Elizabeth Warren heads to Essence Festival with plan to ‘value the work of Black women’

“The numbers tell the story,” Warren writes in Essence. “Black women are more likely to be breadwinners for their families and work more than almost any other set of women workers in America, including white women. Yet, Black women are paid less and they are less likely to be able to afford basic human rights like healthcare, childcare and housing.”

Because “This is no accident,” it will take intention and hard work to reverse. Warren’s plans for universal childcare, housing, and canceling student debt will help black and brown women, but she’s not stopping there. Warren pledges a series of executive actions to “boost wages for women of color and open up new pathways to the leadership positions they deserve.” That starts with a ban on new federal contracts for “Companies with a bad track record on equal pay and diversity in management.” Federal contractors will also be banned from “forcing employees to sign away their rights with forced arbitration clauses and non-compete agreements—restrictions that are particularly hurtful to women of color.”

Warren also pledges to “take executive action to make the senior ranks of the federal government look like America and strengthen enforcement against systemic discrimination.”

This is intersectional policy: Warren is clear about how her policies that aren’t tailored to black women will still help black women, but she’s also clear that systemic discrimination requires more. One-size-fits-all policy solutions won’t fix a system that’s been designed not just to elevate the wealthy but to crush some groups more than others.

This blog was originally published at Daily Kos on July 5, 2019. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Laura Clawson is labor editor at Daily Kos.
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Madeline Messa

Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.