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The Curry Report
March 17, 2009
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In This Issue
D.C. is the Nation's HIV/AIDS Capital
Job Losses Hit Black Men Hardest
Black (Immigrant) Admissions Edge
Highway Robbery? Texas Police Seize Black Motorists' Cash, Cars
Without a Pastor of His Own, Obama Turns to Five
Obama's Election a Mixed Bag for Black Caucus
African-Americans Continue to Lag Whites in Stock Ownership
D.C. is the Nation's HIV/AIDS Capital
Curry Headshot

By George E. Curry 

NNPA Columnist 

 

The disclosure that more than 4 percent of Blacks in the District of Columbia have HIV, matching San Francisco's city-wide rate at the height of the epidemic in 1992, is but one example of how the disease is devastating the Black community. D.C. health officials made public a report Monday that showed the overall HIV/AIDS city rate of 3 percent is three times the level considered a "generalized and severe" epidemic.  

One percent of the population is the standard yardstick used to measure a "generalized and severe" epidemic. In addition to African-Americans, that level was exceeded in Washington by Latinos - 2 percent - and Whites at 1.4 percent. 

"Our rates are higher than West Africa" Shannon L. Hader, director of the District's HIV/AIDS Administration, told the Washington Post. "They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."

The city's 2008 epidemiology report found the number of HIV and AIDS cases had risen 22 percent from the 12,500 cases reported in 2006. As bad as things appear to be in the nation's capital, the report observed, "We know that the true number of residents currently infected and living with HIV is certainly higher."

The study says 7 percent of Black men in D.C. are infected. Almost 1 in 10 residents between the ages of 40 and 49 has the virus. Approximately 3 percent of African-American women in the District of Columbia carry the virus, 58 percent of whom were infected through heterosexual sexual activity. About a quarter of Black women were infected through drug use.

Overall, 76 percent of the infected are Black. Heterosexual sexual activity was the primary mode of transmission for African-Americans at 33 percent. On the other hand, men having sex with men was the principal mode of transmission for Whites - 78 percent - and 49 percent for Latinos.

"I'm extremely angry and sad but not surprised," said Phill Wilson, CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, the only think tank devoted exclusively to the elimination of HIV/AIDS in the African-American community. "If you wanted to create the perfect storm for an explosive HIV/AIDS epidemic, it would look like Washington D.C.  You have a public health system that is totally overwhelmed, high poverty, low HIV literacy, a history of neglect, insufficient HIV prevention infrastructure and a general populace that is not mobilized."

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is what Wilson calls "a Black disease." Although African Americans represent only 12 percent of the U.S. population, they account for half of all diagnosed AIDS cases. Black women represent 61 percent of all new HIV infections among women, a rate nearly 15 times that of White women. And, as was the case in Washington, most Black women are more likely to be infected through heterosexual transmission. Black teens represent just 16 percent of those aged 13 to 19, but 69 percent of new AIDs cases reported among teens in 2006. A recent study in five major U.S. cities found that 46 percent of Black men having sex with men were infected with HIV, compared to 21 percent of White men having sex with other men.

This isn't the first depressing report about AIDS, so what's the answer to curbing the epidemic?

'For years, the Black AIDS Institute has been calling for a national Black AIDS mobilization," said Wilson of the Los Angeles-based Black AIDS Institute. "We've been calling for developing a 5-year plan with specific measurable goals and objectives to cut HIV rates in half, increase HIV testing by 50 percent, and increase utilization of HIV treatment and care by 50 percent.  Every Black leader in America needs to stand up today and declare a war on AIDS."

C. Virginia Fields, president and CEO of the National Black Commission on AIDS, also believes testing is a key to halting the spread of the disease in the U.S. She said health patients should be routinely tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In about half of the states, a separate consent form is required to grant permission to test for HIV.

"It is time to remove that special requirement and make testing for HIV as routine as it already is for other diseases," Fields said."It is estimated that 50 to 70 percent of new sexually transmitted cases are spread by people who don't realize they're infected."

Blacks tend to discover they are HIV positive later than Whites, meaning that many of them are late entering into treatment and, consequently don't live as long as others who were treated earlier.

If C. Virginia Fields and other activists get their wish and have AIDS testing incorporated into routine health testing, that will place a heavier burden on crowded counseling and treatment facilities.  But it's not an insurmountable burden. The question is: Do we have the national will to take on this epidemic?

 

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com.  

 

 

 

Job Losses Hit Black Men Hardest

 
Job applicants (Black men)

 
Some 8 percent of black men in the US have lost their jobs since November 2007, according to a recent study.
 
 

 

By Patrik Jonsson and Yvonne Zipp

� Christian Science Monitor

March 15, 2009

 

At a time when America has elected its first black president, more African-American men are losing jobs than at any time since World War II.

No group has been hit harder by the downturn. Employment among black men has fallen 7.8 percent since November of 2007, according to a report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

The trend is intimately tied to education, the report's authors say. Black women - who are twice as likely as black men to go to college - have faced no net job losses. By contrast, black men are disproportionately employed in those blue-collar jobs that have been most highly affected - think third shifts at rural manufacturing plants.

It threatens to add to the difficulties of vulnerable families in a community already beset by high incarceration rates and low graduation numbers.

Moreover, it puts renewed focus on the cultural and economic stereotypes of black women and men - mythologies and realities about the black family that remain challenging for the country, and Washington, to address.

In terms of job-loss rate for African-American men, "nothing comes close to this," says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies and an author of the report, noting that the job-loss rate for African-American men during the Great Depression is unknown.

Federal data indicate all demographic groups have been affected. The number of men looking for full-time work has nearly doubled in the last year, regardless of race or ethnicity, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. But the Northeastern study concludes that during the past 15 months, "the relative decline in black male employment was considerably higher than that of their male counterparts in the other three race-ethnic groups" - Asians, Hispanics, and whites.

The job-loss figures come at a time when many lower-income black homeowners are already at risk of foreclosure. "They have zero opportunity to refinance or borrow in any way to get over the rough patch of unemployment," writes Tom Hertz, a labor economist, in an e-mail.
The employment rate among African-American men aged 20 to 24 is now just 51 percent, as opposed to 68 percent during the late 1990s. For African-American teens, it's just 14 percent.

"A lot of family heads are being affected and a lot of the young guys," says Professor Sum of Northeastern. "When you get a job loss of that magnitude it's just totally destructive [to] communities."

Unemployed black men like Anthony Gilmore aren't surprised by the findings. Laid off five months ago from a call center, Mr. Gilmore recently interviewed for a job detailing cars. A Hispanic man got the job.

The perception among many black men like Gilmore is that the economy has merely laid bare the historic prejudices that still exist.

"There's still very much a system that really is designed to keep people at a disadvantage," he said while waiting Friday outside an Atlanta unemployment office.

Yet black men can be bound as much by deeper labor trends as cultural stereotypes, says Peter Rachleff, a labor historian at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. Especially in the South, black men often pay a price for demanding workplace rights gained in the Civil Rights movement - demands for days off and being able to say no to overtime, for example. Hispanic workers, particularly, aren't as likely to claim those rights, making them easier hires, says Professor Rachleff.

"You can call it a class thing, but I don't think that's what it is," says Douglas Besharov, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland in College Park. "Some of it is long-term discrimination and lack of access to education, but much more in this recession it's determined by which sector that's suffering the most."

From November of 2007, the month before the official start of the recession, to February of 2009, "there was no net job loss among professionals or managers," says Sum.

Contradicting media reports that job loss has been widespread in this recession, he adds: "All the job loss has been among blue-collar jobs - construction, manufacturing, and retail."

These are the jobs black men have long sought, settling for high-school diplomas in order to get these relatively well paid posts, suggests Terry Getter, an unemployed accountant waiting in line at the Atlanta unemployment office. But they are now feeling the consequences of not continuing their education.

African-American women have fared better in the downturn, says Sum. That may be partly because of their higher levels of education. In a departure from the trends of the past two recessions, those who have lost their jobs in this one "overwhelmingly ... had 12 or less years of school," he adds.

Correspondingly, his data suggest that, as of January, about 120 African-American women were employed for every 100 African-American men. "The current size of the overall gap in employment between black women and black men is historically unprecedented, and black Americans are the only group for whom the gender employment gap is in favor of women," the report notes.

As a result, the onus for the community's well-being has fallen primarily on women, adding more burdens to a group that, historically, has upheld the black family, says Sheri Parks, author of the upcoming book "Fierce Angels" about the role of strong black women in American culture.

Part of the reason, she says, is that black communities have historically protected young men and expected more of young women, particularly when it comes to schooling. "If you're a black woman, you don't have to convince someone that you're strong and nurturing and able to do almost anything - it's almost a brand," says Ms. Parks. "The prevalent image of a black man is what we call hyper-masculine and often idealized, but not necessarily in the workplace."

This means black women also tend to enter their job hunt with a greater sense of urgency, says Tim Ready, director of the Lewis Walker Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnic Relations at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

"Women are more likely to take whatever jobs are necessary because they end up being the primary caretakers for kids," he says. "They have no choice."

At a time when Mr. Obama's election has encouraged a debate about what race means in modern America, the job-loss figures reveal enduring problems that remain unaddressed, say some.

"When we say 'postracial,' we focus a lot on ideas, attitudes, and identity and not on outcomes: jobs, wages, and those things," says Steven Pitts, a policy analyst with the Center for Labor Research and Education in Berkeley, Calif. "It's important to look at the question of how we are passing out resources, jobs, education, wages, and wealth. That's how you begin your analysis on postrace."

 


 
Black (Immigrant) Admissions Edge
 
 Black immigrants
 

 

By Scott Jaschik

� Inside Higher Education

March 17, 2009

 

The election of Barack Obama -- African American because of his African father, distinguishing him from how the phrase is commonly used -- has brought unprecedented attention to the diversity of backgrounds of those covered by the term. Within higher education, one of the more sensitive issues in discussion of admissions and affirmative action in recent years has been the relative success of immigrant black Americans compared to black people who have been in the United States for generations.

A new study has found that among high school graduates, "immigrant blacks" -- defined as those who immigrated to the United States or their children -- are significantly more likely than other black Americans to attend selective colleges. In fact, immigrant black Americans are more likely than white students to attend such colleges.

The research -- published in the journal Sociology of Education (abstract available here) -- is the second major study in two years to try to define the "advantage" of some black applicants to top college. In 2007, a team of researchers published a study in The American Journal of Education finding that while only about 13 percent of black people aged 18 or 19 in the United States are first- or second-generation immigrants, they made up 27 percent of black students at the selective colleges studied.

The new study focuses on the entire population of high school graduates to see where they go to college, comparing immigrant black people, "native-born blacks" (the authors' terms for others), and white students. The authors are two assistant professors of sociology -- Pamela R. Bennett of Johns Hopkins University and Amy Lutz of Syracuse University.

They begin their study by noting that previous research has documented that a smaller proportion of black high school graduates than white high school graduates enroll in college. But when students of similar socioeconomic status are compared, the black high school graduates are more likely than their white counterparts to enroll. Given the debate about the immigrant factor in analyzing black enrollments, the authors set out to determine "whether this net black advantage is very African American."

Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, Bennett and Lutz found that among high school graduates, 75.1 percent of immigrant blacks enrolled in college, a slightly higher percentage than that of whites (72.5 percent) and substantially larger than for native blacks (60.2 percent).

In terms of the college destinations of those who enrolled in college, the rates for immigrant blacks compared to other black students were similar for two-year colleges and non-selective four-year colleges that are not historically black. The biggest gap was at selective colleges, which enroll only 2.4 percent of native black high school graduates but 9.2 percent of immigrant blacks (and 7.3 percent of whites). Native black students are more likely than immigrants to enroll at historically black colleges. But the authors noted that historically black colleges are clearly appealing to some percentage of the black immigrant population, even though those students wouldn't have the same multi-generation ties to the colleges that are found among many African Americans.

Destinations of High School Graduates Who Enrolled in College

Type of College

Native-born blacks

Immigrant blacks

Whites

Community college

41.9%

41.8%

38.7%

Historically black college

25.5%

18.9%

0.1%

Non-selective, non historically black four-year colleges

30.2%

30.0%

54.0%

Selective colleges

2.4%

9.2%

7.3%

The authors of the new study note that there are key differences in the demographics of the black Americans whose families are new to the United States and those who aren't. Immigrant black students are more likely than other black students to grow up In two-parent families and to attend private schools -- both characteristics that, across all sorts of groups, tend to indicate a greater likelihood of attending a selective college.

While their study found success for non-immigrant black students in enrolling in some kinds of colleges, the authors note that the sector -- selective colleges -- in which this is less likely is also the sector most likely to lead to many kinds of high wage careers. More examination of the issue is needed, the authors write, to combat "continued socioeconomic inequality."

That scholarly phrasing may not do justice to the tensions raised by such issues. In 2003, at a reunion of black alumni of Harvard University, Lani Guinier, a law professor, was quoted by The Boston Globe as raising the question of whether black students who are "voluntary immigrants" should be the beneficiaries of affirmative action.

"If you look around Harvard College today, how many young people will you find who grew up in urban environments and went to public high schools and public junior high schools?" she said. "I don't think, in the name of affirmative action, we should be admitting people because they look like us, but then they don't identify with us."

 


 


 

 

Highway Robbery? Texas Police Seize Black Motorists' Cash, Cars

Tenah, Texas

 

Suit says cops force motorists, largely black, to forfeit cash and cars-or be charged with trumped-up crimes

 

By Howard Witt

� Chicago Tribune

March 10, 2009

 

TENAHA, Texas- You can drive into this dusty fleck of a town near the Texas-Louisiana border if you're African-American, but you might not be able to drive out of it-at least not with your car, your cash, your jewelry or other valuables.

That's because the police here allegedly have found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: voluntarily sign over your belongings to the town, or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.

More than 140 people reluctantly accepted that deal from June 2006 to June 2008, according to court records. Among them were a black grandmother from Akron, who surrendered $4,000 in cash after Tenaha police pulled her over, and an interracial couple from Houston, who gave up more than $6,000 after police threatened to seize their children and put them into foster care, the court documents show. Neither the grandmother nor the couple were charged with any crime.

Officials in Tenaha, situated along a heavily traveled highway connecting Houston with popular gambling destinations in Louisiana, say they are engaged in a battle against drug trafficking and call the search-and-seizure practice a legitimate use of the state's asset-forfeiture law. That law permits local police agencies to keep drug money and other property used in the commission of a crime and add the proceeds to their budgets.

"We try to enforce the law here," said George Bowers, mayor of the town of 1,046 residents, where boarded-up businesses outnumber open ones and City Hall sports a broken window. "We're not doing this to raise money. That's all I'm going to say at this point."

But civil rights lawyers call Tenaha's practice something else: highway robbery. The attorneys have filed a federal class-action lawsuit to stop what they contend is an unconstitutional perversion of the law's intent, aimed primarily at blacks who have done nothing wrong.

Tenaha officials "have developed an illegal 'stop and seize' practice of targeting, stopping, detaining, searching and often seizing property from apparently non-white citizens and those traveling with non-white citizens," asserts the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

The property seizures are not just happening in Tenaha. In southern parts of Texas near the Mexican border, for example, Hispanics allege that they are being singled out.

According to a prominent state legislator, police agencies across Texas are wielding the asset-forfeiture law more aggressively to supplement their shrinking operating budgets.

"If used properly, it's a good law-enforcement tool to see that crime doesn't pay," said state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee. "But in this instance, where people are being pulled over and their property is taken with no charges filed and no convictions, I think that's theft."

David Guillory, an attorney in Nacogdoches who filed the federal lawsuit, said he combed through Shelby County court records from 2006 to 2008 and discovered nearly 200 cases in which Tenaha police seized cash and property from motorists. In about 50 of the cases, suspects were charged with drug possession.

But in 147 others, Guillory said the court records showed, police seized cash, jewelry, cell phones and sometimes even automobiles from motorists but never found any contraband or charged them with any crime. Of those, Guillory said he managed to contact 40 of the motorists directly-and discovered all but one of them were black.

"The whole thing is disproportionately targeted toward minorities, particularly African-Americans," Guillory said. "None of these people have been charged with a crime, none were engaged in anything that looked criminal. The sole factor is that they had something that looked valuable."

In some cases, police used the fact that motorists were carrying large amounts of cash as evidence that they must have been involved in laundering drug money, even though Guillory said each of the drivers he contacted could account for where the money had come from and why they were carrying it-such as for a gambling trip to Shreveport, La., or to purchase a used car from a private seller.

Once the motorists were detained, the police and the local Shelby County district attorney quickly drew up legal papers presenting them with an option: waive their rights to their cash and property or face felony charges for crimes such as money laundering-and the prospect of having to hire a lawyer and return to Shelby County multiple times to attend court sessions to contest the charges.

The process apparently is so routine in Tenaha that Guillory discovered pre-signed and pre-notarized police affidavits with blank spaces left for an officer to describe the property being seized.

Jennifer Boatright, her husband and two young children-a mixed-race family-were traveling from Houston to visit relatives in east Texas in April 2007 when Tenaha police pulled them over, alleging that they were driving in a left-turn lane.

After searching the car, the officers discovered what Boatright said was a gift for her sister: a small, unused glass pipe made for smoking marijuana. Although they found no drugs or other contraband, the police seized $6,037 that Boatright said the family was carrying to purchase a used car-and then threatened to turn their children, ages 10 and 1, over to Child Protective Services if the couple didn't agree to sign over their right to their cash.

"It was give them the money or they were taking our kids," Boatright said. "They suggested that we never bring it up again. We figured we better give them our cash and get the hell out of there."

Several months later, after Boatright and her husband contacted an attorney, Tenaha officials returned their money but offered no explanation or apology. The couple remain plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit.

Except for Tenaha's mayor, none of the defendants in the lawsuit, including Shelby County District Atty. Linda Russell and two Tenaha police officers, responded to requests from the Tribune for comment about their search-and-seizure practices. Lawyers for the defendants also declined to comment, as did several of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

But Whitmire says he doesn't need to await the suit's outcome to try to fix what he regards as a statewide problem. On Monday he introduced a bill in the state Legislature that would require police to go before a judge before attempting to seize property under the asset-forfeiture law-and ultimately Whitmire hopes to tighten the law further so that law-enforcement officials will be allowed to seize property only after a suspect is charged and convicted in a court.

"The law has gotten away from what was intended, which was to take the profits of a bad guy's crime spree and use it for additional crime-fighting," Whitmire said. "Now it's largely being used to pay police salaries-and it's being abused because you don't even have to be a bad guy to lose your property."

 

 


Without a Pastor of His Own, Obama Turns to Five

Rev. Otis Moss, Jr.

Rev. Otis Moss, Jr. of Cleveland, Ohio  
   

By Laurie Goodstein

� New York Times

March 15, 2009

 
President Obama

has been without a pastor or a home church ever since he cut his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he has quietly cultivated a handful of evangelical pastors for private prayer sessions on the telephone and for discussions on the role of religion in politics.
 

All are men, two of them white and three black - including the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., a graying lion of the civil rights movement. Two, the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T. D. Jakes and the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush. Another, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leans left on some issues, like military intervention and poverty programs, but opposes abortion.

None of these pastors are affiliated with the religious right, though several are quite conservative theologically. One of them, the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, was branded a turncoat by some leaders of the Christian right when he began to speak out on the need to stop global warming.

But as a group they can hardly be characterized as part of the religious left either. Most, like Mr. Wallis, do not take traditionally liberal positions on abortion or homosexuality. What most say they share with the president is the conviction that faith is the foundation in the fight against economic inequality and social injustice.

"These are all centrist, social justice guys," said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers, a politically active pastor of Azusa Community Church in Boston, who knows all of them but is not part of the president's prayer caucus. "Obama genuinely comes out of the social justice wing of the church. That's real. The community organizing stuff is real."

The pastors say Mr. Obama appears to rely on his faith for intellectual and spiritual succor.

"While he may not put 'Honk if You Love Jesus' bumper stickers on the back of his car, he is the kind of guy who practices what he preaches," said Mr. Caldwell, the senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston. "He has a desire to keep in touch with folk outside the Beltway, and to stay in touch with God. He seems to see those as necessary conditions for maintaining his internal compass."

Bishop Jakes said he had been tapped for several prayer phone calls - the most recent being when Mr. Obama's grandmother died in November, two days before the election. "You take turns praying," said Bishop Jakes, who like the other ministers did not want to divulge details of the calls. "It's really more about contacting God than each other."

Mr. Hunter said of the phone calls: "The times I have prayed with him, he's always initiated it."

The Obama administration has reached out to hundreds of religious leaders across the country to mobilize support and to seek advice on policy. These five pastors, however, have been brought into a more intimate inner circle. Their names were gleaned from interviews with people who know the president and religious leaders who work in Washington. Their role could change if Mr. Obama joins a church in Washington, but that could take some time because of the logistical challenges in finding a church that can accommodate the kind of crowd the Obamas would attract.

The White House refused to comment for this article.

The pastor in the circle who has known Mr. Obama the longest is Mr. Wallis, president and chief executive of Sojourners, a liberal magazine and movement based in Washington. In contrast to the other four, his contact with the president has been focused more on policy than prayer. Mr. Wallis has recently joined conservatives in pressing the president's office of faith-based initiatives to continue to allow government financing for religious social service groups that hire only employees of their own faith.

Mr. Wallis said he got to know Mr. Obama in the late 1990s when they participated in a traveling seminar that took bus trips to community programs across the country. Mr. Wallis said they "hit it off" because they were both Christians serious about their faith, fathers of young children the same age and believers in "transcending left and right" to find solutions to social problems.

"He and I were what we called back then 'progressive Christians,' as opposed to the dominant religious-right era we were in then," Mr. Wallis said. "We didn't think Jesus' top priorities would be capital gains tax cuts and supporting the next war."

Presidents through the ages have leaned on pastors for spiritual support, policy advice and political cover. The Rev. Billy Graham was a counselor to at least five (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush), and tapes from the Nixon White House reveal that their talks veered beyond religion to political and social topics that later proved regretful.

Some presidents, like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, regularly attended a local church. George W. Bush never joined a local church, but courted ministers on the religious right, which gained him favor with a major constituency for most of his two terms.

Pinning down Mr. Obama's theological leanings is not easy, the ministers said in interviews. They said he is well read in the Bible, but has not articulated views consistent with the racially inflected interpretation of his former pastor, Mr. Wright.

Mr. Moss, who once worked alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and who only recently retired from his pulpit at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, said of the president, "I would simply say that he is a person of great faith, and I think that faith has sustained him."

Mr. Moss's son is the Rev. Otis Moss III, who succeeded Mr. Wright as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Mr. Obama's former church. Mr. Wright and the president are no longer in contact, said several people who know both men.

Bishop Jakes said he sought out Mr. Obama in Chicago because of their common interest in Kenya and because he was impressed with the speech Mr. Obama delivered at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

Bishop Jakes is himself a nationally known preaching powerhouse who fills sports stadiums and draws 30,000 worshipers to his church in Dallas, the Potter's House. He also produces movies, writes books and runs antipoverty programs in Dallas and Kenya, where Mr. Obama has ties through his Kenyan father.

Three of the ministers said their introduction to the president was through Joshua DuBois, who led religious outreach for the Obama presidential campaign and now heads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mr. DuBois, who declined to comment, is himself a Pentecostal pastor.

Mr. Hunter, who leads a church in Longwood, Fla., said he was approached by Mr. DuBois in 2007 - a few months after he left his new post as head of the Christian Coalition, the conservative advocacy group, because the board did not want to enlarge its agenda to include environmental issues like global warming.

He has since written a book, "A New Kind of Conservative: Cooperation Without Compromise," and gave an invocation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year.

Bishop Jakes, Mr. Wallis and Mr. Hunter said they were political independents. Mr. Moss and Mr. Caldwell publicly endorsed Mr. Obama, and Mr. Caldwell donated money to his campaign.

On the morning of the inauguration, Bishop Jakes delivered the sermon at a private service at St. John's Episcopal Church. He likened Mr. Obama to the boys in the Book of Daniel who are thrown into a fiery furnace that is seven times hotter than it should be - and survive. "God is with you in the furnace," Bishop Jakes preached to Mr. Obama.

 



 

Obama's Election a Mixed Bag for Black Caucus

 CBC Members
 
 
 

 

By Diana Marrero

� Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

March 16, 2009

 

Washington - For decades, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have struggled to climb the rungs of leadership on Capitol Hill. Today, African-American lawmakers wield more power than ever before.

Their numbers have grown. Their members hold some of the most influential positions in Congress. And, with the historic election of Barack Obama, they have an ally in the White House.

Now, members of the black caucus are trying to figure out how best to use their influence in Congress and to what extent Obama can help them enact their top policy goals.

"The black caucus is more relevant now than ever," said Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat who leads the caucus. "We're looking forward to working with Obama on our common and shared agenda, which is an agenda that speaks to the aspirations and dreams of not only communities of color but the entire country."

Others, however, worry that the country's first black president could end up setting back the black community as he attempts to forge a legacy that goes beyond his skin color.

"He almost has to show that he's dismissive," said Ronald Walters, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. "It's a Catch-22 situation we're in right now. There's a downside to that."

When the caucus was founded 40 years ago, it had 13 members. It has 42 today. Its ranks include the third-highest-ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives, four committee chairmen and 17 subcommittee chairmen.

A complex relationship

"Black people have more clout because of our positions here," said Rep. Gwen Moore, a Milwaukee Democrat who is part of the caucus.

Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina now holds the No. 3 spot in the House as majority whip; Rep. Charles Rangel of New York serves as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which sets the nation's tax laws; Rep. John Conyers of Michigan heads the Judiciary Committee.

But some say the black community has a long way to go in the world of national politics even though a black man is now in the White House and several African-Americans hold top positions in government.

"This election is one election," Clyburn said. "When Barack Obama got elected president, he was the only African-American sitting in the United States Senate."

Black members of Congress say they are excited about working with Obama. "It's good to have a colleague in the White House who's been a part of the black caucus," said Rep. Kendrick Meek of Florida. "He's bringing a perspective to the White House that's never been there before."

But the relationship between the caucus and the president is a complicated one. Although Obama was a member while in the Senate, he attended caucus events sporadically, and roughly half the caucus supported his opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Democratic primary.

Caucus members began rallying around Obama once he won the Iowa caucus last January, but, with the exception of a major speech on race during his campaign, he has largely stayed away from racial issues.

Some caucus members have expressed concerns that Obama has placed few blacks in high-level positions on his cabinet: Eric Holder as attorney general, Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations and Valerie Jarrett as senior adviser. Others worry that he and the black members of his cabinet may diminish the influence of the caucus by becoming an alternative voice for black politics.

A different background

Obama's background is unlike those of top black leaders in Congress. Clyburn was jailed for leading a march against segregation in Columbia, S.C., in the 1960s. Obama was 3 years old when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted.

Clyburn says Obama has a more "sensitive ear" to the experiences that he and other blacks have gone through, but "our experiences have been totally different."

The generational differences between black politicians are evident within the Congress, said Dewey Clayton, a political scientist at the University of Louisville. "The young new black leaders don't come from the civil rights era," he said.

Black members also are struggling to find the right balance between working on broad policy goals and issues that can be seen as largely benefiting the black community. Moore says she is mindful that she represents a district that is 50% white and that she wants to be seen as a politician who is black rather than a black politician.

Even so, many of the policy proposals on the agenda for Obama and congressional Democrats - from helping the poor to expanding educational opportunities - would ultimately benefit black Americans, she said.

"The black community is at the bottom of the heap on every statistic - income, high school graduation, infant mortality, exposure to lead paint," Moore said. "Any president who is working on using the public trough for the public good is going to help black people."

During a recent White House meeting with Obama, the caucus presented him with a set of policy priorities that ranged from increasing the number of minorities in federal jobs to boosting access to affordable health care to improving education in low-income communities.

The caucus also asked Obama to ensure that census officials do a better job of fully counting minorities. "The black agenda is fairly expansive," Walters said. "We're talking about a group of 40 million people. You take it out of the country, it's the size of many nation-states."

Still a factor?

Critics, however, wonder whether the caucus is doing enough to represent the interests of the black community. They say the caucus has become splintered as its membership has grown and that divisions between liberals and moderates within the group have rendered it irrelevant.

"The caucus has not been a real factor in progressive politics, not as an institution, for a rather long time," said Glen Ford, who runs a liberal Web site, Black Agenda Report.

Black leaders also are divided about whether they should focus less on institutional racism and more on advocating for the black community to take responsibility for some of its problems. It's a debate that Moore encouraged during the caucus' most recent annual conference a few months ago in Washington, during which she hosted a panel discussion on the issue.

In her closing remarks, she argued for the two sides to find a middle ground and said better educational opportunities can help lift many in the black community.

Moore, who was elected to the House in 2004, has been an active member of the caucus since she got to Congress.

She has focused much of her legislative efforts on helping the poor. One of her bills in the last Congress would have helped low-income workers buy used cars to help them get to work.

But Moore has resisted being pegged as a go-to lawmaker on black issues, making clear in interviews that she would rather be known for her work on financial and small-business issues.

Caucus members will have to work harder than ever if they want to see policies take shape that will benefit the black community, Walters said. "They can't sit back and think that just because Barack Obama is in the White House, these things are going to automatically happen," he said.

 


 

 


African-Americans Continue to Lag Whites in Stock Ownership
 
Stock Exchange Floor
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Even in this market, that's not to their advantage, says Ariel Investment's Mellody Hobson

 

By Greg Burns

� Chicago Tribune

March 16, 2009

 

To hear Mellody Hobson tell it, African-Americans have paid a high price for shunning the stock market.

The president of Chicago's Ariel Investments has tirelessly campaigned for black households to pour their money into equities. Every year, she puts her star power behind a survey with brokerage Charles Schwab & Co. that keeps the issue alive.

So in the wake of the market plunge, who's sorry now?

Not Hobson.

Stocks remain the best bet, no matter how small the nest egg, she said in an interview last week: "If you have fewer assets, but you're willing to take a long-term view, put them in the area with the greatest return."

That's conventional wisdom in the investment game. But the current market debacle has revived old doubts about many financial platitudes. These days, to some, the African-American community's traditional skepticism is ringing more true than the usual truisms.

The most recent Ariel-Schwab survey shows that 62 percent of blacks with incomes of $50,000 or higher own stocks or mutual funds, versus 82 percent of whites. In the survey's 11 years, black stock ownership has varied from a low of 57 percent to a short-lived high of 74 percent during the dot-com boom. White ownership has stayed around 80 percent.

One explanation: Black households typically put more emphasis on the market's risks and volatility, believing success requires close attention and expert timing. Also, with fewer investable assets, blacks feel more vulnerable to bear markets. The median net worth of the average black family is 10 times less than that of the average white family, a 2006 National Urban League report found.

Those reasons make good sense, said Zvi Bodie, a visiting finance professor at MIT who recently issued a press release headlined, "Sell your stocks." Anyone saving for retirement would be better off in government bonds pegged to inflation, he said-particularly African-Americans.

"People with less wealth can ill-afford to take risk with their hard-earned savings," he said. "If you cannot tolerate a loss, stay away."

In addition, black households generally feel isolated from the corporate world. Lacking the knowledge and resources to invest with confidence in the financial markets, African-Americans tend to favor real estate or other tangible assets.

Good point, said John Campbell, a Harvard University economist who analyzes long-term stock returns: "If the caution is based on the feeling that they're at the end of the chain of information, perhaps there is some wisdom in that caution."

To an extent, the fears also are warranted because investors shouldn't automatically rely on stocks for the highest return over the long run, Campbell said. "It cannot be true that stocks are always the best investment at any price."

Still, Campbell sees opportunity in today's market. With prices down and yields up, he said, "This is a much better moment to buy stocks."

For many investors, he noted, "It's a good idea to have some stock. On average, there is a reward for taking risk."

No surprise, Hobson is more emphatic. Over time, stocks outperform every other major asset class, including real estate, she said. "Stocks are so cheap. The biggest risk is not investing."

And while the recession has undermined faith in a slew of business practices and assumptions, she has seen nothing to shake her convictions, she said. "I never believe this time is different."

 


 


 

 

 



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