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Opinion: Harris’s Diversity Coalition Revives the Power of True-Blue American Identity Politics

In corners of America dominated by MAGA disinformation, the concept of identity politics is vilified. It goes hand in hand with the anti-DEI wave that’s trying to snuff out the modern civil rights movement. Here comes the good news. So, you thought the dismantling of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs in higher ed and corporate America meant diversity as a value in America is dead. Think again. Kamala (as Harris says, “rhymes with mama-la”) just woke America back up.

Published

2 years ago

August 8, 2024

Oakland Post

Photo Courtesy of KamalaHarris.com.

By Emil Guillermo

In corners of America dominated by MAGA disinformation, the concept of identity politics is vilified.

It goes hand in hand with the anti-DEI wave that’s trying to snuff out the modern civil rights movement.

Here comes the good news.

So, you thought the dismantling of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs in higher ed and corporate America meant diversity as a value in America is dead.

Think again.

Kamala (as Harris says, “rhymes with mama-la”) just woke America back up.

The Zoom call as a mass fundraising tool is alive and well.

The frenzy began after the two big kickoff Zoom conference calls last week — Black women (90,000 attendees/$1.5 million raised, followed by Black men (232,000 attendees/$1.3 million raised).

This week, Asian American Filipinos got theirs on a teleconference that featured Filipino Americans like Alameda’s Rob Bonta, the California Attorney General.

It came one day after “White Dudes for Kamala” on Monday drew 200,000 participants, including actor Jeff Bridges who declared “I’m White, I’m a dude, and I’m for Harris.”

The “White Dudes” raised more than $4 million, a slightly larger amount than the call last week with more than 200,000 White women that raised $3.5 million

Other recent Zoom calls included South Asian women (10,000 attendees/ $285,000 raised) and Latino Women (5,000 attendees/$110,000 raised).

The record haul after just one week of the campaign (over $200 million in all) shows grassroots America is falling hard for Kamala Harris.

The surge signals a revival of identity politics too often tamped down by Trump’s divisive MAGA beliefs.

The best put-down a GOP commentator on CNN could muster was to decry it all as the “Democrat obsession with racial segregation.”

Typical response. It’s not segregation to bring disparate people together in coalition. That’s a celebration of diversity’s strength.

NEW CALIFORNIA MEDIA

In the late ‘’90s and into the new millennium, I was part of a consortium of ethnic media organizations led by Sandy Close and the Pacific News Service that chronicled the rise of a New America. We started with California where minorities were already a majority, launching a television show called “NCM: New California Media.”

As host and executive producer, NCM was one of the first “Meet the Press”-style panel programs in any medium that included Asian, Latino, Black, Indian and LGBTQ journalists who covered us like we mattered.

It’s how I met the Oakland Post’s Tom Berkley and his daughter, Gail Berkley. The late Chauncey Bailey was a regular and my friend. Even Van Jones, long before he was with CNN, appeared on the program.

We covered politics for sure. But there was never one politician who could excite and harness the energy of all the various communities at once.

Gov. Pete Wilson? The recalled Gray Davis? Cruz Bustamante? Ah-nuld?

There was no one.

But there is now.

The future we anticipated and hoped for nearly 25 years ago has finally arrived in Kamala Harris.

Is the Trump/Vance reaction weird? No, they’re just used to snuffing out diversity in favor of preserving their dwindling majority — like trying to dam up the natural flow of America.

Harris has released our natural flow of diversity.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. See him on YouTube.com/@emilamok1. Contact: amok.com

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

23 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

2 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

4 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke