VCC Magazine Summer 2020

V irginia C apitol C onnections , S ummer 2020 15 Ready to Lead, Virginia? By Cynthia E. Hudson Like nearly everyone in the world, this past May I watched George Floyd, anAfrican American, die in the street under the apparent full body weight of a white police officer kneeling on his throat – an officer whose manner was so defiant that even in his silence screamed to me, and everyAfricanAmerican, "So what? – you’re nothing." I felt too in that moment that, like George Floyd, I could not breathe, but resolved that as soon as I could I would speak and, more critically to me, act. Thanks to Governor Ralph Northam's Commission to Examine Racial Inequity in Virginia Law, created by his Executive Order No. 32 a full year ago, I and my fellow Commissioners have a vehicle for action. We welcome the Governor's charge to send him concrete, effective legislative, regulatory, and policy proposals to cut to the bone this ugly part of the noble and vital service of policing and eliminate the kind of police violence that killed Floyd. The Commission is not new. We're in "Phase II" of our work following the success of Phase I which resulted in rapid action: repeal by the 2020Virginia General Assembly of nearly 100 laws still technically "on the books" in Virginia that shamefully still trumpeted the state's racist past including, for example, the "Act to Preserve Racial Integrity." The Commission has the right tools to advance change toward fair and equitable policing. Starting with data and recommendations from reports such as "Policing Reform for the 21st Century", issued by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (kickstarted by findings of President Obama's Taskforce on 21st Century Policing), the Commission is set to advance to the Governor doable, practical actions that be may be either implemented administratively by Virginia's state law enforcement regulatory and public safety agencies, or readily translated to legislative proposals mandating reforms. The scorched earth approach I envision to policing, and other changes in our state laws to address racial equity, positions Virginia to be among the leaders in this effort. We can help model for the nation at this defining moment policies that can be implemented effectively to bridge the gaping chasm between the treatment of people of color and the treatment of whites in our criminal justice system and other areas. Indeed, it is an understatement to sayVirginia has a leading role to play; I submit that Virginia has a responsibility to lead given its foundational contributions to the institutionalized, baked-in racism that has defined the lives of African Americans. After all, it was Virginia where the first Africans arrived to begin the inhumane experience of hundreds of years of slavery, the vestiges of which still shape the state of African American Existence. And it is in Virginia, where some cling to the point of violence (Charlottesville 2017) to monuments to the treason fromwhich arose the Confederate States of America, a would-be sovereign entity dedicated to preserving states' rights to continue the enslavement of black people as economic imperative. Virginia's role in post-Reconstruction policymaking is also notorious, marked as it was by a state constitution that, like others, effectively denied African Americans the right to vote, and paved the way for Jim Crow laws. Virginia then laid the racism capstone with the codification of massive resistance to public school desegregation, cutting off a primary route by which African American children might level a playing field mined with the obstacles remaining from slavery and Jim Crow. Occurring in the middle of a viral pandemic disproportionately ravaging the minority communities for reasons also rooted in historical racism, Floyd's killing has been a race relations tipping point that makes the work of the Commission even more urgent. The work on the Commission's agenda includes at this moment (as it did even before V IRGINIA D EPARTMENT OF S MALL B USINESS AND S UPPLIER D IVERSITY M ore than 97% of Virginia’s businesses are small . We are your economic development agency , helping you grow and prosper through increased revenue and job creation . What we offer… • Virginia Small Business Financing Authority providing access to capital; • Business Development and Outreach providing education and outreach to assist small businesses with strategic growth and development; • Certifications to enhance procurement opportunities for SWaM and DBE qualified businesses. For further information about services offered, please visit us at www.sbsd.virginia.gov or call (804) 786-6585 See Ready to Lead, Virginia?, continued on page 19