Obama’s critics will say her programs did not solve childhood obesity - U.S. Then she launched her “Let’s Move” initiative to encourage physical activity, and some folks hated their own feet. She’s lived it firsthand and seen its whiplash ramifications.Īs first lady, she planted a few vegetables in the White House garden, and suddenly everyone was mad at broccoli. We can’t go backward, so we must go forward with a commitment to make a different choice. All have served Maryland honorably and would have done so in the U.S. What about Verda Freeman Welcome, the first Black woman elected to Maryland’s state senate? Or Elijah Cummings, who declined to run for the open Senate seat in 2016, but who we only later learned was quite ill. McMillan, the first woman to head the NAACP, would have been an excellent choice, too. Who can doubt Parren James Mitchell would have made an amazing senator? Dr. We can only vote for names that appear on the ballot. Let’s avoid the tired trope about voting for the “best” candidate. We need to be intentional about choosing who replaces Cardin. The math isn’t hard, and the solution is in front of us. We have elected zero Black senators since 1913, when the 17th Amendment was enacted, allowing a popular vote to determine who serves in the Senate. ![]() In Maryland, Black residents are 31% of the state’s population. ![]() Senate’s members - three Black men representing Georgia, South Carolina and New Jersey. Yet, Black senators account for just 3% of the U.S. Only two Black women have served in the Senate: Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).īlack people make up 40.1 million U.S. In a history that includes nearly 2,000 senators, it has had just 10 Black members (11 if you count William Cowan, who was appointed to fill in when Massachusetts Sen. Now think about America’s leadership, in particular the U.S. What would that feel like? Isolating? Threatening? Frustrating? No matter what, you’d certainly notice it. Instead, imagine if everywhere you went you rarely saw people who looked like you in any space.
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