Having served as the chief of the Detroit Police Department, and after seeing the issues facing our cities and neighborhoods, I can tell you firsthand that President Joe Biden’s policies are devastating our community. Whether it is “Bidenomics” or the crisis at the southern border, the Biden Administration has proven that it will stop at nothing to continue its failed agendas, even if it means turning its back on the Black community. 

The truth is, we are being left behind by Biden’s economic policies. “Bidenomics,” Biden’s label for his $11 trillion in new federal spending for green jobs and infrastructure, has led to lower real wages. Michigan has dropped five places since 2019 in terms of median household income, a Bridge Michigan analysis found, and according to 2022 U.S. Census data, we’re below the national median household income average. In the Black community, we are feeling that pain at the grocery store and at the gas pump. In fact, a poll from October 2023 found that 80% of Black voters have a negative view of Biden’s economy. Hardworking American families everywhere are feeling it, too. But what you may not know is that the Biden Administration’s inflation is hurting Black households more than white households, with 53.7% of Black respondents to a Dallas Federal Reserve Bank survey reporting inflation stress, compared to 43.6% of whites. 

This is only the start. In 2022, five of the 50 most violent cities in the nation were in Michigan, with violent crime increasing higher than the national average, even as the homicide rate dropped faster than the nation. This rise in crime has disproportionately affected Black Americans. And despite the rise in crime, Democrat politicians have been hindering efforts to keep criminals off our streets with anti-police rhetoric, repeated calls to defund the police, and efforts to slash funds from police budgets. With Joe Biden’s border crisis, fentanyl has been pouring into our communities, and Black men are at a higher risk than any other demographic to die from a drug overdose, along with American Indian and Alaska Native men.