"Do not be afraid for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord."
Whitney Houston singing Who Would Imagine A King
Deborah Cox at Miss Patty's House singing O Holy Night
Joyful Joyful from Sister Act 2
Mariah Carey Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Friday, December 25, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Michelle Laws on DG Martin Show
Michelle Laws on the DG Martin Show (1360 WCHL) articulating her thoughts on the notion of liberalism and a post-racial society in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
http://wchl1360.com/listenwide.html?showname=dgpodcast
http://wchl1360.com/listenwide.html?showname=dgpodcast
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Text of President Obama's Speech to School Children
Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event
Back to School Event
Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
September 8, 2009
The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Courtesy of the White House
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Eradicating Educational Disparities Is the Civil Rights Fight of the 21st Century
Contrary to what the current educational data on Black children’s achievement suggest, the African American community has always placed a high value on education. From slaves who were beaten for sneaking away to hidden sanctuaries on slave plantations to learn and teach others to read to the Little Rock Nine who suffered physical and verbal abuse to integrate schools following the Brown v. Board decision African Americans have overcome many obstacles and paid a high price to receive an education. Today, this legacy is in serious peril.
President Obama and the President of the NAACP Ben Jealous agree that eradicating educational disparities between Black (and Brown) and White children is the premier Civil Rights fight of 21st Century. In his speech to the NAACP’s 100th Anniversary convention, President Obama spoke these truths:
“…more than half a century after Brown v. Board, the dream of a world-class education is still being deferred all across the country. African American students are lagging behind white classmates in reading and math -- an achievement gap that is growing in states that once led the way in the civil rights movement. Over half of all African American students are dropping out of school in some places. There are overcrowded classrooms, and crumbling schools, and corridors of shame in America filled with poor children -- not just black children, brown and white children as well. The state of our schools is not an African American problem; it is an American problem because if Black and Brown children cannot compete, then America cannot compete. Innovative programs and expanded opportunities will not, in and of themselves, make a difference if each of us, as parents and as community leaders, fail to do our part by encouraging excellence in our children…Government programs alone won't get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mind set, a new set of attitudes -- because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation…We've got to say to our children, yes, if you're African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that somebody in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. But that's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands -- you cannot forget that. That's what we have to teach all of our children. No excuses …To parents we can't tell our kids to do well in school and then fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we have to accept our responsibility to help them learn. That means putting away the Xbox, putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences and reading to our children and helping them with their homework. And by the way, it means we need to be there for our neighbor's sons and daughters.”
On general principle, it’s hard to argue against the President’s appeal to individual responsibility. Like many who are counted among the so-called “Black intelligentsia” or as Michael Eric Dyson refers to them, the “Afristocracy,” which are made up of black professionals and the Black elite (i.e. Bill Cosby, Dr. Alvin Pouissant and Juan Williams to mention the more familiar voices) the President promotes the tenets of the “culture of poverty” theory which shifts the brunt of the responsibility of African American youth’s failure—socially and educationally—to the parents, home environment and individual behavior while downplaying or ignoring the more persistent and pernicious structural influences that block opportunity and encumber achievement. They focus on the outcomes or the symptoms of the problems that have manifested into individual behaviors as opposed to the systemic and structural influences that create and reproduce urban blight, broken families, crime and violence, teen pregnancy, drug use and drug selling, cultural indignities and vulgarities in music and language, and children uneducated and undisciplined. Most of us know that personal responsibility or individual effort alone cannot solve the problems that are plaguing our schools and preventing Black and Brown children from succeeding in our schools.
If we are truly committed to improving the educational achievement of ALL children and equipping them to live out the American dream as competitive and productive global citizens, we have to take an honest assessment of the processes and mechanisms whereby education is used to reproduce social inequality in larger society and create a permanent underclass made up largely of Black and Hispanic/Latino people. We must get back to practicing the principle of collective responsibility. Every adult--whether you have a child in the school system or not, whether you are among the affluent or impoverished, whether you live in the “hood” or in a gated community---should make it a priority to take an active role in helping to improve the academic outcomes of African American and poor children. From mentoring and tutoring a child who is not your own, helping a young single parent rear his or her child correctly, regularly attending local school board meetings to joining and working with the local NAACP—no act is too small or insignificant. The making of history runs on a parallel track with the present. When the final record is written about this generation the question will be where were you and what role did you play in helping to advance the Civil Rights agenda of your era, not how well you knew or how proud you were of the work that others did who went before you.
President Obama and the President of the NAACP Ben Jealous agree that eradicating educational disparities between Black (and Brown) and White children is the premier Civil Rights fight of 21st Century. In his speech to the NAACP’s 100th Anniversary convention, President Obama spoke these truths:
“…more than half a century after Brown v. Board, the dream of a world-class education is still being deferred all across the country. African American students are lagging behind white classmates in reading and math -- an achievement gap that is growing in states that once led the way in the civil rights movement. Over half of all African American students are dropping out of school in some places. There are overcrowded classrooms, and crumbling schools, and corridors of shame in America filled with poor children -- not just black children, brown and white children as well. The state of our schools is not an African American problem; it is an American problem because if Black and Brown children cannot compete, then America cannot compete. Innovative programs and expanded opportunities will not, in and of themselves, make a difference if each of us, as parents and as community leaders, fail to do our part by encouraging excellence in our children…Government programs alone won't get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mind set, a new set of attitudes -- because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation…We've got to say to our children, yes, if you're African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that somebody in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. But that's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands -- you cannot forget that. That's what we have to teach all of our children. No excuses …To parents we can't tell our kids to do well in school and then fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we have to accept our responsibility to help them learn. That means putting away the Xbox, putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences and reading to our children and helping them with their homework. And by the way, it means we need to be there for our neighbor's sons and daughters.”
On general principle, it’s hard to argue against the President’s appeal to individual responsibility. Like many who are counted among the so-called “Black intelligentsia” or as Michael Eric Dyson refers to them, the “Afristocracy,” which are made up of black professionals and the Black elite (i.e. Bill Cosby, Dr. Alvin Pouissant and Juan Williams to mention the more familiar voices) the President promotes the tenets of the “culture of poverty” theory which shifts the brunt of the responsibility of African American youth’s failure—socially and educationally—to the parents, home environment and individual behavior while downplaying or ignoring the more persistent and pernicious structural influences that block opportunity and encumber achievement. They focus on the outcomes or the symptoms of the problems that have manifested into individual behaviors as opposed to the systemic and structural influences that create and reproduce urban blight, broken families, crime and violence, teen pregnancy, drug use and drug selling, cultural indignities and vulgarities in music and language, and children uneducated and undisciplined. Most of us know that personal responsibility or individual effort alone cannot solve the problems that are plaguing our schools and preventing Black and Brown children from succeeding in our schools.
If we are truly committed to improving the educational achievement of ALL children and equipping them to live out the American dream as competitive and productive global citizens, we have to take an honest assessment of the processes and mechanisms whereby education is used to reproduce social inequality in larger society and create a permanent underclass made up largely of Black and Hispanic/Latino people. We must get back to practicing the principle of collective responsibility. Every adult--whether you have a child in the school system or not, whether you are among the affluent or impoverished, whether you live in the “hood” or in a gated community---should make it a priority to take an active role in helping to improve the academic outcomes of African American and poor children. From mentoring and tutoring a child who is not your own, helping a young single parent rear his or her child correctly, regularly attending local school board meetings to joining and working with the local NAACP—no act is too small or insignificant. The making of history runs on a parallel track with the present. When the final record is written about this generation the question will be where were you and what role did you play in helping to advance the Civil Rights agenda of your era, not how well you knew or how proud you were of the work that others did who went before you.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Black America Suffering the Brunt of the Economic Crisis
Black America Suffering the Brunt of the Economic Crisis
There is a saying that when White America catches a cold that Black America gets the flu. If that is true, then what does it mean for Black America when White America catches pneumonia? The harrowing economic crisis and related escalating unemployment rate is perhaps the strongest indicator that America has an acute case of pneumonia and well, African Americans, many are “catching their death” as the old folk used to say.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the national unemployment rate in February 2009 was 8.1. On a state and regional level, North Carolina had the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country, (10.7) following Michigan (12.0), South Carolina (11.0) and Oregon (10.8). According to BLS data, North Carolina reported the largest jobless rate increase from a year earlier (+5.5 percentage points), jumping from 5.2 in February 2008 to 10.7 in February 2009.
On a national level as the economic pandemic continues to spread, efforts to stimulate the economy have been tantamount to quick injections of large amounts of funding into the arms of corporations and financial institutions (some of which may be too sick to save), many people in local communities and towns are waiting to receive what amounts to a teaspoon of emergency relief in comparison. This is especially true for African Americans when it comes to the jobless issue. African Americans aged 16 to 19 had an unemployment rate of 36.5 in January 2009 and 38.2 in February 2009 compared to whites aged 16 to 19 who experienced an unemployment rate of 19.2 in January and 20.5 in February 2009.
The unemployment rate for African Americans aged 20 and over was 12.4 in January and 12.8 in February 2009 compared to 7.3 for whites aged 20 and over in January 2009 and 7.7 for whites aged 20 and over in February. .
When the data are examined by race and gender, the picture portraying how African Americans are faring during these deleterious economic times is even bleaker. The unemployment rate for African American males aged 20 slightly increased in February (16.1) from 15.8 in January 2009 compared to white males (aged 20 and over) who experienced an unemployment rate of 8.3 in January and 9.0 in February. For African American males aged 16 to 19 the unemployment rate was 46.0 in January and 46.2 in February compared to white males aged 16 to 19 whose unemployment rates were 22 and 25.7 in January and February 2009 respectively. .
Women aren’t doing much better which is particularly frightening considering that most have African American women are also single-heads of household. African American females aged 16 to 19 experienced an unemployment rate of 29.1 in January and 30.4 in February 2009. African American women aged 20 and over their unemployment rates were 12.4 and 12.8 in January and February 2009. For both age groups, African American women’s unemployment rate almost doubles that for white women. White women aged 16 to 19, the unemployment rate was 14.7 and 15.4, in January and February 2009 and white women aged 20 years and over, experienced an unemployment rate of 6.2 for both January and February.
Not only are African Americans most likely than any other race/ethnic group to be unemployed but they remain unemployed for longer periods of time. The BLS data substantiates the fact that Black America is suffering the greatest in terms of the jobless situation during these very challenging and discouraging economic times. If there ever was a time in Black America’s history when the relevance and moral conscious of faith and civic organizations was put to the test, the time is now.
In addition to the dismal realities surrounding the economic crisis that our nation and state are currently facing, we must still deal with the record number reentry of ex-offenders back into the community whose very chance of not recidivating hinges on the availability of viable employment among other things i.e. housing and critical health and human services e.g. substance abuse counseling and mental health services. Add to the reentry issue the fact that the clock is continuing to tick away for hundreds of women who must get and keep gainful employment as conditions of their federal and state public assistance under the Temporary Assistance to Need Families requirements, which by the way was one of the more detrimental and poorly developed components of former President Bill Clinton’s “infamous” Welfare Reform laws.
And as if it wasn’t hard enough for certain segments of our population to gain employment that pays a livable wage, the push to the bottom of higher skilled, better educated workers who are seeking and getting jobs at lower skill and pay levels is going to cause an already bad situation to get even worse for low-skilled less educated worker e.g. welfare or TANF worker, ex-offender. Empirical data have shown time and time again that ex-offenders, welfare recipients, workers with long-term unemployment are less likely than any other group to receive job offers and get employment, even during times when the economy is stable or growing, yet alone during times of economic depression or recession.
If Black America is to survive its bout with pneumonia during this economic crisis, we are going to need more than rest and plenty of fluids. Now is the time to exercise political prudence tempered with morality and social justice when it comes to attending to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged populations. Similar to the strategy used by the Red Cross or UNICEF when responding to humanitarian crisis across the globe, we must use our resources to treat those who are the sickest and most vulnerable among us FIRST. We must ensure that those who have the least receive the greatest support and aide. And we must hold our elected officials accountable –from the Governor and state legislators to local bodies of government—to not causing greater harm and calamity by balancing the budget and stimulating our economy on the backs of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations.
There is a saying that when White America catches a cold that Black America gets the flu. If that is true, then what does it mean for Black America when White America catches pneumonia? The harrowing economic crisis and related escalating unemployment rate is perhaps the strongest indicator that America has an acute case of pneumonia and well, African Americans, many are “catching their death” as the old folk used to say.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the national unemployment rate in February 2009 was 8.1. On a state and regional level, North Carolina had the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country, (10.7) following Michigan (12.0), South Carolina (11.0) and Oregon (10.8). According to BLS data, North Carolina reported the largest jobless rate increase from a year earlier (+5.5 percentage points), jumping from 5.2 in February 2008 to 10.7 in February 2009.
On a national level as the economic pandemic continues to spread, efforts to stimulate the economy have been tantamount to quick injections of large amounts of funding into the arms of corporations and financial institutions (some of which may be too sick to save), many people in local communities and towns are waiting to receive what amounts to a teaspoon of emergency relief in comparison. This is especially true for African Americans when it comes to the jobless issue. African Americans aged 16 to 19 had an unemployment rate of 36.5 in January 2009 and 38.2 in February 2009 compared to whites aged 16 to 19 who experienced an unemployment rate of 19.2 in January and 20.5 in February 2009.
The unemployment rate for African Americans aged 20 and over was 12.4 in January and 12.8 in February 2009 compared to 7.3 for whites aged 20 and over in January 2009 and 7.7 for whites aged 20 and over in February. .
When the data are examined by race and gender, the picture portraying how African Americans are faring during these deleterious economic times is even bleaker. The unemployment rate for African American males aged 20 slightly increased in February (16.1) from 15.8 in January 2009 compared to white males (aged 20 and over) who experienced an unemployment rate of 8.3 in January and 9.0 in February. For African American males aged 16 to 19 the unemployment rate was 46.0 in January and 46.2 in February compared to white males aged 16 to 19 whose unemployment rates were 22 and 25.7 in January and February 2009 respectively. .
Women aren’t doing much better which is particularly frightening considering that most have African American women are also single-heads of household. African American females aged 16 to 19 experienced an unemployment rate of 29.1 in January and 30.4 in February 2009. African American women aged 20 and over their unemployment rates were 12.4 and 12.8 in January and February 2009. For both age groups, African American women’s unemployment rate almost doubles that for white women. White women aged 16 to 19, the unemployment rate was 14.7 and 15.4, in January and February 2009 and white women aged 20 years and over, experienced an unemployment rate of 6.2 for both January and February.
Not only are African Americans most likely than any other race/ethnic group to be unemployed but they remain unemployed for longer periods of time. The BLS data substantiates the fact that Black America is suffering the greatest in terms of the jobless situation during these very challenging and discouraging economic times. If there ever was a time in Black America’s history when the relevance and moral conscious of faith and civic organizations was put to the test, the time is now.
In addition to the dismal realities surrounding the economic crisis that our nation and state are currently facing, we must still deal with the record number reentry of ex-offenders back into the community whose very chance of not recidivating hinges on the availability of viable employment among other things i.e. housing and critical health and human services e.g. substance abuse counseling and mental health services. Add to the reentry issue the fact that the clock is continuing to tick away for hundreds of women who must get and keep gainful employment as conditions of their federal and state public assistance under the Temporary Assistance to Need Families requirements, which by the way was one of the more detrimental and poorly developed components of former President Bill Clinton’s “infamous” Welfare Reform laws.
And as if it wasn’t hard enough for certain segments of our population to gain employment that pays a livable wage, the push to the bottom of higher skilled, better educated workers who are seeking and getting jobs at lower skill and pay levels is going to cause an already bad situation to get even worse for low-skilled less educated worker e.g. welfare or TANF worker, ex-offender. Empirical data have shown time and time again that ex-offenders, welfare recipients, workers with long-term unemployment are less likely than any other group to receive job offers and get employment, even during times when the economy is stable or growing, yet alone during times of economic depression or recession.
If Black America is to survive its bout with pneumonia during this economic crisis, we are going to need more than rest and plenty of fluids. Now is the time to exercise political prudence tempered with morality and social justice when it comes to attending to the needs of the poor and disadvantaged populations. Similar to the strategy used by the Red Cross or UNICEF when responding to humanitarian crisis across the globe, we must use our resources to treat those who are the sickest and most vulnerable among us FIRST. We must ensure that those who have the least receive the greatest support and aide. And we must hold our elected officials accountable –from the Governor and state legislators to local bodies of government—to not causing greater harm and calamity by balancing the budget and stimulating our economy on the backs of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations.
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