EquityBlog

Today in Sacramento PolicyLink will deliver testimony at the California Assembly Select Committee hearing on the Status of Boys and Men of color to address the critical barriers impacting African American and Latino male youth across the state and the U.S.

Compared to other ethnic groups, young boys and men of color in America are more likely to:

• Have far less access to quality schools, teachers and after-school programs that provide safe spaces to learn and play
• Encounter disproportionately harsh disciplinary and punitive practices and policies
• Experience severely high levels of poverty, joblessness, incarceration, and violence

These statistics reveal a national crisis about which PolicyLink Founder and CEO Angela Glover Blackwell and Maria Echaveste, former Deputy Chief of Staff for President Clinton, had this to say:

“Our convictions derive from on-the-ground observations of what’s happening to the most marginalized, as well as the lived experiences of black men and boys with whom we are intimately familiar.

“We wouldn’t dare let a 10-year-old African American kid leave home in pants sagging way lower than they should; no matter that his white classmates in “cool” Berkeley do the same without being stereotyped or stunted.

“We hear the angst and frustration of a nephew, locked up when he was 16 for committing the sort of crime for which a white teen is remanded to community service: ‘Tia,’ says he, now 30, ‘I’m trying to do better but I can’t get a job. When they hear I have a record …’

“For us, the personal, professional and policymaking are bound together. We are emboldened as mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and advocates by what our kin have endured, even as we push for truly at-risk males from other families of color to get a fairer chance.”

You can read more in today’s Sacramento Bee opinion section.

Thanks for your interest in our new time-lapse map of America’s Tomorrow!

We hope seeing these changes in visual form will help jump-start a real conversation about what these shifts mean for America.

But the map is just the start.

In the coming weeks and months, we will be releasing “America’s Tomorrow: Equity in a Changing Nation” — a multimedia series looking at what these changes mean and talking with the leaders who are making a difference. Join us at www.PolicyLink.org/AmericasTomorrow for more.

Want to be the first to know about more maps and great innovations in low-income communities? Sign up for emails from PolicyLink.

The new March 2011 unemployment numbers are out…and once again the media is hailing a “better than expected ” report.

But a quick look behind the numbers shows that stark inequities remain by race. (For white, black, and Asian data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, click here. For data on Latino households, click here.)

(Note that BLS only supplies data on Asia households not seasonally adjusted)

UPDATE:

Thanks to the inimitable Joan Walsh for pointing out that Latino unemployment rate fell this month, while the black unemployment rate rose slightly.

That got me thinking: what do the racial-recovery trends look like since the economy began showing signs of life back in the fall? Well, it looks pretty interesting. What do you make of these recovery numbers?

Drop: 1.9%

Drop: 0.5%

Drop: 1.0%

Drop: 1.0%

From Pew, very interesting new data looking at Twitter use by race and income. As anybody on Twitter can attest, it has managed to avoid the “early adopter” demographic cage (white, wealthier, male) and create a really diverse personal news outlet.

Check out this data I pulled together in chart form:

On, and this would be a good time to follow us on Twitter! We’re @policylink

H/T Yglesias

UPDATE: Thanks to Erik Weber at the excellent blog Greater Greater Washington for pointing out that the Pew stats refer to “% of Internet users in that demographic.” So, 18% of Latino Internet users use Twitter…that doesn’t mean that 18% of all Latinos use Twitter. There could be some noise skewing the data (ie. Young Latinos could make up a disproportionately large share of all Latino Internet users, meaning their higher relative rate of participation could be due more to age than race). The graph tries to make that clear, but we wanted to make that explicit. As always, these studies are good to get an overall sense of what’s happening, but should be treated as snapshots. From our Twitter feed, though, it sure feels like a far more diverse space than many online outlets. Thanks, Erik!

Last night’s election doesn’t change the reality of America’s future. Without a focus on equity, the future is bleak — no matter who’s in office.

Even as we navigate a difficult political environment, we must remember that equity is crucial to our nation’s fortunes in the decades ahead.

To compete in the 21st century economy, we must create an America where all people are enlisted and empowered to push our economy forward.

Just as our physical infrastructure is crumbling, so, too, is our community infrastructure — the people and places that make America. We need investments in health and housing and education that strengthen all communities, especially the ones that have been left behind for decades.

Simply, equity is the superior growth model.

For the final week of the Race and America’s Future Virtual Book Club, we look at how to ensure growth is equitably felt in all communities. Today’s starter questions.

People of color will be the American majority by 2050. What would a truly equitable America look like in 2050?

How do we make that America a reality?

Thank you to the more than 5,000 people who have visited the book club over the past six weeks — and the hundreds who have shared their thoughtful perspectives on race and America’s future.

The hunger for this type of conversation was clear. If you want to help us figure out what’s next for this effort, please comment (with a valid email address) down below.

Thank you for participating,
Angela Glover Blackwell

Real change requires leaders who are deeply connected to the lives of those they serve.

But, too often, the stellar work of grassroots leaders in communities of color is not lifted up to spark meaningful national change.

In this age of deep and complex policy challenges,  what makes a good leader? In the book, we write that a 21^st Century leader should be “a problem solver, a lifelong learner, and an ethical example to others” with “a penchant for action and a commitment to reflection and collaboration.”

For Week 5 of the Race and America’s Future Virtual Book Club, we look at the direction of new leadership in America. Today’s starter questions:

Who is the best leader you know? What qualities make her or him a great leader?

How do we prepare the next generation of leaders to build and sustain a fully inclusive nation?

What lessons on leadership have you learned in the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections?

We look forward to your comments in this week’s conversation.

– Stewart Kwoh

We know that the challenges facing all Americans are often felt even more acutely in communities of color – from the obvious (immigration, education, incarceration) to the less obvious (metropolitan growth, climate change).

In our changing nation, these challenges may be different, deeper and more complex than the questions of overt discrimination that occupied attention in an earlier era.

For Week 4 of the Race and America’s Future Virtual Book Club, we look at some of the urgent challenges facing our communities. Today’s starter questions:

How do we better integrate immigrants equitably into the American economy and civic life?

How can communities of color work together to bring down the sky-high incarceration rate, especially among boys of color?

Where you live often has the biggest impact on your access to opportunity. How can we focus on the necessary work of improving entire regions without losing sight of the particular challenges facing low-income communities?

Thank you for joining the conversation today.

–Manuel Pastor

The national economic debate has focused on the divide between Main Street and Wall Street. But nobody seems to talk about the crisis on Martin Luther King Boulevard and Cesar Chavez Avenue.

Last week’s unemployment numbers show the depth of economic crisis in communities of color. The jobless rate among blacks is nearly double that among whites (16.1% versus 8.7%). More than one in four Latinos now live in poverty. The recession is not colorblind.

For Week 3 of the Race and America’s Future Virtual Book Club, we look at how race and the economy interact. Today’s starter questions:

1. What do you think explains the persistent economic gap between white people and people of color?

2. What would you like to see President Obama do to address the economic needs of people of color?

Thank you for joining the conversation today.

– Manuel Pastor

Today’s new unemployment numbers were ambiguous enough to give each side of the political debate something to chew on. Overall, payrolls fell by 95,000 jobs, thanks to cuts in local government and federal Census jobs. But private sector hiring actually increased by 64,000 jobs.

But this macro-scale look at the problem obscures the real, continuing, and terrible disparities between and among demographic groups. You can read the details here, but the chart should tell it all:

This week’s discussion focuses on Chapter 2 of Uncommon Common Ground, entitled “Color Lines: Growing and Accepting Diversity.” (Read an excerpt here)

Here are some questions to help kick-start the discussion:

1. In the book, we argue the black-white paradigm is the fundamental and defining element in understanding race in America. Do you agree? How does it fit the experience of other people of color — and what does it miss?

2. Given the diversity within Latino and Asian Pacific communities, does it make sense to even use the broad “Latino” and “Asian” categories? What’s gained and what’s lost?

Thank you again for joining.

–Stewart Kwoh

Co-author, Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future