RaceWire

Native Leaders Speak to Washington

2009-11-07T06:36:54Z

When it comes to upholding promises to native communities, Washington will never fully atone for its abysmal track record over the past few centuries. But on Friday, President Obama did at least make good on one pledge he made during his campaign: a summit with tribal leaders to start a national dialogue on the needs and entitlements of indigenous peoples.

The Tribal Nations Conference didn't lay out any policy changes, but Obama's speech was a stirring acknowledgment of long-neglected social crises surrounding Indian country, including poverty, substandard living conditions, and political marginalization.

The meeting mostly carried symbolic meaning for indigenous peoples long excluded from the corridors of power.

Victor Merina of Reznet reports:

While stopping short of any timetable, Obama indicated that the tribal summit was just a start.

In his talk, Obama said he understood such skepticism and that few people have been more marginalized and ignored by Washington as Native Americans.

"We know the history that we share," he said. "It's a history marked by violence and disease and deprivation. Treaties were violated. Promises were broken. You were told your lands, your religion, your cultures, your languages were not yours to keep. And that's a history that we've got to acknowledge if we are to move forward."

Ivan Posey of Wyoming's Wind River Reservation told Reznet, "People were fearful this would be a one-shot deal. I've seen it happen before, but I think this is different."

For now, however, native groups are being asked, as always, to be patient as Washington tries to hammer out a plan for meeting the needs of abandoned communities. The administration has set a 90-day timeline to set up a strategy for implementing a dormant Clinton-era executive order, which mandates "regular and meaningful consultation and collaboration."

Key issues on the agenda include revamping Indian Health Services, fostering renewable energy development on native lands, and school funding. Participants also highlighted challenges relating to climate change, land rights, high suicide rates, and crumbling infrastructures in native communities.

Following the speech, the exchange between the President and the audience was a microcosm of the ongoing dialogue that activists must maintain in the coming months. In response to Obama's eloquent words, Vice President of the Navajo Nation sounded a note of caution:

...the thing I'm worried about is the end of the term and what happens with all the plans that we're going to be putting together with your administration -- our administration. I supported you, and Navajo Nation did. What happens to all of that?

I really don't want to stand here and complain about we've been lied to again. Through the histories of all Indian Tribe -- the treaty that were made between the United States and Indian Tribe, it's been broken a lot. How can we make it so solid that it stays there, no matter who, what administration comes in? I think we need to work on that, sir.

Native leaders know all too well that individual leaders are mere footnotes in a history of racism, violence and disenfranchisement. Conflicts between colonizers and natives predate the founding of this country and will most certainly extend beyond the end of Obama's presidency. Indigenous communities are right not to stake too much on this initial exchange, but they now have a chance to set the tone for a conversation that could last generations.

Image: Barack Obama in Crow Agency, MT last May, via flickr

Who Gets Blamed for Maine Losing Gay Marriage?

2009-11-06T22:24:30Z

By Kalpana Krishnamurthy

This blog post originally appeared on the Western States Center blog.
Let me first admit, it's taken me a day to recover. The loss in Maine on Question 1 is painful to me; I had hoped that New England would become a bastion of support for marriage equality. I also hoped that we would win our first ballot based victory on same sex marriage. Doing so in Maine would have given me hope that it's possible here in our region, which is also dominated by a ballot measure process that's been used as a weapon against the LGBTQ community. But Maine might offer some hope, right?

So the loss is big for me. And it got me thinking. Because the second I heard we lost, I began to wait for the inevitable backlash. The naming and blaming of communities. The "whose fault is it" that we lost.

Why, you ask? Because the fallout from Prop 8 in California was horrific. Within hours of the polls closing, we were hearing armchair analysis from pollsters, California power players, and (my personal favorite) sex columnist Dan Savage that blamed California's communities of color. The same group that had helped to elect Barack Obama was blamed for its homophobia and accused of not standing for social justice and for ruining the progressive movement's moment in the sun.

And the sad reality is that most people believed the hype. We believed it because it plays into our cultural stereotypes that people of color are more homophobic, more religious, and more willing to stand for a person of color (Barack) than for the gay community.

Now we have Maine rejecting marriage equality. The results in Maine, a state that is 95.3% white, make it clear that we can't blame the people of color who live there. So who do we blame? My hunch is that rural white voters are on the hook. But the blame placed on rural white voters will be very different in its tenor and tone than Prop 8.

Blaming rural white voters for their perceived conservatism, religiosity, and class difference will inevitably occur as we look at what happened to Question 1 in Maine. But how we as progressives deal with it will be interesting to watch -- because rural white voters in Maine will not be blamed for their whiteness, they will not be called out for abandoning a civil rights struggle, and they will not be accused of prioritizing their whiteness over their straightness. All of which happened in the analysis of the Prop 8 fight.

I think the post election analysis is important - it helps us figure out what happened, what messages worked, what techniques for engagement worked. But too often, the story that gets told in the first few days only reinforces our beliefs about voters, reveals a thin racial justice analysis, and is incredibly difficult to change once it's out in public.

Kalpana Krishnamurthy is the Gender Justice Program and RACE Program Director at Western States Center.

Report Shows Asian Business Owners Really Do Face Discrimination

2009-11-06T19:11:12Z

Oh yes, it's true. A group of fancy researchers have now said it: Asians face race discrimination in government business contracts.

A UCLA study found that Asians get the fewest local, state and federal contracts through government minority business programs. The study, commissioned by the Asian American Justice Center, focuses on San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta to get a picture of what happens in metropolitan areas and national trends. The researchers told the Northwest Asian Weekly that they also found that:

-- Korean Americans have the highest self-employment rate among Asian Americans, but they still do not earn as much as their non-Latino white counterparts, even after controlling for education and other characteristics.
-- Controlling for other factors, race still affects differences in self-employment rates, earnings potential, and incorporation rates.

-- Racial discrimination has created a significant barrier for Asian Americans to enter social networks, where contracting deals often originate and close.

The issue of race discrimination against Asian business owners runs so deep that in 2003, they were excluded from Chicago's Minority Business Enterprise program, run by the state of Illinois. The reason? There wasn't enough evidence to conclude that Asian business contractors really do face racism. After a series of testimonies and quantitative data put together by advocacy groups and researchers, the program finally agreed that there really is racism against Asians. Shocker!

The study will be released in the next couple of weeks.

Shoshana Johnson Wins CNN While Being Female, Black, Herself [VIDEO]

2009-11-06T18:59:41Z

Comparing this data (from Media Metters' Cable Diversity report):

to this empirical evidence:

... we can see clear benefits to white males in keeping women and people of color off the air.

for those of you without audio: Crooks and Liars has a transcript, but here's perhaps the best evidence of an inter-guest disparity in news awareness:

TOM KENNIF: I spent a year in Iraq, ma'am. Have you ever been to Iraq?
SHOSHANA JOHNSON: I'm a POW. I got shot.

Seriously, it's great to see this -- Specialist Johnson speaks here with authority and experience, without "minding her manners" or "acting CNN." In doing so, she's providing a terrific antidote to the MSM's compulsion to give 'equal time' to even the most unqualified of opposing viewpoints.

More qualified talking heads, please. In the wake of the Fort Hood tragedy, it's vital for CNN, Fox News, and liberal ol' MSNBC to start putting more, or any, Arab-American faces and voices in front of the cameras.

South Los Angeles Residents Being Forced to Buy Unnecessary Flood Insurance

2009-11-06T16:23:51Z

Hundreds of Los Angeles area home owners are being forced to buy unnecessary flood insurance with steep fees. Why? Because FEMA, using 40 year-old maps, has declared their neighborhoods as flood zones. The city could have intervened, but they failed to act.

One of the areas hardest hit is South Los Angeles, which is predominantly made up of low-income Black and Latino residents. South L.A. is 10 miles away from the nearest ocean and 7 miles away from the nearest river and hasn't seen a flood since the 1920's when the homes were built, yet residents with federally backed home mortgages are being forced to buy high-risk flood insurance that starts out at $900.00 a year.

All of the South L.A. residents affected could appeal FEMA's decision but the process cost homeowners more than $1,200 upfront and many of them don't have it so they're forced in to buying flood insurance on monthly payment plans so they can keep their homes.

South L.A.'s Black and Latino residents are disproportionately affected because they can't afford to appeal. In the neighboring and more affluent West L.A area home owners who can afford to appeal are doing so and are able to avoid having to buy flood insurance.

Watch the SoCal Connected investigation above.

Fort Hood Rampage: Don't Let Tragedy Bring More Tragedy

2009-11-06T02:02:41Z

Today 12 people lost their lives when a US army psychologist and two other men opened fire inside the Fort Hood military base in Texas. It is was an horrific act and our hearts and thoughts are with the families of those who were murdered.

As we respond, we must categorically resist voices of suspicion and reaction so that this tragedy does not bring more tragedy. That the shooter's name sounds Muslim will offer those who thrive on fear an opportunity to pounce. We reject the impulse to assume that the shooter's name means anything about his motivations, that being Muslim or being perceived as such makes someone dangerous. A hideous crime was committed. Let's make the attacks end there.

The Washington Redskins Keep Losing Because I Cursed Them

2009-11-05T17:57:54Z

By Alec Dubro

Ever since I moved to DC in 1993, I’ve hated my home town NFL team. For 18 years I lived in the Bay Area and got to root for the Raiders and the 49ers when both were Super Bowl winners and contenders. Then I moved to New York and watched the Giants win a few. Well, the miserable Washington Redskins didn’t lose this past Sunday, but that’s only because they had the weekend off. They probably needed some time to reflect. So far this year they lost to the Lions, who had lost 19 in a row, and to the Chiefs who were winless this season. Their only two victories this year were against St. Louis and Tampa Bay who had a combined record of 0-10.

The bye week gives the local media even more time to speculate, fulminate and despair about a team valued at $1.5 billion thrashing about the league’s nether regions. Every conceivable and generally furious reason for the Redskins’ failure is advanced and argued over, but in truth, no one knows why they’re such losers.

I do. Because I could barely get myself to say the plainly racist word, “Redskins,” about six years ago, I cast a curse on the team. Over the years the curse has just gotten stronger and more baffling to the team and its desperate fans. It’s really working well.

I resorted to a combination of Yoruba and Yiddish curses because Washington fans wouldn’t listen when presented with a real grievance. For years, Native Americans and their supporters had pointed out that the team name was a throwback to a time when openly racist words could be used with pride. More than one observer noted the irony of black Redskins fans flaunting a name which is the equivalent of the "n-word." It was a term of contempt based solely on the perceived color of a whole people. You would think that as a Jew, team owner Daniel Snyder would be sensitive to racial slurs, but no, he just spends his millions and wonders why he can’t buy his team out of the cellar.

Fans fought back, saying "redskin" was a neutral word and that they were honoring the people who we had cheerfully eradicated from the Chesapeake Bay area. Someone came up with a poll proving that American Indians thought the word Redskin was OK by them. Every other poll taken on the subject showed otherwise, but the fans and the ownership chose to ignore them. The truth is, most people know that the name Redskins is racist, but they don’t want to admit they’ve been wrong. They attack the messengers, calling them politically correct or marginal activists.

Of course football fans, as a group act really dumb--that’s one of the joys of the sport. But in this case they’re carrying it too far, and ignoring the obvious curse on their collective heads.

Well, they’re paying the price. They’ll continue to lose as they cast around for someone to blame it on: owners, coaches, players, the media. But it’s of no help. Unless and until they ditch the racist name, Washington’s pro football team won’t ever compete without the added burden of my powerful curse.

From August to December, cars roar around DC with Redskins flags flapping in the breeze; large Redskins sweatshirts and jackets hang over potbellies; and Fed-Ex Field fills up with season ticket holders and is engulfed in the smoke of tailgate parties. But, as the curse takes hold, you see less and less of the paraphernalia, and for the first time in decades you see lots of empty seats as fans become unwilling to endure such humiliation.

But at least I know that I’m the one who brought the pain of justice to the defenders of racism. It’s not as much fun as winning the Super Bowl, but it’ll have to do.

Alec Dubro is a contributor to ColorLines and lives in Washington, D.C.

The Weekly Diaspora: Immigration Impacts Everything

2009-11-05T17:20:15Z

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

While many pundits and political analysts are musing about what Tuesday's mixed bag election results mean for Obama administration, New America Media reports that "there's another trend to watch; the surprising prominence of immigration politics."

Even in states where other concerns "like small farms and forestry management" are far more immediate, "immigration has become a litmus test issue for the conservative movement," and the expectation is, oddly, a "lockstep" goal toward opposing legalization. One has to wonder how the self-destructive choice to oppose immigration at any cost came about.

ColorLines' Leticia Miranda asks "What's next?" now that the infamous Hutto immigration detention center, notorious for myriad human rights violations such as keeping children in prison-like conditions, is closing. Detainees are simply being moved to another detention center in Pennsylvania. So how will we know that substandard conditions and alleged sexual abuse will not be repeated? The problem is not location. The problem is that a class of people have been isolated and assigned lesser worth. making it easy to exploit them. Still, the closing of Hutto is an accomplishment for the ACLU and other activists that worked so hard to make it happen. It's also a sign that our nation will not tolerate such conditions.

Another positive sign of progress is the reversal of what the Washington Monthly dubbed "a senseless ban" that prohibited HIV-positive individuals from migrating or traveling to the US. Author Steve Benen notes that progress in overturning the ban, which was imposed by the Reagan administration 22 years ago, began with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and then-Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-OR) in 2008.

In negative news, the anti-immigration group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) have released a bizarrely antagonistic press release calling Rep. Gutierrez (D-IL) a "traitor," as The Washington Independent reports. The full press release is here. In it, William Gheen, President of ALIPAC, happily warns that ALIPAC is "ready to organize and channel the backlash wave of anger that is coming into peaceful civic action" and for no apparent reason, employing a Dirty Harry quote beseeching an unnamed person to "Make my day, punk!" People like Gheen and Lou Dobbs are forever talking about a culture war and are obviously not interested in human beings.

It is far too easy to get the same impression about the Department of Homeland Security's Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Reporting on an Associated Press analysis of previously undisclosed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Wiretap declares ICE to be "critically flawed, replete with agents who have badly bungled ongoing cases." This includes "covering up crimes and even interfering in a police investigation into whether one informant killed another." The list of ICE's violations of the public trust include "soliciting sex from witnesses, letting informants smuggle undocumented folks, sexual relationships with informants" and using their position improperly to accrue "personal gain."

As author M. Junaid Levesque-Alam makes clear, any agency will develop some degree of corruption that must be rooted out. But the dangers increase when you empower an agency "specifically created to target the vulnerable" with federal authority and weapons, all the while calling this population "illegal aliens."

Also in Wiretap, Jamilah King reports on San Francisco's ongoing battle with Mayor Gavin Newsom regarding when deportation proceedings should be initiated against youth that have bee arrested but not tried for a crime. The city recently voted that juveniles accused of crimes must actually be convicted before they are deported.

Oddly, even in the face of "crowds of people gathered at city hall to celebrate the board's decision to overturn" the "draconian mandate," Newsom vetoed the change last Wednesday. Supervisor David Campos responded to the veto by saying it was a "sad day for San Francisco" and that Newsom had "chosen to be on the wrong side of history on this issue." King reminds us, however, that Newsom's move is toothless. The Board of Supervisors had enough votes to override his veto.

Deportation is a serious issue. Last week the Diaspora featured "Torn Apart" ColorLines' web-only series on deportation's effects on families of color. Free Speech TV has posted an alert to protect families from deportation. It includes a link with actions you can take to help.

Finally, as The Real News reports, Mexico is offering amnesty to all undocumented immigrants within its borders, be they from the US or other nations (video below). Juan Ignacio Pedroza, Migratory Regulations Official for Mexico, makes clear why the country is making such a move. The government of Mexico sees immigrants as an economic boon, and wants to offer them a path to citizenship so that they can contribute and be part of the social fabric.

Mexico is an older nation and surely imperfect. But this decision demonstrates wisdom about how a people can come together that we might learn from here in the US.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

The Right to Live Again

2009-11-05T17:15:56Z

After a three-judge court panel ordered California to cut the prison population by roughly 40,000 prisoners, local and state lawmakers ran to protect public safety. What did that mean? Barring formerly incarcerated people from coming home and entering rehabilitation programs.

Leticia Miranda investigates the effects of taking resources away from rehabilitation programs for people inside and outside of prison through the story of Michelle Freeman who managed to transform her life with the help of a local San Bernardino organization. From the article:

But as Freeman now approaches her four-year anniversary of sober living outside of prison, San Bernardino is enacting a city ordinance barring the establishment of new transitional homes for parolees, probationers and sex offenders.
"We can’t feed our families. We can’t get a job. Without the establishment of new group homes, what are we going to do?" asks Freeman, now project coordinator and health policy advocate with A Time for Change.

San Bernardino’s ordinance comes as a federal court has ordered California to devise a plan to reduce prison crowding. As a result, prisons may soon be releasing more people from the system even as the state threatens to cut back the very programs former inmates need to stay out of prison.

Read the rest of the story here at ColorLines.com.

It's Official: Walmart Is Trying Too Hard to Win Latinos. Lady de Guadalupe Coffins, Anyone?

2009-11-05T08:34:03Z

This isn't a joke.

Walmart is trying really hard to win the Latino dollar. Last year, Walmart was the number 3 advertiser in Spanish-Language Media in the U.S. Earlier this year they started opening 'Supermercados de Walmart', stores with a "new lay-out, signing and product assortment designed to make them even more relevant to local Hispanic customers." And just in time for Dia de los Muertos, the Lady de Guadalupe coffin:

Made of Superior Grade 18-gauge steel, Lady de Guadalupe's exterior is hand-painted by experienced craftsman in an exquisite slate blue metallic color, complemented with individual appliqués of the Lady de Guadalupe.

New York's Elections Mostly Blah, with a Little Chutzpah

2009-11-05T04:43:05Z

The reaction of many New Yorkers to Tuesday's election results was probably something along the lines of, "eh." Billionaire Michael Bloomberg predictably snared a third term as Mayor—hardly surprising, following his astronomical spending blitz and an unpopular (some say authoritarian) overturning of the city's term-limits law. Democratic incumbents generally stayed put. Other victories had been all-but-sealed in last month's Democratic primaries.

But if you read a little deeper into the returns, some interesting demographic angles emerge. You might even read the results as a narrative of racial “cross-over.” Mayor Bloomberg is a rich white guy leading an intensely diverse city, after all. But the third time was not the charm.

Bloomberg's opponent Bill Thompson, a black politician who served as comptroller and a leader on the now-dismantled Board of Education (which was scrapped as part of “mayoral control” school reform), lost by a shockingly slim margin—given the fact that his campaign spending probably amounts to just one-tenth of the mogul Mayor's estimated $100 million war chest.

The Associated Press reports that Thompson drew heavy support from communities of color, signaling growing polarization:

Thompson ran up huge margins in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, winning by a 3-to-1 margin in some districts.

He beat Bloomberg handily in predominantly black neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn and Jamaica in Queens. He won Harlem and East Harlem easily, along with other heavily Hispanic districts in upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

By contrast, Bloomberg won easily on Staten Island, which has a much larger white population. He also fared better in Manhattan, particularly on the Upper East Side, where he lives.

Bloomberg's persona may have alienated communities hard-hit by the recession and increasingly disillusioned with the city's rapid gentrification. The New York Times says Bloomberg's gilded image has lost its shine in struggling neighborhoods:

In past elections, the romance of his money and competence was enough to help him carry working-class, heavily minority districts. But he appears to have lost many of those neighborhoods Tuesday.

Councilman James Sanders, who represents a predominantly black area of southeast Queens, was one of a number of black officials to endorse Mr. Bloomberg in 2005. This time, with some reluctance, he went for Mr. Thompson.

“There was this imperial attitude, a prerogative that he favors the rich,” Mr. Sanders said. “ And term limits stuck like a bone in the throats of many out here. They’re hurting: foreclosures, taxes, and they don’t like his attitude.”

In contrast to last November's elections, race was more of a subtext than a flashpoint in the city races. When Rudy Giuliani, with typical totalitarian flair, suggested that a win for Thompson would return the city back to days of epidemic crime, Bill de Blasio (who himself has stoked racial tensions by featuring his mixed-race family in his campaign ads) called out the former Mayor's "veiled race baiting."

And Washington's coattails didn't stretch as far as some Black politicians had hoped. Ben Smith at Politico writes, "Obama’s late, weak backing did little to soothe irritation among New York’s black leaders that the first black president - who had already tried to torpedo the state’s floundering African-American governor [David Patterson] - kept the African-American mayoral candidate at such a distance."

Aside from the campaign-trail bumps, the elections have brought race to the fore in more nuanced ways. For the first time, people of color make up the majority of the City Council, reports the Daily News. Community activist Margaret Chin became the first Chinese-American city council member to represent Chinatown. John Liu has made his mark as the first Asian-American citywide elected official.

So after Election Day, even if Gracie Mansion remains in the grip of Bloomberg's urban gentry, the city government is starting to look more and more like, well, real New Yorkers. While less dramatic than last November's Obamania, the subtle race consciousness expressed at the polls has gently reshaped the way New York is represented, and slowly but surely, will change the way the city is run.

Image: City Comptroller John Liu (DelMundo for NY Daily News)

Five Steps to Win Same-Sex Marriage

2009-11-04T20:56:03Z

I've been critical of the failures of the same-sex marriage movement before (see “I Don’t Want Marriage, I Want Equity”) and the single-minded isolationism that it has driven into the contemporary LGBT movement toward (see “Yes Marriage, No Justice”).

Now I’m just angry and sad, even though it appears as if Washington is going to expand its domestic partnership law. But regarding Maine (and California last year) I’m not even going to tout the usual “loss for the same-sex marriage movement is a loss for us all” line that I’m sure a lot of people will be saying today, because I don’t believe it anymore. How I really feel is like Dap at the end of School Daze, and the same-sex marriage movement is debuting as Half-Pint. WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

If the campaign to support same-sex marriage wants to win, it needs to revisit the roots of the LGBT movement, not continue down its current path. In this spirit, I offer five things that need to change in the LGBT movement, and specifically the same-sex marriage movement.

1) Re-engage on issues that affect everyone: If you want people to care about your issues, care about theirs. It’s really hard to get anyone to think about same-sex marriage in anything other than the most abstract terms when household incomes are declining, and people are losing jobs and healthcare.

2) Engage in meaningful dialogue about racism. People of color are not another “issue” for LGBT organizations to include, they’re people and communities. Stop treating racism clinically and start treating it holistically. It’s not enough to say that as Queer folks, we care about racism because some of ours are people of color. The LGBT movement needs to change its racial analysis from an interpersonal perspective to a structural perspective.

3) Change the face of the LGBT movement. White folks are everywhere in the leadership and visible positions. ‘Nuff said.

4) Go back to the basics. Stop believing in the power of celebrity endorsements and multimillion dollar fundraisers. President Obama won not because Oprah said he’d be a good president, but because he did a significant amount of fundraising from individuals across the country. And this fundraising became a communications vehicle for his campaign that allowed his campaign to meet people where they’re at. Do we ever hear about what the LGBT community is doing in the rest of the world except when it wants to talk about same-sex marriage?

5) Live young, be young, lead young. Young people in the United States face a myriad of challenges, whether they’re gay or straight. By understanding these challenges, partnering with the next generation of youth leadership, elevating youth leadership in the movement and caring about the issues that tomorrow brings, the LGBT movement will make friends and allies that can help carry our concerns over the next 40 years.

Las Vegas: Rinku Sen Speaking at Living Without Borders Encuentro

2009-11-04T20:34:40Z

If you’re going to be in and around Las Vegas this weekend, and are interested in learning more about protecting immigrant rights, easing restrictions on labor movement, and dismantling oppressive divisions that affect immigrant communities, stop by the Living without Borders encuentro at the University of Las Vegas Nevada.

Rinku Sen, Executive Director of the Applied Research Center, and the co-author of The Accidental American, will be giving a keynote speech at UNLV on building autonomous communities within the context of border control, immigration reform and globalization at 4pm on Sunday, November 9th.

Rinku will be signing copies of The Accidental American as well; copies will be available for sale at event.

Check out the conference agenda and register online today.

photo credit Abigail Campbell.

Racing Recovery: The Need for Race, Gender, and Geographic Tracking of Recovery Monies

2009-11-04T17:44:45Z

By Christina Chen

Last Friday the government provided its first comprehensive look at how and where a significant chunk of recovery dollars are being spent. The Administration, in characteristic Obama fashion, hung a lantern on its problems by acknowledging that the data is not perfect, and that the figures (most notably, the 640,329 being bandied around as the amount of jobs “saved or created” by direct stimulus funding) account for only a small portion of the Recovery Act’s impact.

Setting aside the more obvious issue of whether ARRA is spurring genuine growth, it is important to recognize that the Act is the most transparent spending bill ever legislated. The data released last week on Recovery.org, the Administration’s official repository for all things ARRA, reflects the roughly 121,000 reports filed by the direct recipients of stimulus grants and contracts. These reports offer descriptions of the status and nature of stimulus-funded activities, as well as projections of the jobs that projects have purportedly retained or created.

The data (quite conspicuously) fails to render a clear snapshot of how ARRA is impacting economically distressed communities of color. The breadth of recipient reporting has been extensive, but the data is shallow. Recipients are not required to report the gender, race, or residential zip codes of ARRA-funded workers. As Yvonne Yen Liu and Terry Keleher explain in the Applied Research Center’s forthcoming “Green Equity Toolkit: Standards and Strategies for Advancing Race, Gender, Economic Equity in the Green Economy," this data is critical in gauging whether communities of color are accessing ARRA-allotted resources in an equitable manner.

Although recovery.gov offers an interactive map that allows visitors to search projects by zip code, we can’t be sure if that money remains within the community, as the prospect of workers and contractors from neighborhoods outside of their work sites is likely.

So how can equity advocates work toward implementing a fair and inclusive recovery? Organizations like ARC are pushing for racial and gender-explicit data reporting. We are demanding, for instance, that local governments collect data on the wages and benefits earned by people of color and women- so that the public can determine whether these groups are receiving high quality jobs. With this type of extensive tracking in place, our communities can fight for a more equitable recovery.

Even without these additional reporting categories, sifting through the current data is no easy task. One key area of confusion is the tricky math around job estimates. The reports cover only $160 billion of the $340 billion ARRA funds that have been obligated as of September 30th. The Administration has been quick to beat its critics to the punch by explaining that four significant categories of ARRA spending associated with jobs-- funds for safety net programs (i.e. unemployment insurance, food stamps, and temporary welfare payments), small business loans (of which the ever modest Vice President claims to have produced “tens of thousands of jobs”), tax credits, and indirect employment--are omitted in this round of reports. The last category has proven to be the most contentious; stimulus spending generates a multiplier effect, creating and preserving indirect jobs that are often the most difficult to quantify (for instance, the person who mans the cash register at a grocery store frequented by the ARRA-funded workers of a turbine plant nearby).

The process of measuring jobs created gets even trickier because of the convoluted math involved. Job units are not measured via simple headcounts; to distinguish a worker’s ARRA-funded hours from those compensated by another source, the OMB (download pdf) instructed recipients to calculate jobs by dividing the total hours worked on an ARRA funded project by the number of full time hours in a quarter. As ProPublica points out, the employment of a construction worker on a one-month paving project would count only as a third of a job.

Additionally, reports are only required of direct recipients of ARRA funding. Because subcontractors and vendors who supply the goods and services necessary for executing projects are not subject to reporting requirements, jobs resulting from those activities are not computed.

Although there are snags within this quarter’s recovery reporting, we believe that deeper and clearer ARRA data will be invaluable to those fighting for a fair recovery. In the meantime, check out our green jobs equity toolkit for existing resources on how to ensure that everybody is able to fully participate in the new, green economy.

Christina Chen is a research assistant with the Applied Research Center.

San Francisco Leaders Respond to Muni Brawl [VIDEO]

2009-11-04T15:33:52Z

By Lily Chien-Davis

Community Discusses MUNI Fight from New America Media on Vimeo.

Last week my husband pulled open a YouTube video. “You’ve got to check this out,” he said. “Everyone’s been passing this around at work.”

He was referring to the fight between two passengers, one Black and one Asian, that broke out on a Muni bus in San Francisco last month, caught on video by another passenger and has since gone viral on the Internet. New America Media mentions that since then, “hundreds of thousands of viewers have watched and commented on the incident.”

On the surface, this may appear to be just a fight between two women on the bus, seen as entertainment on the Internet. It's easy to mock it, or chalk it up to the everyday craziness on San Francisco's Muni system. But the subtext of people's reactions--be they horrified or unfazed--is a recognition that Asians and Blacks deal with racial tension on a larger scale.

New America Media hosted a diverse coalition of both Black and Asian American civil rights leaders last Monday for a roundtable discussion on possible solutions to the underlying tensions that exist between the two communities.

After examining what happened between the two women, the community discussed solutions to San Francisco’s race relations and violence.

“The video that went out is a real call to action,” says Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media.

There is hope in battling racism from the ground up, from both sides, if people can talk honestly about race.

The Reverend Norman Fong, deputy director of the Chinatown Community Development Center had this to say: “We have more strength inter-ethnically, and the stuff that divides us is going to kill us.”

Another possible solution that came out of the discussion was to create a “curriculum that is race conscious,” says Jane Kim, vice president of the San Francisco Board of Education.” She mentioned that this was “a priority for the district,” and already on the way is the development of an “ethnic studies curriculum.”

Listening to these leaders speak makes me hopeful that race relations will improve. Lateefah Simon, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of San Francisco sums up the roundtable discussion well: “This is a beautiful acknowledgement, one: of the ongoing work, and two: an opportunity for us to continue, really focusing on the bubbling up of issues going on in our communities.”