black unemployment

The Expansion of Black American Misery under Barack Obama’s Watch

Tue, 02/19/2013 - 19:50 — Dr. Reginald Clark

by Dr. Reginald Clark

Black folks are not only far worse off “since 2009 under President Obama’s economic and job creation policies” – Africans Americans are the only group that “has taken a definitive step backwards since then.” The main reason: “lack of attention to employment in urban and rural geographic areas where Blacks reside.”

Perhaps Black People Should Stop Expecting Equality

Tue, 02/05/2013 - 14:49 — Dr. Boyce Watkins

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

Dr. Watkins, an esteemed author, economist and social commentator, has seen the error of his ways. He has been wrong to argue that President Obama be made accountable to Black people, his most ardent supporters. Instead, Blacks should be accountable to the president. “Only whites, Jews, gays, women, labor groups and illegal immigrants are allowed to expect anything from the president.”

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of October 8, 2012

Tue, 10/09/2012 - 08:16 — Glen Ford

College Admissions Must Consider Race

The U.S. Supreme Court should reject a challenge to affirmative action at the University of Texas, at Austin. “Removing race from consideration in admissions is impractical,” said Inimai Chettiar, of the Brennan Center for Justice, at the New York University School of Law. “I don’t see how you can divorce race from who a person is.” The University of Texas “has followed the Supreme Court’s mandate in previous cases to the letter.”

Myth of Black Progress

The exclusion of incarcerated persons from many data sources “calls into question claims about Black progress” over the past 35 years, said Becky Pettit, author of Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress. For example, there has been “no improvement in the high school dropout rate among young Black men since at least the 1990s,” and “young Black males dropouts are more likely to be in jail or prison than to be employed.” Dr. Pettit is a sociologist at the University of Washington.

Two Parties: One Vision

“What the debate showed is how similar the two parties are,” said Arun Gupta, co-founder of The Occupied Wall Street Journal and The Indypendent. “We heard nothing about the most important issues.” President Obama “could not commit himself to stand for one thing that the vast majority of the people of this country need,” said Gupta, who is covering the campaign for Alternet, Truthout and The Guardian.

ObamaRomneyCare

President Obama made the most honest statement of the debate, when he said “Romneycare and Obamacare are, effectively, the same” and a “Republican idea,” said Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. Another gem: Romney, trying to act like a populist, challenged “corporatist Obama” on his support for too-big-to-fail banks. “And, because Obama is taking cash from the same sources, he’s not able to respond.”

NDAA May Lead to Mass Lockups

“The assault on civil liberties by the Obama administration has been worse than under Bush,” said veteran reporter Chris Hedges, a plaintiff in a suit against the preventive detention bill signed into law by Obama, last New Year’s Eve. A federal judge this summer declared the law unconstitutional, but an appeals panel put it back in effect, pending a final ruling. “This opens the ability of the state to classify an entire group of people – and, probably, American Muslims will be the first one – who can be just rounded up,” said Hedges.

Wal-Mart Walkouts

Workers walked off the job at Wal-Mart stores in Los Angeles, while employees from Europe, Latin America and Africa flew into the city under the banner of the Wal-Mart Global Union Alliance. The retail giant’s prices are low “because they’re taking from us,” said Wal-Mart “associate” Dan Hindman. “We’re paying for these low prices.” Alke Boessinger, a union organizer from Switzerland, said: “Unless workers unite as one, Wal-Mart will do whatever it can to silence people.”

Detroit Water Strike

AFSCME Local 207, in Detroit, claimed victory in a brief strike by water workers. Union official John Reihl said Michigan’s governor is determined to seize the mostly Black city’s water resources through “a combination of suburban control and privatization.”

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Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of September 24, 2012

Mon, 09/24/2012 - 11:46 — Glen Ford

Chicago Teachers First to Stand Up to Obama School Policies

“This is the first time that a teachers union stood up to the privatization of the Obama administration, stood up to the Democrats as the purveyors of these policies,” said journalist Jaisal Noor, who covered this month’s teachers strike for the Real News Network and other outlets. “The reason that the union knew it could strike and that it could maintain public support is because they had spent the last couple of years working with communities. There was massive support from parents and from students.”

Both Parties Ignore Poverty

Democrats are even less likely than Republicans to talk about poverty this election season, as evidenced by the near-absence of the word at both parties’ national conventions, said Paul Street, author of The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power. In Black inner cities, “we’re looking at unemployment and poverty rates that harken back to the Great Depression. And, of course, that’s something that Barack Obama is instructed never to talk about.”

Oligarchs and Plutocrats Rule

“Poverty in America is a national disgrace and a moral obscenity, which is rendered invisible by the system under which we live, run by oligarchs and plutocrats,” said Dr. Cornel West, of Union Theological Seminary, in New York. West and journalist Tavis Smiley recently completed their Poverty Tour 2.0, including stops in four so-called “battleground” states. “If we can get the Black Freedom Struggle off life support, we can really turn this country around.”

Occupy the Debates

Progressives will hold streaming analysis and discussion of the Obama-Romney debates, starting with the first event on October 3. “We’ll discuss the obvious crises the country faces, from housing to the environment to mass incarceration, the issues that are not being dealt with…by the corporate candidates,” said organizer Kevin Zeese. For information, go to OccupyTheDebates.org.

Black Educator Faces Prison for Challenging Whitening of HBCUs

Dr. Jahi Issa faces two years in prison on riot charges for supporting Black students protesting the “whitening” of historically Black Delaware State University, last March. “He was touching a very raw and sensitive nerve,” said Dr. Jeff Perry, biographer of Hubert Harrison, considered the father of Harlem radical politics. “Historically Black colleges and universities get substantial federal support,” said Perry. “Corporate interests want to take it over for both profit and social control.” To assist Dr. Issa’s legal defense, go to hbcuinstitute.org. Dr. Issa’s article “The Ethnic Cleansing of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the Age of Obama” appeared in Black Agenda Report, September 6, 2011.

The Mother of all Blowbacks

In Libya and now Syria, as in Afghanistan beginning under President Jimmy Carter, “the West has once again empowered fundamentalist forces that will inevitably turn against Washington, the Greatest Infidel of all,” said BAR executive editor Glen Ford. Recent anti-U.S. protests in the Islamic world are “only a small foretaste of what is to come: a blowback of such intensity that the foundations of Empire will crack, and crumble.”

Information as Weaponry

Last year’s U.S.-NATO war against Libya “was not conducted just with bombing and with troops, but was an information war, and that’s the parallel with what’s going on in Syria, today,” said journalist Don Debar. “The bloodshed is conducted on behalf of, or directed by, the United States, France and Britain. Iran is public enemy number one for the West, “as it has been since 1979.”

Jesus on Death Row

“Jesus Christ spent his last days on death row and was murdered by the government at that time,” said Pam Africa, head of International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu Jamal, speaking at Riverside Church, in New York. “We cannot forget political prisoners. These brothers and sisters are in jail because they have a love for us, and understand that we must never give in.”

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Is Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett the One Who Keeps Barack from Dealing with Black Issues?

Tue, 09/18/2012 - 15:56 — Dr. Boyce Watkins

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

“We can no longer live in a world where anyone who asks President Obama to do something is defined to be an enemy of the administration.” Yet, it appears the president’s top advisor, Valerie Jarrett, believes her job is to silence Black critics. “It’s as if we’re being told to ‘stop snitching’ on the White House, while Obama Administration officials sit back and laugh at how stupid we are.”

Why I Won't Vote (1956)

Tue, 09/04/2012 - 15:55 — Anonymous

by W.E.B. Dubois

On October 20, 1956, W. E. B. Du Bois delivered this eloquent indictment of US politics and why he won't vote in the upcoming Presidential election. Du Bois condemns both Democrats and Republicans for their indifferent positions on the influence of corporate wealth, racial inequality, arms proliferation and unaffordable health care. The article appeared in The Nation.

Freedom Rider: Racism is the Issue

Wed, 06/27/2012 - 00:55 — Margaret Kimberley

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

No matter what the facts say, Blacks are forbidden to blame race for…anything. That’s the meaning of a post-racial society: race is banned from discourse, while racism carries on as usual. Worsening Black unemployment in New York? The New York Times takes note of the numbers, but won’t even consider that racism might be a factor. In the Age of Obama, “pointing out that racism is still very much alive is akin to pointing out that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.” It just isn’t done.

Obama’s Not the First Black President – He’s the First President Who is Black

Mon, 06/18/2012 - 23:09 — Wilmer J. Leon III

by Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

Obama may be Black, but he’s not that kind of president. “If he were the first Black President he would be using his bully pulpit to champion legislation targeting unemployment in urban areas, poverty, income disparity, and other issues.” This particular Black man is, essentially, a functionary of a government in the service of wealth and empire. “The President’s efforts will not address chronic income disparity or the wealth gap.”

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of January 30, 2012

Tue, 01/31/2012 - 04:02 — Nellie Bailey a...

Obama to Face Increased Black Criticism

“I think we are going to hear more voices of opposition coming from all sectors of Black leadership, and certainly from the most hard pressed sections of the Black population,” said Dr. Tony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. “The decline and disappearance of the Black middle class is not going to go unnoticed.” Seventy-four percent of Blacks see the split between rich and poor as “a manifestation of a deep class conflict in society,” said Dr. Monteiro, citing recent studies by the Pew Center for Research. “You’ve got this residual radicalism, from the period of mass struggle, civil rights and anti-war activism that is manifested in Black identification with socialism. But then when it comes to Obama, everything gets irrational.” Fifty-five percent of African Americans have a positive attitude towards the word “socialism.”

Black Unemployed In Worse Shape Than When Recession ‘Ended’

Black joblessness is higher today than it was in June 2009, the month when the recession was officially declared over, said Dr. Steven Pitts, of the University of California at Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. Black unemployment was 15.8 percent in December, 2011, compared to 14.9 percent in June, 2009. The Center’s annual report on Black unemployment showed virtually “no movement” in 2011, standing at 15.7 percent at the beginning of the year and ending at 15.8. However, “the Black female rate rose and the Black male rate fell.”

Rulers Will Use Race to Exploit Crisis

Author and labor activist Jeffrey Perry, writing in Cultural Logic magazine, said “we are moving into a very deep and serious crisis” in which ruling circles in U.S. society can be expected to turn increasingly to white supremacist appeals. “Reliance on white supremacy has been the key to social control for the U.S. ruling class,” said Perry. “Newt Gingrich is the most outspoken.” Perry’s article focuses on the views of Hubert Harrison, a Harlem Black nationalist and socialist of the early 20^th century, and Theodore W. Allen, famous for his book The Invention of the White Race.

Food Stamps Enjoy Wide Support

“Until now,” said Timothy Casey, senior counsel of Legal Momentum, “food stamps have enjoyed strong, bipartisan support.” However, recent attacks by Newt Gingrich and “calls in the House by some Republican leaders to ‘reform’ food stamps” by turning them into block grants “could lead to a sharp reduction in the benefits people receive,” said Casey.

Amnesty International: Blacks Killed, Tortured in Libya

Sanjeev Bery, Amnesty International USA’s Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said Black people have been subjected to “abductions, torture, unfair detention” and extrajudicial killings by U.S.-backed militias in Libya. The abuses stem from “wildly exaggerated rumors” that former Libyan leader Gaddafi employed large numbers of Black mercenaries, said Bery. Those rumors “intersected with pre-existing racism and xenophobia to make many dark-skinned Libyans, as well as sub-Saharan African” into targets of local gunmen. Bery was interviewed by Robert Knight, of Pacifica radio station WBAI, in New York.

Panther Baby, Dr. Jamal Joseph’s memoir on coming of age in the Black Panther Party, debuts in February. Dr. Joseph, an associate professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, was the youngest member of the New York 21, Panther Party members who were charged in 1969 – and later acquitted – of plotting to bomb public places.

Police Brutality, Black America, and the US Occupy Movement

Wed, 12/14/2011 - 00:22 — Solomon Comissiong

by Solomon Comissiong

When those who claim to represent “the 99%” reject as “divisive” the grievances of the Black, red and brown minority, they are claiming a false mandate. “Until more so-called white liberals, progressives and activists take Black issues seriously enough to give them more than lip service; many black people will continue to see themselves as marginalized, even within the broader Occupy Movement.” There can be no just society in “an apartheid state.”

Why Obama’s “Black Jobs Plan” Won’t Resolve Black Unemployment

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 00:06 — Tamara K. Nopper

by Tamara K. Nopper

President Obama tried to give his Congressional Black Caucus Awards Dinner audience the impression that his jobs bill specifically targets 100,000 Black businesses as job incubators. In reality, the 100,000 African American firms that actually have employees will be treated no differently than the millions of white-owned businesses that are much better positioned to take advantage of the Obama scheme. “In the end, Obama expects African Americans, in this case Black business owners and Black youth, to largely shoulder the burden of resolving the Black unemployment crisis.” And, although the president made general reference to racism in his speech to the CBC, “Obama’s jobs plan does not talk about racial discrimination.”

Obama’s Depraved Indifference

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 11:02 — Glen Ford

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

President Obama seems positively eager to dismantle the safety nets put in place in the Thirties and strengthened by a Black-led movement in the Sixties. He calls it “Winning the Future” – a future that “holds nothing but further pain and decline for Black America.” By virtually all indices, Black fortunes have plummeted under the First Black President, whose policy is to let the (chocolate) chips fall where they may.

Freedom Rider: Middle Class Means Working Class

Tue, 01/25/2011 - 22:05 — Margaret Kimberley

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Economic disparities are more dramatic in the United States than any other developed country, yet most Americans have no idea what economic class they belong to. Class war rages, but the losers don’t realize they are under assault, or by whom. “Workers in the private sector who are themselves vulnerable, applaud the effort to race to the bottom, instead of fighting against it.”

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey

Tue, 01/18/2011 - 12:05 — Glen Ford

Corruption Marks U.S. Earthquake Aid to Haiti

U.S. corporations are making a killing from Haiti earthquake relief, just as they did after the Katrina disaster, says New Orleans-based writer and activist Jordan Flaherty. “Politically-connected U.S. contractors are using their contacts, especially with the Republican Party,” says Flaherty, “to profit off of these disasters, and the same patterns we saw with Katrina are being repeated with the Haiti earthquake.” Flaherty authored an article, “One Year After Earthquake, Corporations Profit While People Suffer.”

Long-term Unemployed Locked in Despair

A study of long-term unemployed workers shows that most are gripped by a deep sense of loss, and that about 60 percent of them “now do not believe that hard work guarantees success” in American society. “There’s a resignation to an economic lower class, or downward mobility,” says Cliff Zukin, of Rutgers University, one of the authors of the report, “The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in Their Futures.”

Protest Against FBI Raids Set for January 25

Demonstrations are scheduled in cities across the country to protest FBI raids against peace and international solidarity activists, says Jill Dowling, of the New York Working Group to Stop FBI Oppression. To date, 23 activists have been summoned to testify before grand juries, or face jail for contempt of court. Dowling says activists in countries like Colombia are at risk of being killed if their American counterparts are forced to “name names.”

Without Civil War, Slavery Might Not Have Ended

It should not be assumed that slavery would have somehow been abolished had the U.S. Civil War not occurred, says James Loewen, author of The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader and other books on race in America. “The investment in slaves was greater than the investment in all railroads and all manufacturing companies in the U.S.,” says Loewen. “Who would have ended that right away? It’s not clear.”

Lumumba Assassination Commemorated

Monday, January 17, marked the 50^th anniversary of the murder of Congolese president Patrice Lumumba, targeted for death by both Belgium and the United States. The martyred leader’s “words still resonate with the youth of Africa, today,” says Kambole Musavuli, spokesperson for Friends of Congo.

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Black Rage; Lynne Stewart Sentenced; a Red Black & Green Party; Counting Black Jobs; Southern Black Co-ops – Black Agenda Radio on PRN, the Progressive Radio Network

Mon, 07/19/2010 - 21:48 — Nellie Bailey a...

Rage in Black America

Killer cops are the most powerful agents of Black enragement. As in the case of Oscar Grant, not even the presence of live witnesses and cameras seems to deter the hit men in blue. BAR’s Dr. Jared Ball reminds us that Malcolm X “once said that simply being Black in America ‘radicalizes you.’ We hope so because it certainly does continue to enrage.”

People’s Lawyer Sentenced

Lynne Stewart has been “made an example of” because she defends the people’s “right to resist – the ultimate human right,” says activist and educator Ward Churchill. Stewart was re-sentenced to ten years in prison for allegedly providing “material support” to her client, an accused terrorist.

Towards a Red Black & Green Party

Blacks have given blind allegiance to the Democratic Party over the last 75 years, just as they did with Republicans in the previous 65 years since Emancipation, says BAR’s Bruce Dixon. “Our 1870 political strategy makes us unable to discern an enemy when he is a professed Democrat, all the more a Democrat with a black face.”

Black Jobs by the Numbers

Steven Pitts, of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, at Berkeley, worries that “we begin to pit low wage workers against the unemployed” at times of economic trouble, and “put unemployed workers into bad jobs.” Pitts and his colleagues have recently begun issuing monthly reports on Black employment prospects.

A 43-Year Cooperative Venture

Since 1967, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has helped Black farmers achieve self-sufficiency. The federation celebrates its work with 30,000 families in 75 cooperatives across the South with festivities in Birmingham, Alabama, August 19-21, says executive director Ralph Paige.

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.

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