Commentary

Dorian Walker, the executive director of Family Survivor Network, told us he went without pay for all of 2020 so his nonprofit could afford to continue delivering services to youth impacted by violence in Baltimore. The reason for Walker’s salary sacrifice? Late payments his organization was owed by the city. Our research shows that payments to nonprofits are frequently delayed a year or more past their original due dates. For a large nonprofit, with reserves and a line of credit, this gap often represents an unplanned bridge-loan to the city. For small ones, like Walker’s, it’s an existential threat.

Americans keep having to learn and relearn the same sorry lesson: Protectionism makes our supply chains less resilient, not more. This may again become painfully evident when tariffs on baby formula return in two weeks. For much of 2022, parents across the richest country in the world struggled to feed their babies. At the worst point of the infant-formula shortage, out-of-stock rates reached 74 percent nationally and 90 percent in a handful of states. Shortages landed some babies in the hospital.

If a Black man runs from the police when they pull into his neighborhood, is that evidence of guilt or a rational act of self-preservation? That is the question before the Maryland Court of Appeals in Washington v. State of Maryland. Given that Black people are killed at higher rates than white people, running from the police is an act of self-preservation. On July 9, 2020, Tyrie Washington was standing in an alley with another person in Northwest Baltimore. Four officers were, according to their testimony, “riding around” to show their presence in a marked police car.

I’ve mourned relatives, students, people from my past. As piercing as some of these deaths have been, it wasn’t until Aug. 21, 2021, that I became someone whose grief is permanent. That day, in the early, still-dark hours, I woke up and saw my mom had called at an even earlier, darker, hour. When I called her back, she delivered the worst news of my life. My 35-year-old brother Tyler had died in a car accident the night before.

Eight years ago, a week before Election Day, I published a column on Center Maryland speculating about who might be getting cabinet positions and other prominent roles in the anticipated administration of Anthony Brown, the Democratic nominee for governor (don’t bother looking for it on Center Maryland’s archives — most of the pieces from that era have vanished). The day after that column appeared, I ran into Ken Ulman, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, at the Montgomery Business Hall of Fame annual luncheon, greeting people as they came in. Ulman praised my column and said I had gotten just about everything right, with one or two notable exceptions. I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Too often post-election pundits can’t help but paint broad brushes of why certain demographics did or did not turn out and why they voted the way they did. When things go wrong for one party or right with the other, the analysis centers on messaging, strategy, and outreach. In Maryland, Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters are too often seen as a monolith. As a result, grassroots or media outreach is rarely comprehensive. Intentional AAPI outreach requires time and effort — candidates and aligned organizations must work with community and business leaders across the AAPI spectrum to pinpoint the issues that are important to this very diverse community. In some districts, it can be the difference between winning and losing.

In early June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests flowered across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, businesses and other institutions rushed to enhance their diversity efforts. Chief diversity officer hires tripled among the largest publicly traded companies, enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion offerings for which U.S. companies paid an estimated $3.4 billion to outside firms that year. What have we achieved with all this effort? In 2022, this question has special significance, as measures to increase diversity and racial equity have come under political attack, often by people who believe those shouldn’t be goals in the first place. But even among people who believe in the basic mission, common questions about diversity training have shifted from “Which training is best?” to “Is the training even a good idea?” and “Does the training have negative effects?”

As Christmas approaches, not everyone is celebrating. American families — hit hard by inflation, wage stagnation and layoffs — must confront another challenge: an expired child tax credit. The program, which provides cash handouts to parents and is vociferously backed by President Joe Biden, has been hailed as instrumental in reducing child poverty. But renewing the child tax credit has proved challenging. Now, with a few weeks remaining before a new Congress takes office, advocates of the child tax credit are pushing for a renewal in an end-of-year tax package. The political pain point comes down to work. Republicans want parental toil in exchange for government cash. Democrats, not so much.