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Vol. 63 No. 50 | Thursday, December 14, 2023
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Serving San Diego County’s African & African American Communities 63 Years
INSIDE THIS WEEK'S ISSUE:
NICE GUYS & NLOB HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY
PNV’S HAMER ANNUAL CELEBRATION
PEACE IN THE PARK WINTER WONDERLAND
SEE PAGE 8
SEE PAGE 7
SEE PAGE 9
HOMING IN ON RACISM: A LOOK INTO NEW REDLINING RESEARCH
SEE PAGE 10
HOW HARVARD PRESIDENT
CLAUDINE GAY MADE HISTORY
Announced Tuesday, Gay gained unanimous support to remain in her position after a tumultuous week By Ramishah Maruf CNN
An exclusive look into redlining advocate David G. Oddo’s Home Lending Discrimination Report By Macy Meinhardt VOICE & VIEWPOINT STAFF WRITER “No influx whatsoever of any inharmonious influences,” reads a La Jolla real-estate description produced by the Federal Home Owners Loan Corporation dated back to 1935.
GEORGE STEVENS HOLIDAY BAZAAR
PHOTO: LISC San Diego A 1935 HOLC drawn map of San Diego neighborhoods along with their respective color coordinated ranking. Green: best, blue: still desirable, yellow: definitely declining, and pink: hazardous.
During the mid-1930s, the Federal Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) established neighborhood boundaries based upon resident income levels, race, ethnicity, and housing and land use types. The boundary lines intentionally separated whites from communities of color, pushing the latter into
East of Downtown San Diego, (where much of this demographic still lives to this day). Utilizing this data, investment risk grades ranging from A (Best) to D (Hazardous) were assigned to each designated neighborhood that dictated decades of real estate practices in San Diego. See RACISM page 2
Harvard University President Claudine Gay has drawn national attention over her contentious comments on Capitol Hill a week ago about antisemitism on campus. Many donors, politicians and business leaders demanded her resignation, but Harvard’s board, faculty and alumni have come to her defense. Gay was inaugurated as Harvard president in late September to great fanfare. She is the first person of Harvard President Claudine Gay is pictured. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images color, and the first Black woman, to serve as president of the America’s oldest instiour gates, if this prompts them to look anew at tution of higher learning, making her ascent Harvard, to consider new possibilities for themnothing short of groundbreaking. selves and their futures, then my appointment will have meaning for me that goes beyond words,” Gay said in a December 2022 video “As a woman of color, as a daughter of immigrants, if my presence in this role affirms someannouncing her appointment. one’s sense of belonging at Harvard, that is a great honor. And for those who are beyond See GAY page 2
FDA APPROVES GROUNDBREAKING CELL-BASED GENE THERAPIES FOR SICKLE CELL DISEASE One is the first to use the editing tool CRISPR
By Laura Ungar AP SCIENCE WRITER Regulators last Friday approved two gene therapies for sickle cell disease that doctors hope can cure the painful, inherited blood disorder that afflicts mostly Black people in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration
PHOTO: Courtesy of NNPA
said the one-time treatments can be used for patients 12 and older with severe forms of the disease. One, made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, is the first approved therapy based on CRISPR, the gene editing tool that won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020. The other is made by Bluebird Bio and works differently.
IS HELPING BLACK MOMS OUT FINANCIALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL? By Alexa Spencer WORD IN BLACK A nonprofit and a law firm filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco and the state of California over Abundant Birth Project, an initiative that provides pregnant Black and Pacific Islander San Franciscans
with $1,000 monthly stipends. The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation and the Dallas-based American Civil Rights Project are suing based on a claim that the Abundant Birth Project violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by providing funds exclusively to women of
See DISEASE page 2 are designed to select beneficiaries on a racially exclusionary basis. This is unconstitutional… Defendants’ payment schemes also discriminate unlawfully on the bases of gender/gender identity and sexual orientation,” the lawsuit reads.
color. When passed by the Lyndon Johnson administration, the law ended segregation in public places and forbade employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. “These government-sponsored and publicly funded programs
“Sickle cell disease is a rare, debilitating and life-threatening blood disorder with significant unmet need,” the FDA’s Dr. Nicole Verdun said in a statement announcing the approvals. “We are excited to advance the field especially for individuals whose lives have been severely disrupted by the disease.”
See MOMS page 2
PHOTO: SHVETS production/Pexels
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