Fellow Delawareans and members of the House of Representatives in Delaware, whose side are we on?
The issue of the $15 minimum wage is rooted in American history.
Lessons learned from the Tulsa Massacre against the African American community 100 years ago should inspire all of us — Delaware residents and state representatives — in this legislative session.
In 1921, a long-held, deeply rooted irrational racism against people of color culminated in the massacre of more than 300 African Americans, along with the bombing, robbery and arson of prosperous businesses, churches and beautiful homes.
Is maintaining a $9.25 minimum wage that keeps African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and others in abject poverty — unable to maintain a household despite working a 40-hour week — not another expression of the silent structural racism that caused the Tulsa massacre?
In this case, there are no mobs with guns on the streets, no airplanes bombing, no household vandalism and robberies, no community-wide fires. Today’s structural racism: Is it not the economic violence of a minimum wage that kills silently? And is it not a silently kept secret from the general public as this historic event was kept out of the history books for the past 100 years?
A hundred years has passed since the Tulsa massacre, and it is no longer acceptable to ignore and stay quiet when we see injustices. Although these events are very different, they are equal in the pain and the distraction they cause in communities of color.
Charito Calvachi-Mateyko
Coordinator, Delaware Civil Rights Coalition
