Several of the candidates had inclusive opening statements that made me question their authenticity. Bill De Blasio (NY) wants to “make a country that puts the working people first”, Tulsi Gabbard (HA), stated that she intended to, “fight for the rights of all Americans”, Kristen Gillibrand (NY) emphasized, “When are civil rights convenient?” and Joe Biden (DE) shared that he wanted to “restore the soul of the nation” (which sounds more like Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ than I’m comfortable with). Julian Castro (TX) cleverly stated that there was nothing that this country that he would like to repeat. During this debate, rather than listening for catchy slogans, I was much more interested in seeing if any candidates would talk in depth about the topics that others are refusing to address.
Republican Talking Points: Medicare for All
I was disappointed to see that healthcare took up most of the debate time on both days again. While it is an issue that needs to be addressed, each round of debates should have different talking points that would allow viewers to get a fuller view of where each candidate stands on a variety of issues. After going back and forth about small differences in their plans it was obvious to see that the Democratic party intends to provide every individual with affordable healthcare that would not rely so heavily on families and the employer. The options that the party offer are that individuals can either make the choice to keep what they’re provided by their employers with a public option for those who are uninsured or unsatisfied with their current insurance OR everyone would be insured by the public option. Both would be result in a higher tax rate for the middle class.
While the Democrats argue for universal coverage through different methods, no one mentioned how incarcerated citizens would be covered. Their healthcare is monopolized by the private sector, leaving many with inadequate care.
Criminal Justice System: To Transform or Ignore
Cory Booker led this discussion, taking his chance to attack Biden for his role saying, “You offer No redemption to the people who are in prison right now.” I was proud of Booker for calling Biden out on not only what he failed to do in the past but what he where he is continuing to fail today. It doesn’t matter that he’s put a Criminal Justice Reform proposal out now. Biden has submitted a proposal in order to bolster his campaign, prior to this run for president he didn’t seek to make any positive changes to our nation’s prisons because that’s not what his track record shows. It’s interesting that he chose to do so before his visit to Detroit.
On top of submitting an empty proposal, Biden tried to minimize his role in the violent crime bills that he called the ‘Biden bills’ in the 90s, saying, “that was a long long time ago” but what many people forget is that while his actions were a “long long time ago”, but there are people that have been in prison since for a long long time as a result of his actions. Booker’s right, Biden needs to offer redemption to those prisoners in order to have any saving grace in his campaign.
“You Owe them [Prisoners] an Apology”
Biden was not the only one that was fired at for their role in mass incarceration. I couldn’t help but shout at my screen when Tulsi interrogated Harris about her failure to California’s incarcerated citizens during her time as Attorney General saying, “I want to bring the conversation back to the broken criminal justice system that is disproportionately negatively impacting Black and Brown people all across this country today. Senator Harris says that she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she’ll be a prosecutor president but I’m deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked did she ever smoke marijuana,” to this the audience applauded as she continued, “she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California and she fought to keep cash bail system in place”. Harris could barely respond and her campaign took a heavy hit in Detroit where many families are impacted by such actions of prison and court officials. Unlike Biden, Harris did not offer any form of apology or regret. After the Debate #KamalaHarrisDestroyed flooded social media.
From 2011 tp 2017 Harris had a huge amount of influence over California’s Corrections department and it still looks the same, if not worse after her reign. She had the opportunity and has proven that she is not committed to improving this system or any oppressive systems in this country. She is the president who will maintain the status quo and while Black in the face, like Obama, she isn’t looking to uplift the systems of oppression that have plagued Black people for centuries. She is a pawn being used by other more powerful forces to secure our vote and do nothing to actually earn it by serving the needs of our community.
Reparations: To Settle or Ignore Mounting Debts to ADOS
Thankfully there was some more time given to the topic of reparations during this round of debates. Detroit would not have been satisfied if this topic wasn’t given an adequate amount of time. Williamson has taken the lead, making the case for reparations her primary issue. When asked the question of how she felt she qualified to calculate the amount of financial assistance to be payed, I was pleasantly surprised by her response, “it’s not $500 billion of financial assistance…its payment of a debt that is owed. This is what reparations is” to which the crowd roared. She plainly explained that the 40 acres and a mule that was guaranteed to the formerly enslaved population would equate to hundreds of billions of dollars today and that is the debt that is still owed to African descendants of slaves (ADOS). No other candidates agreed that paying out reparations would be their prerogative during their presidency. Candidates Cory Booker (NJ) and Beto O’Rourke (TX) did agreed to a study of the case for reparations. Candidates Amy Klobuchar (MN) , Andrew Yang (NY) and Bernie Sanders (VT) advocate for bolstering the entire economy to benefit everyone with no plan to pay ADOS reparations.
At this point African decedents of slaves are unified in the fact that nothing less than exclusive individual payments would be a sufficient form of reparations. How else would we heal those deep wounds that Booker mentioned in his introductory statement without supporting economic mobility through paying reparations to the descendants of enslaved people?There is a festering dissatisfaction and decline in race relations as a result of this extraordinary debt and anything less than reparations would fall short in healing that.
The Focus Shouldn’t Be on Trump Anymore…and never should’ve been
Nearly every single candidate mentioned their goal is to defeat Trump. If we’re tricked into thinking that the goal is just to beat Trump then after this election will think we would have won but that is only a trick. There’s no way that Trump is going to be re-elected, he cannot even re-run according to new laws that require candidates to release their tax records and Trump has failed to do so. On top of the fact that he’s not even eligible to run, he’s created such a fool of himself that he’s diminished his own following. Rather than focusing on beating Trump or finding a candidate that’s better than Trump (which is a very low bar), we should be focused on a candidate whose committed to mending the systems that allowed for him to be elected.
Trump is being used as a scapegoat for issues that have always been prevalent in our society. Again the candidates addressed the topic of immigration, arguing that Trump is the cause for family separation and degraded incarceration conditions. Candidates disagreed over whether to decriminalize illegal border. Bennet and Biden argue that it’s not criminalization that’s the problem, its the president exploiting his power and both firmly believe that illegal crossings should remain a criminal offense. As a an advocate for decriminalization, I agree with Castro, Gillibrand and Harris changing illegal border crossing to a civil offense would protect families from separation.
We must remember that family separation has been happening in the United States as a form of not only punishment but also genocide since the birth of the nation. Family separation is a main characteristic of incarceration. Immigrants, without relatives, are forced to turn their children over to the abusive system, but family separation happens in the U.S. every day. Many of the candidates carried on about how terrible it was to have human beings in cages, treat innocent people like criminals and violate people’s human rights. However, all of these things have been happening to our own citizens. How can we expect non-citizens to be treated any better?
Final Thoughts
After this debate I still don’t have a clear idea of what direction each candidate would take to transform our criminal justice system as president, but I do see what candidates are willing to scrutinize the issue. It’s about time that Harris is called out by another candidate for her role in filling up prisons in California. I am surprised that candidate was Tulsi, rather than Cory Booker who has been the most vocal candidate about reform.
Right now incarcerated citizens and formerly incarcerated citizens who cannot vote are a massive population of millions people that are invisible in this election process. Candidates failure to address the needs of this population is appalling. We cannot be satisfied watching them talk around the issues that are most important to us. We need to hear their stances on the topics that weren’t given adequate time in the previous debates. I want to see someone get bold and talk about voting rights, reparations and the criminal justice system with confidence on the debate stage. These candidates missed an amazing opportunity to win over Detroit and potentially turn Michigan from red back to blue, by taking clear stances on the issues that Republicans refuse even exist. Detroit is a city that is hit hard by the lack of economic mobility. Reparations would surely boost the area’s economy. Detroit is also a city where 64,000 people, including 1,600 children are incarcerated. Detroit is a place where thousands of residents have lost family and friends to the system. The people, especially in densely populated metropolitan areas like Detroit, needed to hear about the candidates positions on the issues that affect them the most and its unfortunate to see that opportunity was missed.
