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GOV_jabari-simama

Jabari Simama

Senior Contributor

Jabari Simama is an education and government consultant and a senior fellow with the Center for Digital Government. He served two terms on the Atlanta City Council, from 1987 to 1994; as deputy chief operating officer and chief of staff for DeKalb County, Ga., from 2009 to 2012; and as president of Georgia Piedmont Technical College from 2012 to 2018.

Simama received his bachelor's degree from the University of Bridgeport, his master's degree from Atlanta University and his Ph.D. from Emory University. He is the author of Civil Rights to Cyber Rights: Broadband & Digital Equality in the Age of Obama, published in 2009, and has been a columnist for Creative Loafing and Southwest Atlanta magazine and a feature writer for Atlanta magazine. He blogs at Jabari Simama Speaks.

Joe Biden’s letter announcing his departure from the presidential race is just the latest example of a form of discourse that’s been shaping our politics and society since before our revolution. It still can.
When it comes to public-sector jobs and elective office, age discrimination is real. Governments would do well to tap into the experience and the particular type of intelligence that people of a certain age can bring to bear.
Urban interstate highways displaced hundreds of thousands of households, destroyed neighborhoods and enforced racial segregation, and they continue to harm low-income communities. We need to ameliorate this tragic history.
We need to focus on the need to address the inequalities in our criminal justice system, especially as they impact people of color and the poor.
The numbers don’t seem to support the need for new state laws cracking down on illegal occupancy. There are better things policymakers could do to deal with the larger issues around housing.
Rather than calling in police to remove students and faculty, those who lead our colleges and universities should come out of their offices and let protestors know that they are being heard. It’s about academic freedom.
It’s a problem in urban and rural areas alike, but the greatest impact is in cities where it amounts to “food apartheid.” Our best chance of solving it is to get our communities engaged in creating solutions.
More of today's public officials and candidates should remember the principles that Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues and supporters put their lives on the line for.
They’re showing growing signs of involvement with a variety of political and social concerns. Public leaders need to encourage them.
It’s hard to see recent moves by Georgia’s lieutenant governor as anything more than a Republican strategy to win some elections. But there’s an argument for embracing whatever bipartisanship is offered.