Written testimony of Demos President K. Sabeel Rahman before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law
Gulf Coast communities face the same environmental and racial injustices they faced during Hurricane Katrina—except now with the overlapping crises of COVID-19, economic collapse, and uprisings for Black Lives. Policy change must undo this injustice.
At the Democratic National Convention, former First Lady Michelle Obama made a point that is relevant to both parties: If policymakers do not take bold and transformative action, trends can and will get worse.
Rather than cutting funds for public needs while allowing police budgets to swell, cities, states, and the federal government must shift funding to the real priorities of communities.
The ongoing devaluing of Black life that’s now on full display forces us to confront America’s racist origins and to uproot our systems of racial violence, economic subordination, and hoarding of political power.
The Postal Service faces a $13 billion revenue loss this fiscal year alone; If the Postal Service is allowed to fail, it will be a tremendous blow to all Americans.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an environmental justice crisis—it has exposed inequalities that have persisted in places across the country with decades of pollution.
COVID-19 is a threat to everyone, but the economic damage resulting from medically necessary quarantines and shelter-in-place orders is neither random nor equally distributed.
This pandemic is revealing the deeper inequities for Black and brown people that have always been present in our economy and democracy but that are often papered over in ordinary times.
The Disparate Impact standard is critical to continued and enhanced opportunity to access fair credit, housing, and homeownership. Demos strongly opposes efforts to undermine this longstanding enforcement tool.