is director of integrative behavioral health at Howard Brown Health in Chicago. News reports about the killings of Black people, from Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery to the shocking death of George Floyd in May, added to the trauma for Black Americans, Dr. Jackson said. “It’s one stressor on top of another stressor on top of another stressor,” Dr. Sheftall said. “You’ve lost your job. You’ve lost people in your family. Then there’s George Floyd. At one point, I had to shut the TV off.””
The New York Times reports that President Biden “will limit the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year to the historically low level set by the Trump administration, walking back an earlier promise to welcome more than 60,000 people fleeing war and persecution into the country. The reversal on Mr. Biden’s promise to welcome in thousands of families fleeing war and religious persecution signals the president’s hesitant approach to rebuilding an immigration system gutted by his predecessor. But the delay in officially designating the refugee admissions has already left hundreds of refugees cleared to travel to the United State stranded in camps around the world and infuriated resettlement agencies that accused Mr. Biden of breaking an earlier promise to restore the American reputation as a sanctuary for the oppressed.”