Congressional Black Caucus: A Vision for Global Empowerment - Essay Sample

Introduction

The vision of the Congressional Black Caucus is to change the world to a world where all communities have an equal voice in public through economic empowerment, leadership cultivation, and civic engagement (Armstead). The caucus was formed after the realization that the African American community in the United States faced a challenge in the representation of the community in public offices. The caucus seeks to empower the community and other minority groups around the world by empowering the people that can represent the minority groups in parliament and other leadership positions. The Congressional Black Caucus ensure that they facilitate the sharing of information and ideas that can help the challenged communities know how they can represent themselves in leadership positions (Armstead). The organization provides scholarship opportunities to educate young people from such communities for the next generation of leaders. The Congressional Black Caucus empowers communities to ensure they have the right people to represent them.

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The mission of the Congressional Black Caucus is to empower and advance the black community globally through education, informing people what they need to know and developing young leaders for the future generation of leaders (Armstead). The organization has been able to empower many young people into leadership positions where young people have been able to become young leaders in their communities. The young people are taught on the importance of leadership and the roles that they are supposed to play in helping the communities get represented for them to get services from their governments that they pay taxes to (Armstead). The Congressional Black Caucus aims at ensuring all-black communities around the world have equal representations in community organizations and their local government.

The Congressional Black Caucus plays a significant role in addressing challenges affecting the black community, which include HIV-AIDS, reparations, and genocide. African Americans are the most affected by the social challenges; hence the caucus saw the need to deal with the challenges. The Congressional Black Caucus organizes for community meetings to educate the people on how to deal with challenges affecting them. The Congressional Black Caucus funds the community work that is aimed at helping the people deal with the challenges affecting the communities.

African and African Descendant Caucus and World Conference against Racism

The African and African Descendant Caucus is a caucus formed to protect the interests of African descendants by representing them in the United Nations, where they express the challenges affecting African Americans. The causes were formed to address the challenges that African American people faced during the slave trade. The African and African Descendant Caucus focused on stopping the oppression that the local people because of the discrimination based on race. The caucus focused on stopping discrimination. The caucus demanded reparation for the exploitation of African Americans. The African and African Descendant Caucus supported policies that would protect and respect the rights of the African people. The United Nations World Conference against Racism was formed to support the struggle against racism behaviors and ideologies (Norman). WCAR relies on the United Nations to carry its operations. The caucus recommends the United Nations the policies to be legislated to help in the fight against racism.

Difference Between WCA and African and African Descendant Caucus

The difference is the role that the two bodies perform; the two bodies have a different mandate that they fulfill (Norman). The Congressional Black Caucus focuses on empowering the people and communities for the communities to be able to demand equality and their rights while the World Conference against Racism is part of the United Nations body that plays the role of advising the United Nations on policies that can support the fight against racism. The two bodies were created to perform different roles to different target groups.

The other significant difference between African and African Descendant Caucus and the World Conference against Racism is the body behind the caucuses (Norman). The African and African Descendant Caucus is community-based, was it run by community leaders who represent the interests of the community while World Conference against Racism was formed and owned by the United Nations to play the advisory role to the organization on legislative matters that concern the rights of former slaves.

How the Discrepancy is Resolved

The racism discrepancy is resolved by all the stakeholders playing their roles in fighting racism and ensuring that African Americans live comfortably in the United States without discrimination (Norman). The policies made by the United Nations act as a reference point where the African Americans are fighting for the rights and equal opportunities. The African and African Descendant Caucus empowers the local community to demand their rights and equips them with the knowledge and skills that they need to represent their needs.

International Division of Labor

The international division of labor refers to the specialization of countries in different production branches. The specialization can be on specific products or a particular stage of a production process (Norman). This concept suggests that the specialization and spread of markets and production processes globally help in establishing differentiation of economic activities. This creates economic globalization, but not all accept the free trade that is fostered by an international division of labor.

Stephanie Life and Debt's documentary explores the possible reasons why protesters object global economy. He looks at the effects that the International Monetary Fund has on the Jamaican economy (Black). IMF is blamed for the destruction of Jamaican agriculture and the entire economy. Stephanie argues that the International Monetary fund has transformed the Jamaican market flooded with goods from North America. The film best explains the negative effects of free trade.

The globalization of the economy through the international labor division provides cheap labor. Through free trade, a country can export its products to another country and sell it at a cheaper price (Stephanie). This affects the local producers since they cannot compete with external investors. Stephanie explains how the Jamaican market is flooded with subsidized powdered milk from America. This has affected the Jamaican dairy market; therefore, the Jamaicans o not significantly benefit from the international monetary fund or the international labor division.

Policies Implemented To Address These Issues (NAFTA/USMCA, AGOA, Caribbean Basin Initiative)

To address the challenges that emerge from International Labor Division, policies such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative, NAFTA/USMCA, and AGOA have been implemented. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was formed in 1994 by the United States, Mexico, and Canada (Stephanie). This agreement has, however, changed in the Trump administration to United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). USMCA's policy aim is to foster trade between the member countries (Stephanie). There are significant changes regarding the environment, automakers, intellectual property, as well as provisions regarding digital trade (Stephanie). This provision is very significant in areas such as labor and agriculture, especially the dairy market (Lim 4). As per this provision, the country of origin rules, which means that in sectors such as automobile, 75 percent of the components must be manufactured by the member countries. If the majority of the components are manufactured elsewhere, then they cannot qualify for zero tariffs. The labor provisions also favor the workers as they are assured of a job in the automobile industries as well as reasonable pay.

African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is another policy that helps in dealing with issues that arise from international labor division or even the international monetary fund (Stephanie). AGOA was signed by President Clinton in 2000 to foster trade between United States America and Sub Saharan countries. AGOA fosters the economic development of member countries by allowing them to export their goods to the United States duty-free.

Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) is a significant trade program that creates favorable economic relations between the United States of American and the Caribbean countries (Lim 4). The initiative facilitates the duty-free exportation of goods to the United States of America (Black). This is a favorable trade relationship as it benefits all the member countries, and no country can complain that they are taken advantage of by the other. Each member country has an opportunity of developing economically.

Have These Policies Been Successful?

The policies have been successful in guiding human rights activists as they fight for equality of all the communities living in the United States and around the world from discrimination. The policies guide the stakeholders in choosing the right decision to make when conflicting challenges of equality in society.

Works Cited

Armstead, Ron E. "The Role, Accomplishments, and Challenges of the Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust." (2016).

Black, Stephanie. "Life And Debt." Amazon.Com, 2001, https://www.amazon.com/Life-Debt-Michael-Manley/dp/B07GQ8R99D.

Weiss, Norman. "United Nations." The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies (2016): 1-6.

Lim, Kean Fan. "International division of labor." International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology (2016): 1-4.

Stephanie, Black. "Watch Life And Debt | Prime Video." Amazon.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 17 Dec. 2019.