Thomas Perez: Fighting Discrimination a Top Priority

by James Parks, Jan 22, 2010

Thomas Perez

More than 40 years after Martin Luther King’s death, the nation still has a long way to go to achieve his dream of equality and justice, says Thomas Perez.

In a Point of View guest column at the AFL-CIO site, Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, says if King were alive today, he would be fighting for economic justice:

He would continue his quest for economic justice for all Americans to be able to access the great wealth and promise of our nation….He would urge our nation’s leaders to move forward on health care reform, repeating his painfully accurate observation that “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

He would join with you, and with your fellow workers nationwide, in calling for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act to ensure that workers can stand up for their rights in the workplace.

He would ask the question: If women outnumber men in the workplace, then why are women still fighting for pay equity in the workplace?

The column is excerpted from a speech Perez delivered at the annual AFL-CIO King Day Celebration. Check out the entire column here. 

The son of Dominican immigrants, Perez says discrimination still exists in this country. As if to underscore his point, just this week, Don “Moose” Lewis announced creation of an all-white basketball league to allow white players to play “fundamental basketball,” not the “street ball” played by “people of color,” according to the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. Read the entire article here.

Perez says:

In 2010, we have an African American president. And yet discrimination persists—both blatant discrimination and the dangerously subtle kind—in so many of our institutions, showing up in our schools, in our workplaces, in our health care system, in our financial system. 

He says the Obama administration has made civil rights enforcement a top priority .

We know that the landmark civil rights laws already on the books have holes yet to be filled, and we are working to pursue policies that protect the rights of all individuals.

Perez adds:

There are those who doubt the continued need for civil rights laws, those who will paint their enforcement as controversial. But we will not let them stagnate so that we can avoid such criticism. We are not afraid that we will offend some by protecting and defending the rights of others.

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