Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Barack Obama's presidency 'has not helped cause of black people in US'

May God and our ancestors bless Paul Harris for speaking the truth at a time when it is the most necessary. Our people are the only ones that have paid the bitter price for Obama's post-racial machinations. And for that, many of them will go fishing on election because they are no fools.


-----Original Message-----
>From: Hetty ter Haar <oldavenue@googlemail.com>
>Sent: Oct 14, 2012 2:35 AM
>To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
>Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Barack Obama's presidency 'has not helped cause of black people in US'
>
>
>Barack Obama's presidency 'has not helped cause of black people in US'
>
>Far from ushering in a new post-racial age, say studies, historic
>election did not lead to advancement of civil rights
>
> Paul Harris in New York
> The Observer, Saturday 13 October 2012 22.04 BST
>
>
>Barack Obama's election win in 2008 was hailed by some as ushering in
>a post-racial age in the US. However, recent books and surveys have
>shown that black American progress has often either halted or
>declined.
>
>From increasing segregation in the workplace, to hundreds of thousands
>of young black men in prison, to stuttering levels of black voting and
>a black middle class sent into reverse by the recession, the election
>of America's first black president – and his fight to win a second
>term – seem to have had little impact on any of this.
>
>Some of the most shocking revelations are detailed in a new book
>called Invisible Men by sociology professor Becky Pettit from the
>University of Washington. Pettit realised that many surveys conducted
>by government agencies exclude people in the prison population from
>their research and findings. When Pettit added them in, she found that
>it dramatically altered the picture of the status of black America, as
>the number of black Americans in jail is disproportionately high.
>About half of the 2.3 million people in US prisons are black.
>
>The results of Pettit's work, some argue, have exploded what she calls
>"the myth of black progress" since the civil rights era of the 1960s.
>
>"This work dispels the notion that we live in a post-racial society.
>It not only deconstructs the myth of black progress, but also the myth
>of American progress overall," said Inimai Chettiar, a director at the
>Brennan Centre for Justice at New York University's school of law.
>
>For example, adding the prison population to the voting statistics
>shows that black voter turnout in 2008 – believed to have been a
>historic high as Obama was elected – was overestimated by 13%. A
>greater percentage of young black high school dropouts turned out to
>vote in the 1980 election, when Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan,
>than when Obama beat John McCain in 2008.
>
>When prisoners are included, the employment rate for young black men
>who have dropped out of school sinks from an already low 42% to 26%.
>Far from advancing over the past half-century since Martin Luther King
>championed the civil rights struggle, the picture being painted is one
>of troubled decline. "We have developed a distorted view of how black
>Americans are faring in our society," Pettit said. The reason given
>for this in Pettit's work is the high rate of incarceration of black
>Americans. The rate is so steep that government estimates suggest that
>eventually one in three of all black male adults will spend some time
>in prison if current trends continue.
>
>In the 1930s, blacks were three times more likely to be incarcerated
>than whites, but the figure now is seven times more likely. Some
>experts put this down to the "war on drugs", which has affected black
>communities far more than others, seeing increased arrests of blacks,
>often for non-violent offences. "There is no evidence that drug use is
>dramatically different by race or ethnicity, but the pattern of
>arrests is very different," said Ernest Drucker, author of a recent
>book, A Plague of Prisons.
>
>The recession, too, has taken a huge swipe at what gains the black
>middle class may have made. A swath of recent data has revealed a
>major reverse. The Pew Charitable Trust showed that 68% of middle-
>class Americans are predicted to see their economic status decline in
>the next generation. The National Urban League civil rights group also
>showed that from 2005 to 2009 the average black household's wealth
>fell by more than half. Nor has economic decline stopped. From 2009 to
>2012, median annual household income for blacks fell by 11.1%,
>compared with a drop of 5.2% for whites and 4.1% for Hispanics. The
>current black unemployment rate of 14% is roughly double that of the
>white jobless. However, it is not just recent economic turmoil that
>has dampened black progress in America.
>
>Another new book, Documenting Desegregation, has examined racial
>equality in the workplace since the 1960s and found that progress
>largely halted in 1980 and has gone into reverse in some industries
>since then. Racial segregation between white and black men is
>increasing in one in six industries.
>
>In fact, far from painting a picture of black progress, the book's
>examination of more than five million private sector workplaces
>revealed that it is white men who have gained access to managerial
>jobs since the 1960s.
>
>Documenting Desegregation has a grim but simple conclusion that stands
>in stark contrast to the general perception of a racial breakthrough
>that accompanied the election of Obama as the country's first black
>president. "The United States is no longer on the path to equal
>employment opportunity," it says.
>
> © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated
>companies. All rights reserved.
>
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