Minorities hit hard by COVID-19. Trump taps SC’s Tim Scott to guide black outreach
Under pressure to help minority groups that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, President Donald Trump directed a White House council focused on revitalizing urban areas to shift its attention to economic disparities in African American communities.
He has tapped Tim Scott of South Carolina — the U.S. Senate’s only black Republican — to help his administration develop a plan.
That plan is still forthcoming, but in an interview with The State, Scott said he would make a presentation at the White House this month that would include “some ideas on ways to address the systemic issues that are confronting vulnerable as well as minority communities.”
Scott is not an official member of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, but he championed the Opportunity Zones initiative that Trump signed into law at the end of 2017.
The program, which provides tax incentives to business owners who make long-term investments in certain designated distressed communities, formed the basis for the council created in 2018 that Trump in April redirected to “focus its effort on supporting underserved communities impacted by the coronavirus.”
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson — the only black member of Trump’s cabinet — leads that council, and Scott said he and Carson and their staffs have been trading ideas for their forthcoming presentation.
Scott said he will call for pouring more resources into expanding “connectivity” in areas of the country that don’t have reliable internet access. The so-called “digital divide” has excluded large swaths of the population from being able to work and learn from home during the pandemic, as well as from benefiting from telemedicine.
He wants the administration to promote policies that help Americans become financially secure enough to be able to buy their own homes, “not necessarily turning over to public housing,” he said.
Scott will also advocate for a federal expansion of the Opportunity Zones model to create more incentives for investors “to take a second look” at putting down roots in distressed communities in what he called the “post-COVID-19 economy.”
His White House presentation will focus on the specific economic needs of the disadvantaged communities most devastated by the economic collapse that being felt everywhere in the country as the pandemic continues, Scott explained.
It will not, he said, address his earlier requests that the Trump administration lead in a national data collection drive to determine the breadth of the racial disparities in the contraction of, and fatalities from, COVID-19.
In black communities, the prevalence of underlying health conditions like diabetes and hypertension are leaving African Americans especially vulnerable. Communities of color face inequities in access to health care, with members of these communities often relying on jobs that require them to go into work to risk exposure.
And in the absence of a national database correlating COVID-19 infections and related deaths by race, some state agencies have begun publishing their own findings, and the statistics so far are bleak.
In South Carolina, the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control has found that 44% of all positive cases of COVID-19, and 53% of all deaths attributed to the virus were among African Americans, who make up approximately 27% of the state’s population.
Scott, who had memorized the latest state statistics, said he expected elected officials — from S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster to Trump — to continue prioritizing data collection and community outreach.
“We’ve seen a healthy reaction to the importance of data collection and communicating to communities of color the importance of social distancing protocols,” Scott said. “I spoke with (Surgeon General) Jerome Adams about these issues as well, and have spoken to a lot of the leading denominations since the Church is such a large part of the African American community.”
He said he was continuing to press for data collection, “but that is a separate track from what the president announced” with the newly-refined council.
‘People are hurting’
The White House will likely face pressure to make data collection a major priority, including from the Congressional Black Caucus and Democratic senators who have requested the information.
Darrell Scott, the CEO of the Urban Revitalization Council who is of no relation to the senator and is close with the administration, said the White House was currently in the midst of collecting racial disparity data.
“We have to make contact with our people nationwide and try to compile as much data as we can,” he said. “Once we get the necessary data, and examine it, we’ll put our heads together and make quality decisions.”
It won’t be “an easy lift,” he conceded.
An outside adviser to the president, Darrell Scott has been in touch with Tim Scott and has meetings scheduled with the White House council.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Carson, in a recent statement, said he “looks forward to continuing the partnership with community leaders, industry, and local governments, with a renewed focus, to help bring our most vulnerable back stronger than ever.”
The Trump administration has been closely scrutinized for its outreach to the black community amid COVID-19, with allies and critics voicing skepticism that the administration has a robust plan to help minorities beyond inviting black leaders to make recommendations.
The scrutiny comes as Trump, in a reelection year, can no longer say that unemployment numbers among African Americans are historically low, with those gains now erased by the pandemic.
And as he struggles with black voter outreach, Trump is now competing against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who on Monday released a six-point plan to help black communities overcome the hardships of the health crisis.
The White House is eyeing the summer for action, one black Republican political operative familiar with conversations taking place said in a text, requesting anonymity to speak freely about internal policy discussions.
But that doesn’t mean the White House knows what actions it will take.
“As you know, one of the oldest games in this town is to set up a commission or committee to buy time because you have no solution to a problem,” the operative said. “This administration doesn’t have that luxury. People are hurting.”
