"The Freedom to Vote Act — the most significant voting rights bill in generations — would be a giant step toward our goal of creating a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy."
Policy choices have allowed big companies to continuously use their power to preserve economic and democratic imbalances that maintain their wealth and influence at the expense of everyone else.
Until voters and elected leaders in Baltimore, Maryland took action to bring small donor public financing to their elections, big money in politics was a growing problem in the city.
Big companies are using data to preserve the power imbalance that keeps them rich. This economic model is rooted in chattel slavery and relies on the extraction and commodification of data.
This Black History Month (and into March), workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse have the power to keep making history by voting for their union.
The For the People Act outlines a vision of what’s possible when our nation lives up to its promise of being a place where all people can lift their voices via their votes and their small dollar contributions.
"Black and Latinx borrowers [are] more likely to be denied credit than white borrowers and more likely to be charged higher interest rates [...]. [O]ne of many ways the financial deck is stacked against Black and brown consumers.”
Today, nearly 60 years removed from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech during the March on Washington, countless barriers remain between his dream and America’s reality.
An economy that ultimately lives up to our country’s promise will require us to invest in public goods and health infrastructure, break up concentrated economic power, and ensure equitable access for Black and brown communities.
“They collect our data without our permission. They profit from our data. They fail to invest in processes to verify accuracy. And their models are not transparent. This puts Black and Brown consumers at a serious disadvantage.”
The Biden administration should implement its public credit registry proposal to shift power away from an oligopoly that exercises inordinate control over consumers’ financial prospects and towards a fairer system that better respects consumers and reduces racial inequality.