Rating Obama: It's Down To Black And White

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By: Joel Dreyfuss

A poll of more than 1,000 readers of The Root shows that the racial divide persists in how people assess President Obama exactly two years after he took office. CONTINUE....

Whites Should Be Offended by Reid’s Words

By: Deborah Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com

What if Jesse Jackson had said that America is ready for a black president as long as he is “light skinned” and has “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Who would be offended then?

 

 Whites Should Be Offended by Reid’s Words....

Recession Hitting Minorities Harder Than Whites

By: Michael H. Cottman

The current economic recession, which has taken a devastating toll on African-Americans and people of color, has disproportionately impacted blacks more than whites, according to a study by the Center for American Progress. 

The report, released last week and entitled “Leveling the Playing Field,” examines annual, quarterly and monthly data on the different economic experiences of whites, African-Americans and Hispanics during this recession and prior recessions.

 

Recession Hitting Minorities Harder Than Whites.... 

Obama Makes Little Impact on Race Relations

By: By Michael H. Cottman

Are race relations between blacks and whites improving since President Barack Obama took office in January?

The answer: No, according to many African Americans who say interaction between the races has not changed substantially.

According to a new CNN/Essence Magazine national poll, African-Americans still give Obama high approval marks, but now more blacks say race relations have not progressed since Obama moved into the White House.

Obama Makes Little Impact on Race Relations....

Census Data: Racial Disparities Persist in Higher-Paying Jobs

By: Hope Yen

WASHINGTON - Blacks and Hispanics lag behind whites for higher-paying jobs at the largest rates in about a decade as employment opportunities dwindled during the nation's economic woes and housing slump.

Census data released Monday show an increasingly educated U.S. work force whose earnings didn't always seem to match up with its potential.

"The lesson of most economic downturns is minorities are the last hired, first fired. They lose jobs more quickly, and they will be the last to recover," said Roderick Harrison, a demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that studies minority issues.

Among those 25 and older last year, 86.6 percent had graduated from high school, up from 85.7 percent the previous year. It was the biggest increase since 1992, with record percentages of people earning diplomas across all racial categories.

Census Data: Racial Disparities Persist in Higher-Paying Jobs....

Unemployment Woes Hitting Harder Among Blacks, Latinos

By: Jesse Washington

The ax fell without sound or shadow: Tatiana Gallego was suddenly called into human resources and laid off from her job as an admissions counselor for a fashion college.

"The way people tried to explain it to me was, I was the last one hired so I was the first one out," said Gallego, 25, who had worked there for 17 months.

Last hired, first fired: This generations-old cliche rings bitterly true for millions of Latinos and blacks who are losing jobs at a faster rate than the general population during this punishing recession.

Much of the disparity is due to a concentration of Latinos and blacks in construction, blue-collar or service-industry jobs that have been decimated by the economic meltdown. And black unemployment has been about double the rate for whites since the government began tracking those categories in the early 1970s.

But this recession is cutting a swath through the professional classes as well, which can be devastating to people who recently arrived there.

Since the recession began in December 2007, Latino unemployment has risen 4.7 percentage points, to 10.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Black unemployment has risen 4.5 points, to 13.4 percent. White unemployment has risen 2.9 points, to 7.3 percent.

Gallego, whose parents were born in Colombia, graduated from the University of Rhode Island. Her mother is self-employed, and her stepfather works in construction.

She was stunned when she was told to pack up and leave by the end of the day because enrollment was down at her New York City school. She said she had recently received a positive performance review, and her bosses were planning to send her to a conference.

"Maybe I just don't know that much about the business world, because I felt like I did more, I went above and beyond more than other people in my office did," she said.

William Darity, a professor of economics and African-American studies at Duke University, said that "blacks and Latinos are relative latecomers to the professional world ... so they are necessarily the most vulnerable."

"We don't have those older roots to anchor us in the professional world," Darity said. "We don't have the same nexus of contacts, the same kind of seniority."

Unemployment Woes Hitting Harder Among Blacks, Latinos....

Echoing AP Poll, Anti-Racism Activist Says Obama ‘Faces Huge Barrier’ with Many Whites

By: Michael H. Cottman and Jackie Jones

A leading anti-racism activist says Sen. Barack Obama could lose the presidential election in November because many whites will never vote to put a black man in the White House -- even if they tell pollsters and friends they are color blind.

“Senator Obama faces a huge racial barrier,” Dr. Joe Feagin, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University and author of more than 20 books on race and racism issues, told BlackAmericaWeb.com Monday.

“Whites have learned to hide their feelings about African-Americans,” he said. “Race for whites is a highly emotional concept in our minds. There is so much hidden racism in this country.”

Feagin, who is white, said his research indicates that many whites are not truthful in polls about how they feel about blacks. They still maintain racist, age-old stereotypes about blacks and “in the privacy of the voting booth” probably won’t support Obama.

The notion that many whites say they are “color blind” -- whether Democrat or Republican -- is a farce, he said.

“Whites don’t want to look racist when asked about Obama [in polls] but if they vote for Obama, they would have to lie to their friends and say they voted for McCain,” said Feagin, an Obama supporter.

Echoing AP Poll, Anti-Racism Activist Says Obama ‘Faces Huge Barrier’ with Many Whites....

BLACKS AND THE 'WAR ON DRUGS': Data shows African Americans suffer disproportionately.

According to two recently released reports, African Americans have suffered much higher rates of arrests and imprisonment than whites in the nation's 30-year "war on drugs" even though whites actually constitute the majority of drug offenders.

One report, entitled "Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States" was compiled by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Among its findings: a Black man is nearly 12 times more likely than a white man to be sentenced to prison for violating drug laws (34 states were covered in the report).

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