Is Mark Ridley-Thomas a roadblock to Black financial independence?

With over 95% of black owned businesses shutout of the federal funding to help their business during this pandemic, our county supervisor is asking for Black elected officials to further cutoff their means of feeding themselves and their families.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas continues to assert himself into issues as a ploy to garner campaign publicity.  Although he began his career as an advocate for civil rights he has turned into a politician hell bent on criminalizing minorities for behaviors he disagrees with.

MRT, as he is known more commonly, is a candidate for Los Angeles City Council only to assure he is in a seat to be more visible to run for mayor of Los Angeles.  Residents see his intentions are to genuinely represent the 10^th District, but to use them as a stepping stone for a higher seat. Residents soundly rejected this by not giving him 50% of the vote.

On issues surrounding homelessness, integrity and tobacco, he has shown he is no friend to poor people.

MRT signed on to criminalize the homeless by supporting legislation to arrest LA County residents for sleeping on public streets.  Although LA County has created some affordable housing, they do so only with those in mind who have some form of income to subsidize the costs.

There has been zero increase of beds in shelters under his watch.

Secondly, he became embroiled in yet another scandal surrounding his son, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, and a dubious contribution to USC School of Social Work, after his son was forced to resign from the state assembly for making unwanted sexual advancements towards women.

Apparently the “values” MRT stands for skipped his son, unless he watches his father engage in the same behavior behind his devoted mother’s back?

Finally, MRT has inserted himself into a hot button issue in the city of Compton as it pertains to a proposed vaping ordinance on this Wednesday’s regular city council agenda.

He is asking Compton to follow in the county’s footsteps and ban vaping and menthol products, preferred by over 80% of Black people.  The proposed Compton ordinances target tobacco retailers, whose primary inventory is tobacco products and/or where 60% of their sales are derived from the product.

While the city is taking steps to enforce social distancing, through the careful distribution of diapers, face masks and food, MRT wants to counter those efforts and create more opportunity for unnecessary contact between constituents and law enforcement over tobacco.

The news regularly shows us the stark differences in how whites are treated vs Blacks during this pandemic, with the latter bearing the brunt of aggressive enforcement, which MRT is apparently unaffected by.

Did our supervisor not see the video of a Rancho Cordova police officer slamming the head of 14-year-old Elijah “Jah” Tufono’s face into the ground for possession of a swisher sweet?  Is this what he wants for the children in Compton?

White elected leaders don’t endanger white smokers or their families.  There are no proposed bans on the sale of cigarettes to their constituents even though some of the same health disparities exist.  Why are our obviously out of touch elected officials carrying out bad public policy?

Compton’s residents primary concern is their crumbling infrastructure, which MRT is clearly oblivious to.

Residents take to social media daily to beg the city to fix their streets and despite passing a higher sales tax in city limits, City Manager Craig Cornwell presented a mid-year budget that moved money from budgeted positions, to street repairs.

How does the city have room to reduce revenue when they too are experiencing catastrophic revenue losses?

What’s most troublesome is MRT, along with other alleged “educators” don’t articulate a need to provide education to children on the impact of smoking.  Nor do they sponsor and/or convene parent groups, to assist with talking to their children on its overall impact on their health.

MRT could end up on the LA City Council and attempt to undo every piece of legislation implemented under Councilman Herb Wesson, who listened to what the people wanted, over his possible personal objections.

Wesson found a way to create a delicate balance for Black people to thrive financially in the city of Los Angeles, despite some public outcry, and MRT is seeking to wreak havoc and take away the people’s right to free enterprise and purchase legal products if they choose to do so, because he needs to keep his name in the news to earn your vote.

Who would think of a menthol cigarette ban, which will increase tenfold black-market cigarettes in our community, better known as “loosies”, now?

The street hand to hand then mouth sale of loosies cigarettes violates every principle of social distancing as directed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). The proposed resolution before the City of Compton will increase COVID-19 community infection rates in the city.  Over 1. 1 million Infected individuals and over 66,000 Americans have died due to COVID-19 with a large number of those individuals being black.

It would create a situation where cigarettes will be taken out of a sealed cigarette package and sold to members of our community with no regard for social distancing, safe packaging, and endanger lives of the black smoker and their non-smoking family members.

When they return home after smoking a tainted cigarette that was sold by a COVID-19 infected individual on the streets level in the City of Compton. MRT and other black elected officials, please don’t implement something on the backs of your constituents. To satisfy those living outside of our community at your wine and cheese reception’s where you collect your big campaign contributions.

Compton residents don’t need MRT regulating what they do in their own homes, including enjoying a cigarette, when he has no control over his own child’s devious behavior.