Where we start out in life should not determine where we end up. Inherent in mobility is the belief that everyone who works hard should be able to advance and participate fully in society. Mobility requires that our nation's class distinctions be fluid and unpredictable over generations, while moving forward as a society.
This is the 2009 State of Opportunity report. Here you may download the final report, the final report with accompanying charts, a synopsis, and each of the indicators individually.
This memo offers guidance for using the 2009 State of Opportunity in America report, which examines various dimensions of opportunity, including health care, wealth and income, education, and incarceration. While expanding opportunity in America remains a goal of policymakers and advocates alike, this report finds that access to full and equal opportunity is still very much a mixed reality. Our recommendations to address this reality offer concrete ideas for moving us forward together.
It’s time to tell a new story about immigration in this country. We propose a flexible, values-based framework that we can use to start a variety of conversations: We need workable solutions that uphold our values and help us move forward together.
This publication contains a balance of historical context, framing advice, resources, practical tools and strategies for moving toward a new political conversation.
If the promise of opportunity is a core national commitment, it is essential to measure our success in fulfilling that commitment. This report assesses the nation’s progress toward protecting and expanding opportunity for all Americans and encourages our policymakers, through bold leadership and innovative policies, to ensure the promise of o
This fact sheet reviews evidence of housing-opportunity barriers both prior to and after the storm, and summarizes some effective policies to reduce these barriers and expand opportunity.
My niece—who is pursuing a degree in psychology—asked me last Sunday to review her essay on the American Dream for one of her English courses. Her essay began explaining what the “American Dream” ought to be: economic mobility, home ownership, and better education. But the remaining two pages offered a gloomy viewpoint: the American Dream has become more and more elusive for her.
In anticipation of the upcoming March Public Opinion Monthly focusing on foreclosures, homeownership, and equal opportunity to achieve the American Dream, this week’s biweekly roundup focuses on recent public opinion studies on the topic, to be analyzed further in the Monthly.
It’s in all of our interest to define common-sense solutions to jump-start our economic recovery and to push for innovative ideas that leave aside partisan politics.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about the state of affairs in America. His assessment was as follows: America never goes too far one way or too far the other. It’s like a sine wave; sometimes one side is up for a little while and the other side is down, then they switch. Despite this yo-yo phenomenon, overall he felt like things were improving.
As Americans, we’re a remarkably hopeful people. A belief that, no matter where you start, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, work hard, and plant the posts of your picket fence, is fundamental to our identity. But, while we do lack the rigid class constrictions of Western Europe, the truth is that upward economic mobility is fundamentally unattainable for most Americans today. The road to real economic opportunity is a long one, but it starts with a reorganizing of our priorities.
Across the country, our youth – the future of our country – took to the streets today. Protestors closed college campuses and secondary schools in a national day to defend the current state of public education. With rising tuition costs, budget cuts, increased layoffs and growing class sizes, parents, students and concerned citizens are trying to get their voices heard in the education crisis.
As reported Oct. 22 on NPR, current efforts by telecom providers threaten access to information and applications on the Internet. Possible changes by the Federal Communications Commission highlight these efforts, which pertain to what power internet service providers have in restricting access that conflicts with their own interest.
Today is blog Action Day. In the organizers' own words:
Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.
The public radio show Marketplace has begun an interesting series of stories on "the Next American Dream," including what it calls the "Four Pillars" of that Dream: Home Ownership; Education; Mobility and Opportunity; and Retirement. You can check out the series and provide your own input via their website.
The eye is one of the most complex organs in the human body. What was millions of years ago a simple concave receptor sensitive to ultra low frequencies of light has not just become an advanced organ that utilizes one-third of the nerve endings in the human body, but it has also become one of the most powerful influencers in the craft of rhetorical persuasion. So much, that those who lack this basic faculty of perception face great obstacles in the pursuit of opportunity and equality.
In a piece for Slate.com, Timothy Noah writes about the disturbing phenomenon of putting coveted summer internships up for auction at elite private schools. Clearly this is putting those who cannot pay, but are well qualified for the position, at an immediate disadvantage. Opportunity is quite literally being sold to the highest bidder.
In lieu of the regular Monday Health Blog Round-Up, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on our observation of Labor Day yesterday, and how the history of the holiday reflects upon our current health care crisis.
Labor Day was first conceived of in 1882 by the Central Labor Union of New York City, a coalition of trade unionists who later joined with the American Federation of Labor. But it was not until twelve years later, on June 28, 1894, that Congress made Labor Day a national holiday, eventually adopted by all 50 states. What was the catalyst for the "day off for the working man," and how is all of this related to our current health care crisis? What follows below is a discussion of the key national values mobility, security, opportunity, and how government can (but sometimes fails to) defend the American Dream.
The catalyst, it turns out, may sound somewhat familiar. Irresponsible speculation by banks encouraged over-development by speculators, creating an economic bubble. When the bubble burst, thousands of businesses and hundreds of banks lost everything, resulting in a massive recession where unemployment skyrocketed and many American families wondered about how to make ends meet for the most basic of necessities. After massive protests (some ending violently) subsumed the industrial centers of the Midwest, Congress felt a need to act, and Labor Day, in recognition of the contributions of working families, was what they came up with.
Now, Labor Day is a fine holiday; I enjoyed it myself by making a chuck roast that turned out wonderfully. But the history that bears some worrying parallels to our current economic conditions (a downturn as result of over-speculation by banks and developers, though housing in our case rather than railroads) brings up some questions about how we view labor (with a small "l") in this country. America is based in the core ideal that when folks work hard, not only should they be able to barely make ends meet, they should have the opportunity to advance and fully participate in the social, economic and political. Put another way, this is the promise of Mobility, the element of the American Dream that says not only should we ensure that the lives of the next generation is better than our own, but we must make sure that our institutions allow for all of us in our own lifetimes to pursue a better life for ourselves, our families, and our community. A poor economic environment should not be an excuse for the government to fail to stand up and protect this right; the government has, at its best moments in history, defended the American value of mobility, by creating more jobs, by helping those who have fallen on the hardest times get back on their feet, by helping communities to find new paths in new economies through government-aided infrastructure and supportive programs.
The role of the government is to appease unrest with another national holiday; it is to provide Security. I don't mean security in the sense of having a strong national defense and valuable alliances and partners abroad, though that is important as well; this sense of security is that we, our families, and our communities are entitled, as part of the social contract of the United States, to be secure in our health, our homes, our most basic human needs that afford us our most invaluable human dignity. And here we find the roots of the answer to the second part of my question above, as to how the history of Labor Day relates to health care.
By any measure, Congress's response to the labor protests of May 1894 was inadequate. A holiday didn't change the fundamental inequities of the new economy; it didn't reduce unemployment (the highest estimate being 18.4%), create new jobs, or protect Americans struggling to survive despite working hard to build the new infrastructure of our country. "The Panic of 1893" that had precipitated the events of 1894 had been preceded two decades earlier by "The Panic of 1873," and would be followed by The Great Depression of the 1930s. In these cases, the government had seen the problem before, knew that Americans required their assistance to fulfill the dream of opportunity, security, and mobility, but failed to act. It was only after a government that recognized the American promise to aid our neighbors and to strengthen our national community acted to create jobs and programs to assist those hardest hit to recover that the nation once again began moving in the right direction.
And so, we finally come to health care. There is a crisis in America, only partly due to the recent bursting of the housing and real estate bubble, but a problem that has been underlying for quite some time. Almost 46 million Americans are uninsured, and 25 million Americans are underinsured, meaning that despite having insurance policies, they don't receive the health care that they need when they need it due to insufficient coverage. In a system where health care is tied so closely to employment, the downturn in the economy is foreboding, signaling a possible worsening of this crisis. And yet, in some good news last week, the percentage and number of uninsured actually dropped from 2006 and 2007, from 15.8% to 15.3%, and from 47 million uninsured to 45.7 million. The cause?
A government for the people is one that responds in times of need to protect our core American Values. Now is time for Congress to defend those values not with another holiday, but with real, practical solutions to key issues such as health care. What we need now is something much more than another day of barbecuing.
Check out The Opportunity Agenda Executive Director Alan Jenkins' new column, "Brave New Laws," at the Campaign for America's Future blog, Blog for Our Future. Jenkins discusses the need for new, proactive laws that recognize what technological advances and scientific research have clearly demonstrated--that many Americans are still at risk of discrimination:
With a tongue-in-cheek ad declaring “Our prices are insane!,” last week’s Education Week section of the New York Times ran a cover story entitled “The Low Cost of College.” Inside, an article by David Leonhardt describes a surprising trend among elite American universities. They are actually reducing tuition and increasing aid for low-income and middle classed students.
Beginning next fall, schools including Dartmouth, Haverford, and Rice will offer grants instead of loans to lower income students. They are following the lead of schools like Harvard, which announced in 2006 that parents making less than $60,000 would not have to pay anything toward their kids’ education. And many schools are reaching out to middle class families too—Harvard announced in December that it would also offer significant financial aid to families making less than $180,000.
Leonhardt’s article points out that these efforts are extremely modest compared to the substantial decrease in low-income students at elite schools over the last two decades. As we reported in The State of Opportunity in America, “since 1983…the increase in tuition costs at both public and private four-year institutions has greatly outpaced the increase in median family income.”
As Leonhardt’s piece correctly notes, increases in the federal Pell grant—which typically goes to families making less than $40,000—would accomplish far greater positive change, as would reforms that transcend these elite schools, like “preparing more low- and middle-income children to attend college, lifting the graduation rates at community colleges and large four-year colleges, and simplifying and expanding federal financial aid.”
The article falls short, though, when it comes to discussing the reasons why any of these changes are worth making in the first place. Explaining that “there are several arguments for increasing economic diversity at elite colleges,” the article says (1) “it makes the universities more consistent with their self-image as meritocracies;” (2) these colleges “have come to play arguably a larger role in American society;” and (3) “recent research also suggests that lower-income students benefit more from an elite education than other students do.”
Is that really it? Those reasons, it seems to me, are both cynical and narrow. They are out of touch with the promise of opportunity that a quality college education represents for successive generations of Americans. What about these reasons:
➢ A fundamental value in our society is mobility—the notion that where you start out in life should not determine where you end up—with access to college serving as a primary rung on the upward ladder of opportunity. If the country’s most prestigious schools are effectively open only to the rich, the mobility ideal is thwarted, and these institutions’ public mission must be called into question.
➢ Economic diversity is crucial within institutions like these that train so large a share of our nation’s leaders. Not only should those leaders hail from the breadth of our population, but their education should include learning from and with people from different backgrounds.
➢ It’s in our national interest to ensure that opportunity is available to everyone in our society. Taping the genius of kids and communities that have traditionally been shut out of the American Dream will generate untold societal benefits—cures to deadly diseases, new technologies, economic and social advances—that we can barely conceive of today.
➢ With manufacturing jobs disappearing, empowering working class families to make the leap to a globalized, information economy through a top-notch education is critical to our success as a nation.
Why do the reasons matter? Because if opening elite schools to low-income families is just about making Ivy League bureaucrats proud of themselves, or because poor kids may get an incrementally greater value than rich kids, then it's about others, not about all of us.
Just as important, connecting financial aid polices to our national values and interests leads to other, more profound questions. Like so many articles about higher education, the piece fails to ask how we can go beyond ways of dividing up the existing educational pie, and actually bake more pie. Clearly, the future of our nation depends not only on achieving a mix of students from different backgrounds, but also on expanding educational opportunities so that every kid who can do the work has access to a school that taps her or his full potential. Expanding opportunity and, therefore, shared prosperity, is where we should set our sights as a nation.
A Quinnipiac Poll released today shows that a plurality, and almost majority, of Connecticut residents believe that undocumented immigrants should be offered a chance to apply for citizenship, preferring this policy option over either deportation or offering temporary worker status by a rate of 2-to-1.
The poll asked, among many other questions ranging from opinions on the current presidential candidates to the state of the economy:
38. What do you think should happen to most illegal immigrants working in the United States - Should they be offered a chance to apply for citizenship, OR Should they be allowed to stay as temporary workers, OR Should they be deported to the country they came from?
47% of all respondents selected "citizenship," while only 27% and 22% selected "temporary workers" and "deported," respectively. 51% of all women and 59% of all African American residents agreed that a path to citizenship was the sound solution to addressing the status issue of undocumented immigrants.
These Connecticut residents are recognizing the importance of community, the American value of expanding opportunity for all members of our society and extending to newcomers both the rights and responsibilities that tie us together, as embodied in our national motto, E Pluribus Unum, "from many, one." Connecticuters (yes, that's what someone from Connecticut is called; either that, or "Yankee," as of King Arthur's Court) also hold strong the fundamental American value of mobility, the central concept of the American Dream which states that the economic, educational, and personal achievement should not be limited or determined by the circumstances of a person's birth.
Immigration News Daily has posted a couple articles related to
the US as an English-speaking country. In Philadelphia, a well-known
cheese steak restaurant is under review by the city's human rights
commission for a sign that says "This is America - when ordering, please speak English." City officials are alleging that the sign violates the ban on national origin discrimination. On the other end, the blog has reported on an opinion in Newsday which argues that Immigrants would thrive with more English classes.
The piece talks about the shortage of English classes on Long Island
while also explaining how poor language skills have prevented
immigrants from continuing to work in their previous professional
careers:
Plenty of anecdotal evidence shows that these programs work. Two years
ago, for example, a Peruvian-born former computer programmer was stuck
on the assembly line at Love and Quiches Desserts, a Freeport-based
manufacturer. After he completed Freeport Adult Education's ESOL
program, he was promoted to supervisor.
In the Long Beach
school district, several women from Central America who were dentists
in their home countries but worked in dead-end jobs here boosted their
English and found jobs as dental hygienists.
Author Tara Colton makes a case for government investment in the
productivity of immigrants via language classes, noting that this
strategy enjoys bipartisan support:
This is a crucial problem, because the more fluent immigrants are in
English, the more they can contribute positively to society. This is a
point that all sides of the immigration debate agree on. Making this
improvement in the lives of millions of people living and working here
has got to be as vital as deciding whether to punish them for how they
arrived.
For business and government, it's also a matter of economic
development. Boosting workers' English skills improves productivity,
reduces turnover and helps growth.
Immigration Orange posted about the 'widow penalty' which ends the permanent residency process for immigrants whose citizen spouse dies within two years of marriage. The blog recommends contacting your public officials in order to end this "obscure interpretation of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)," examples of which are quoted in the post:
Marlin Coats didn't hesitate to jump in the
water to try to save two drowning teens caught in a riptide at San Francisco Beach Park.
He lost his life that Mother's Day in 2006, but because of his heroism those
two teenagers survived. So why is the U.S. now responding to Coats'
ultimate sacrifice by deporting his wife Jacqueline Coats?
U.S. Army contractor Todd Engstrom of Illinois gave his life for his country when he was killed in Iraq, and now the federal
government is telling his wife Diana she too must go.
And so must Dahianna Heard of Florida,
whose husband Jeffrey Heard was shot in the head by insurgents
in Iraq.
What will happen to their children?
The 'Just News' blog reposted an article from the Omaha World-Herald about a family divided by US immigration policy. Joe Wood of Nebraska had decided it was time to 'do the right thing' and legalize his wife Laura Roldan's immigration status, so he, Roldan and their two daughters traveled to a US Consulate in Mexico to begin the process. However, Roldan has been accused of fraud for giving a false name upon her entry in 2001, and barred from ever returning to the US.
Last up, it has recently come to the ImmigrationProf
blog's attention that all four grandparents of Republican Presidential
Candidate Tom Tancredo were immigrants from Italy. Author KJ links to a
great article in Reason Magazine about the discrimination faced by Italian immigrants in the early 20th Century, along with how, in two generations, the American Dream has brought Tancredo to a place where he has internalized the same distaste for foreigners.
The Angry Asian Man blog has posted a series of inspiring articles about
a woman who is working towards a degree from Harvard University. Kimberly S.M. Woo is a single mother who was once a homeless drug addict. In the process of turning her life around she sought an education as a means of escaping poverty and creating a better life for her five-year-old daughter. Woo is a stellar example of the power of redemption as well as our potential for social mobility. Like thousands of Americans, Woo was given a second chance and has excelled; after a year working for Americorp she attended a community college in Boston for her Associate's Degree, where she earned a 4.0 GPA before transferring to Harvard.
This weekend saw a couple interesting articles about the politics behind skiing. Immigration News Daily has written about an Aspen Ski resort's efforts to find workers:
The Aspen Skiing Co.'s quest to find enough workers this winter led
recruiters to Puerto Rico, among other places. The company hired about
20 workers from the Caribbean island this fall to work in various
positions at its two lodging properties, The Little Nell hotel and
Snowmass Lodge and Club, according to Skico spokesman Jeff Hanle. The
Skico was forced to get creative this year when there was a snafu at
the national level with the H-2B visa program for temporary guest
workers. An exemption to the program expired Sept. 30, after Congress
failed to address comprehensive immigration reform.
And the Immigrants in USA blog did a feature called Niños on the slopes about a new Park City, Utah programs to provide local Latino children with access to the sport:
The Niños program, sponsored by St. Mary's Catholic Church, exists to
bridge the cultural divide between, generally speaking, the affluent
whites of Park City and the Latino immigrants who work in the posh
community's service industry.
"Here, in this town, skiing is
the great equalizer," explained the Rev. Bob Bussen, known as "Father
Bob," who tears down the mountain wearing his clerical collar. "If you
can ski, you're as good as anyone."
The All About Race blog has reported on an upsetting development in the Jena 6 case. It seems that the plea bargain the Mychal Bell accepted also included a promise to testify against the other five students facing charges:
With Bell being placed in the position of serving as the
star witness against the other teens, they are more likely to be
convicted if they refuse to follow Bell’s example and cop a plea. This
is the underbelly of an unfair judicial system. Upon entering his
guilty plea, Bell admitted that he hit the White student, knocking him
unconscious, and joining others in kicking him after he fell to the
floor. Therefore, the D.A. will be using the most culpable of the six
teens to obtain convictions against those who were less involved.
That’s the way the judicial system works – or doesn’t work.
The Happening Here blog has posted about a nurses' strike at St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco's Mission District. We've previously mentioned
the hospital's plans to close down in order to shift its services to a
more affluent neighborhood. The hospital has refused for months to
negotiate a contract with the nurses union, who began striking last
Thursday.
Lastly, the Inteligenta Indiĝena Indigenismo Novaĵoservo blog has advised us of a Washington Post article stating that the federal government has paid $1.3 billion in farm subsidies since 2000 to people who do not farm. While our government policies are never devoid of irony, these subsidies are a particularly painful instance of unequal treatment given the "go-it-alone" narrative of individualism that conservatives use to justify cutting back on social services. In reality, however, great societies are built by investing in the well-being of the community, which was understood well by the authors of the New Deal legislation, the GI bill and the HeadStart program.
The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog has reposted an interesting New York Times article
on an innovative program providing prenatal care for homeless women in
San Francisco. With nineteen years as a non-profit agency, and a staff
of fifty-three people, half of whom have been homeless in the past, the
program is a model of the core value of redemption, or the idea that we all deserve the support needed for a new start:
"The Homeless Prenatal Program has evolved from its original mission
of helping destitute women give birth to and then keep healthy babies
to become a resource dedicated to stabilizing entire families. It
offers what this particular woman excitedly described here as 'a
plethora of services' for mental health, housing and substance abuse
problems. It combines those with an array of alternative health
approaches not usually available to the poor, like yoga, massage and
chiropractic treatments.
'People call me a reckless optimist, and you have to be to do this
kind of work,' said Martha Ryan, founder and executive director of the
Homeless Prenatal Program. 'But I see enough success. I see people
really able to turn their lives around, and I see their children be
able to move forward and have a different life.'”
Prometheus 6 wrote about yesterday's Washington Post article entitled Middle-Class Dream Eludes African American Families. A new study by Pew Charitable Trusts has revealed that "nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults," thus confirming the struggle among people of color to maintain the American value of upward mobility.
The Huffington Post has a great piece up by Sally Kohn of the Movement Vision Lab on the writers' strike. Speaking of the absence of the community frame in television or film media, Kohn praises the writers for joining together but contributes a larger cultural analysis of what has shaped our values of individualism:
"If you turn on your TV today or sit for a matinee at your local
cineplex, you'd wonder whether it's an entirely different crop of folks
holding the pens behind the scenes. After all, much of the shows and
movies they write promote extreme greed, competition and the notion
that we have to pull ourselves up from our individual bootstraps ---
NOT that we're all in it together, in solidarity. While most of us in
real life, like the striking writers, have learned that we can't
succeed without the help of others around us, most reality TV shows from American Idol to Survivor tell us that the only way to the top is fierce competition against one another. Meanwhile shows like Desperate Housewives
tell us that selfishness is good and there's no such thing as too much
greed and status --- mind you, the same greed that is keeping the
Hollywood execs from sharing the wealth with writers. And in countless
movies, writers resort to racist and homophobic 'humor' that helps
further divide our country rather than unite us together."
The DMI Blog has written about the Coalition to Raise the Minimum Standards at New York City Jails, a multi-organizational campaign that achieved a number of victories this year as "the Board of Corrections (BOC) proposed a number of changes to the
Minimum Standards for New York City Correctional Facilities" which cover rules and regulations for city jails. Author Ezekiel Edwards reports that while the BOC was not swayed on every issue of importance to prisoners and their families, significant progress was made in preserving and improving conditions of incarceration: "As a result of the Coalition's relentless efforts, the BOC voted
against the 'overcrowding' policy, against putting those in need of
protection in 23-hour solitary confinement, and against reducing
Spanish translation services."
Feministe has a new post entitled 'Housing is a Human Right' which provides information on upcoming protests against the fact that all public housing units in New Orleans are slated for demolition after a recent federal court ruling. The Facing South blog has also posted about the controvery over the formaldehyde-laced trailers provided as temporary housing -- while Gulf Area families have been living in the trailers, FEMA has cautioned its own employees against entering them.
Finally, Latina Lista has reported on a DailyKos post by the author of the Migra Matters blog called 'A progressive plan for immigration reform,' referring to the resource as "the most insightful, certainly most thorough and step-by-step approach into fully understanding the immigration issue." Given his opinion that immigration is the new topic du jour, author Duke1676 prefaces his summary with "I figured it might be a good time post up a diary that sums up
everything I've learned in my past three years here posting on
immigration issues." With some 454 comments by readers, it's worth a read.
"One year from now, our country will choose a new president. And
while the candidates have debated extensively on individual issues like
health care, the war, the economy, and the environment, they have
offered far less in terms of a positive, overarching vision for our
country that both addresses and transcends individual issues.
While candidates' positions on the issues of the day are crucially
important, it's equally important to take their measure on what George
H. W. Bush called "the vision thing":
the clarity of ideals, values, and principles that inspire and shape a
president's approach to a broad range of issues, including ones that no
one could have anticipated on the day he or she was elected.
A new book by The Opportunity Agenda
offers such a vision on the domestic front; one to which we hope the
presidential contenders of both parties will respond. Not surprisingly,
that vision centers on opportunity, the idea that everyone deserves a
fair chance to achieve his or her full potential. In the book "All Things Being Equal: Instigating Opportunity in an Inequitable Time,"
a dozen leading thinkers paint a picture of what opportunity means in
our society, where we are falling short, and what must be done to
instigate opportunity for all. Their vision bridges myriad
issues—education, employment, housing, criminal justice, immigration,
health care, human rights—and disciplines—public health, economics,
criminology, law, sociology, psychology, education, social work. The
authors provide a clear and hopeful path to the future, a wake-up call
to our nation's current and future leaders, and concrete solutions that
promise to carry us forward.
As I've written before in this column, opportunity is not just a set of national conditions, but a body of national values:
economic security, mobility, a voice in decisions that affect us, a
chance to start over after missteps or misfortune, and a shared sense
of responsibility for each other-as members of a common society.
Analyzing their own and others' research through the lens of those
values, the authors of All Things Being Equal warn that opportunity is
increasingly at risk for all Americans and, therefore, for our country
as a whole. They find that many communities are facing multiple
barriers to opportunity that cannot be overcome through personal effort
alone. But, most importantly, they find that we have it in our power as
a country to turn those trends around."
The Immigration Equality blog has posted about yesterday's confirmation of Michael Mukasey as US Attorney General, after a long struggle in the Senate Judiciary Committee over his unwillingness to label waterboarding as illegal and torturous. The blog also notes that his position on the matter is being interpreted by some as a way of insulating the Department of Justice from future lawsuits or charges against government officials for human rights violations.
The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog reposted a recent New York Times article on the Surge Seen in Number of Homeless Veterans. While many veterans have ended up the sort of post-traumatic stress disorder which often correlates with homelessness, it's unusual that veterans would show up in shelters as soon after deployment as have the most recent batch after duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. Sexual abuse is another factor which correlates with homelessness -- the article states that "roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of
recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers
while in the military."
Finally, the Too Sense
blog posted a graph of the racial diversity in campaign staff among the top 2008 presidential candidates. While Clinton's staff is the most
diverse, Giuliani's staff is 100% white.
Opportunity in America is a two-way street. Each of us has a
responsibility to do our best, pursuing whatever pathways to success
are available to us. And our society has a responsibility to keep those
pathways open and accessible to everyone, irrespective of race, gender,
or other aspects of what we look like or where we come from.
That balance of personal responsibility and self-help on one hand,
while demanding fairness and equity on the other, has always been
crucial to the African-American quest for opportunity. That's why
Malcolm X and the Million Man March continue to occupy such important
places in the black consciousness, and why civil rights organizations
like the NAACP and the National Urban League continue to promote educational and self-help programs along with advocacy and anti-discrimination efforts.
Given that reality, it's disappointing that the media coverage of Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint's new book, Come on, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, seems to be telling only half the story when it comes to the state of black America.
Rachel's Tavern has brought our attention to a recent New York Times article which discusses the recent string of noose incidents in the New York metropolitan area. The article includes quotes by blog author and sociology professor Rachel Sullivan and by Carmen of Racialicious and New Demographic.
There has been a good amount of discussion in the past couple weeks about the election of Piyush "Bobby" Jindal as the next governor of Louisiana, as Jindal is not only the first governor of color since Reconstruction but is the child of Indian Immigrants. While blogs such as RaceWire have asked valid questions about Jindal's politics, arguing that his policies are culturally self-effacing and will prove damaging to people of color, other immigration blogs such as the Immigrants in USA Blog have praised Jindal's election as a sign of progress in the process of accepting and integrating immigrants into our communities, as well as demonstrating the opportunities for success in our country. Jindal is quoted by ABC News as saying: "My mom and dad came to this country in pursuit of the American dream.
And guess what happened. They found the American dream to be alive and
well right here in Louisiana."
The Border Line and LA Times report that presidential candidate Bill Richardson recently spoke on the need to change our policies towards Latin America. As a Latino and former ambassador the the UN, Richardson advocated for both improved diplomatic relations and comprehensive immigration reform that will allow for a pathway to citizenship in order to enable the same sort of mobility that provided Bobby Jindal to opportunity to assume the Louisiana governorship. Along the same topic, Migra Matters has just published a piece on the need to examine how our trade policies such as NAFTA are driving the very migration into the United States that many Americans are fighting.
"National faith, civil rights and labor leaders today unveiled a
campaign to counter the growing anti-immigrant movement in the U.S. by
uplifting the voices of everyday Americans who have grown weary of the
division created by anti-immigrant politics. The campaign presents one
of the few organized alternatives for those Americans who may find
themselves conflicted on immigration and immigration reform, but are
thoroughly at odds with the tenor and ideological background of the
anti-immigrant movement.“
The campaign website states that:
"Campaign for a United America is made up of
Americans from all walks of life who are standing up to defend our
nation’s historic commitment to unity, equality and opportunity. We’re
working to promote a dialogue that respects the contributions of all
community members including our immigrant friends and neighbors and
explores a sensible, humane, and compassionate approach to life
together in a diverse America."
Immigration Equality posted that the San Pedro immigration detention facility where Victoria Arrellano died has lost its government accreditation. Whether or not this means the facility will be shut down is unclear. The organization notes, "Our fear is that DHS is treating the symptom and not the problem" of an immigration system which is built to hold people in inhumane living conditions for indefinite periods of time. The entire way we approach immigration needs to be restructured with respect for the human right of mobility, the idea that we should all have the capacity to cross borders or social class lines in our drive for great opportunities.
As the SCHIP legislation vetoed by President Bush goes back to Congress for another vote today, Firedoglake has written that three members of the House have already announced a change in opinion in favor of expanding funding for children's health care. Two more votes are needed to pass the bill that will provide health insurance for ten million American children whose families live closest to the poverty line.
In affirmative action news, the Mirror on America blog has reported that, in November 2008, five more states will be considering measures to ban the use of racial, ethnic, or gender preferences by public colleges and other state and local agencies. Well-known affirmative action critic Ward Connerly has pushed for referenda in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, in which voters will voice their opinion on policies meant to level the playing field for minorities. Given that all five states have populations that are more than three-quarters white and lack large-scale minority advocacy groups, the approval of such bans seems likely.
One piece of not-so-good news and then we're on to a happier day: The 'Just News' Blog and the LA Times report that a lawsuit has been filed by the ACLU to "stop immigration authorities from forcibly drugging deportees in
order to send them back to their home countries on commercial airlines." It seems this process may be quite widespread, as at least fifty-two people are known to have been drugged over a period of seven months, the majority of which had never shown any signs of psychiatric illness. ACLU attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham aptly sums up the situation: "It's both medically
inappropriate and shocking that the government believes it can treat
immigrants like animals and shoot them up with powerful anti-psychotic
drugs that can be fatal -- without a doctor's examination or court
oversight." This type of practice does not support the equality and mobility that our country values; hopefully the lawsuit and media attention will bring an end to these stories of human rights denied.
Next, The Border Line and The New York Times have reported on a school district in Union City, New Jersey using iPods in class to help students with limited English proficiency learn to sing along to English-language music, working on their grammar and vocabulary in the process. This innovative style of teaching has been accelarating the students' move out of bilingual classes. NYU sociology professor Pedro Noguera agrees: “You
know the No. 1 complaint about school is that it’s boring because the
traditional way it’s taught relies on passive learning....It’s not interactive enough.” It's great to see new media being used as an educational tool; while there is much value in cultural and linguistic diversity in our community, improved English skills will undeniably advance options for higher education and eventually work among our youth.
The ACSBlog reported on yesterday's Supreme Court decision that upheld the ability of parents of children with disabilities to be reimbursed for private school tuition even if their child never received public special education services. When public schools do not offer appropriate programming for children with disabilities, children with special needs should have the opportunity to go elsewhere rather than first being forced to struggle in a public school setting.
Wrapping up, today is 'National Coming Out Day.' The Human Rights Campaign has been promoting the event with a YouTube video contest, and Pam's House Blend has posted a video of her own along with notes on how to get involved in working for equal rights or even how to "come out" as a straight ally. Bloggernista is doing a series of posts today on LGBT people of color and their coming out experiences. These discussions are particularly important this fall as Congress is considering the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill to extend fair workplace protections to LBGT Americans. Government policies that safeguard employment are critical to upholding the shared value of security, that all people must have access to the means to provide for their own basic needs and those of their family.
Immigration Equality notified us of today's hearing in the House Immigration Subcommittee on health conditions in ICE detention centers. Following recent deaths in the centers, the organization spoke and asked questions about the treatment of HIV-positive and LGBT detainees, who are often held without medicine and other necessary support by prison corporations who have no accountability for the lives of the detained.
An Arizona Appeals Court has ruled that it is legal to hold immigrants without bail. At issue was Arizona's new Proposition 100, which mandates that undocumented immigrants charged with felonies are not eligible for bail. Despite the contention that the measure denies the constitutional right of due process to those immigrants being held, the court upheld the legislation, arguing that its intention is to ensure that defendents are present for their trials.
Immigration raids are intensifying to the point that 1327 people were apprehended in Los Angeles in the past two weeks. Although the ICE agents were on a hunt for immigrants with criminal records or those who had been previously deported, 146 of the arrests were "collateral" in that people were encountered in the process of the raids who were not able to prove their legal status.
CNN has just reported on a sailor in the US Navy whose wife is facing deportation proceedings. Eduardo Gonzalez's story is a wrenching one, another narrative of families torn apart, even families who have made significant personal sacrifices for the good of our country. Latina Lista has written a great post questioning the "experts" that CNN has interviewed in their article. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, is quoted by CNN as saying:
"What you're talking about is amnesty for illegal immigrants who have a relative in the armed forces, and that's just outrageous," he said. "What we're talking about here is letting lawbreakers get away with their actions just because they have a relative in the military. ... There's no justification for that kind of policy."
Author Treviño complains that the CNN article is "a perfect vehicle for Krikorian to deliver to a wide audience his brand of immigration reform," continuing,
For CNN and other news media, there must be more vigilance exercised in using and quoting sources when writing articles about featuring immigration issues. The use of Krikorian as an "expert" and others like him, just because they may be associated with an organization with the term "immigration" in its title, misleads the public into thinking that what is being presented are factual statements devoid of influence.
Unfortunately, the average public who are busy with their lives and don't take the time to really analyze what they read or hear, absorb the information — and repeat it. The overriding fallacy that exists among people is that if it is printed or broadcast, a story must be true.
This is a great illustration of the need to examine mainstream (and all) media for bias and the frames at use. Because many Americans don't consume the news media with a critical lens, it is crucial that we continue to counter Krikorian's depiction of disrespect for an ever-changing body of law, along with unfair access to what he views as limited resources, essentially the privileges that many Americans have been granted. We can change the terms of the immigration debate to reflect the human right to mobility, migration in order to maximize our potential, be it geographic or related to social class. We're all familiar with the 'rags to riches' paradigm; it's one our most prized American narratives. Like Gonzalez and his wife and son, many immigrants have risked coming to US because they hope to succeed.
And, finally, there has been a ton of impassioned discussion about President Bush's veto of the SCHIP legislation on funding for children's health care. Here's a selection:
As an update on the Jena Six, Vox ex Machina reports that Mychal Bell remains in a Louisiana jail after having his conviction overturned because the judge and prosecutor did not show for his bail hearing yesterday. Given that the black blogosphere has driven the case to be high-profile enough that the New York Times has finally reported on it, it's suprising that the legal officials in question would risk demonstrating their public disregard for Bell's fate. Also noteworthy are various protests happening tomorrow around the country in support of the six students.
Curiously, Sentencing Law and Policy wrote today on an article in Mississippi's Clarion-Ledger about the need for prison reform in the state, as prisons are both more crowded and more costly than ever. What's interesting is that the people currently pushing for reform are not prisoners' rights advocates but those working to keep prisons cost-effective and efficient.
Statesmen.com notes that legislation has just been introduced in Congress that would not only punish 'sanctuary cities' by denying Homeland Security funding but would make being in the country without proper documentation a felony. 'Cause we could really use 12 million more prisoners. Really makes one wonder what the prison corporation lobby looks like. Imprisonment of immigrants is a violation of the human right of mobility. To attempt to do this on such a grand scale would be unthinkable.
Another piece of legislation that just failed to make its way through Congress involved voting representation for the District of Columbia. I'm always a bit shocked to see the 'Taxation Without Representation' DC license plates; shouldn't we have figured this out by now, given the revolutionary zeal to rectify this back in 1776? Chris Bowers elaborates on the racial injustice implicit in the decision:
"If Republicans are ever mesmerized as to why they do so poorly with the African-American vote, here is a prime example. An all-Republican minority of 42 just filibustered to prevent a overwhelmingly poor, African-American city from having representation in the United States Congress. Apart from FEMA's response to Katrina, could they make it any clearer that they do not stand up for African-Americans? Denying D.C. voting rights is a blatant, racist, right-wing attempt to cling to power. It is undemocratic and un-American for Republicans to block this bill."
Continuing to deny Washington's political voice based on discrimination or self-interest can only prove devastating to the capitol city and to our nation as a whole. It will not help instill confidence in our leadership.
Let's wrap things up with some better news, however, in the health realm: Walmart has been listening to criticism of its health insurance plan, and is making some changes. The Huffington Post highlighted a New York Times article which says that America's largest employer is lowering premiums and prescription drug copays to make its health insurance more accessible to workers. Improved health coverage for millions of Americans is undeniably a step in the right direction.
First off, a coalition of more than 150 immigrants rights groups are advocating a boycott of Western Union for charging exorbitant fees and using innapropriate exchange rates for its wire transfers abroad. Organizers also assert that the company reinvests very little in the immigrant communities it serves despite profits of over $1 billion per year.
As in the Colbert video below, the Immigrants and Politics Blog has recapped a September 5 New York Times article about farmers relocating their business to Mexico given the difficulties of finding labor within the US. Given recent crackdowns on the mobility and capacity of the migrant workforce, many US companies are struggling to find workers, and farmers often experience labor shortages during harvest time. In response, the profiled farmer has chosen to "southsource" to Mexico. This type of action could very well have long-term negative effects on the American economy.
Another story that was all over the blogosphere yesterday was that of the 20-year-old black woman in West Virginia who was abducted and held hostage while forced to suffer intense physical and sexual abuse. Although her six white captors have been arrested and charged with a total of 108 counts of criminal conduct, federal prosecutors have decided not to consider this a hate crime despite the fact that the six alledgedly referred to the woman as a "nigger." This decision has been quite controversial given the brutality of the incident and the fact that hate crimes laws are in effect to mandate a heavier sentence for acts motivated by exactly this sort of unthinkable discrimination.
Additionally, a study has been released by the Medicare Rights Center which demonstrates that "low-income people enrolled in Medicare private fee-for-service plans pay more for their health care in some counties than people enrolled in the same plans in neighboring, more affluent counties." It hardly seems fair to inflate costs for those who can barely afford to pay for medical services, or smart to force the government to subsidize medical bills at a higher rate. Perhaps the report will force us to rethink that one.
More than nine in ten Iowa Democrats (93%) agree it is in keeping
with the country’s values and history of compassion to lead an effort
to solve some of the most serious problems facing the world’s poorest
people. The ONE Poll–Iowa also found that more than eight in ten
Democrats (86%) agree that reducing poverty, treating
preventable diseases and improving education in poor countries will help make the world safer and the United States more secure.
When it comes to addressing these issues, more than eight in ten
Democrats (82%) would be more likely to vote for a candidate who
supports reducing by half the number of the people who live in extreme
global poverty and suffer from hunger.
The poll found that 30% of Iowa caucus-goers favor John Edwards for
president in 2008. Hillary Clinton is favored by 22% of Democrats,
Barack Obama by 18% and Bill Richardson by 13%.
Racialicious reports on a new game, “Without Prejudice”, in which five
judges must decide which contestant deserves a $25,000 prize. Hosted by psychotherapist Robi Ludwig and
working with partners like GLAAD and National Council of La Raza, “Without
Prejudice” asks the five contestants to be honest about their lives and the
judges must narrow down these contestants based on any reason. The show hope to teach viewers about prejudice, and the affiliated website features a number of educational resources on the subject. There are also discussion guides for starting
conversations about prejudice. After the
pilot episode premiered last night, The New York Times reports that the show is
anything but “without prejudice": each participant seems to have his own biases
that are hard to miss. Check it out for
yourself on Tuesdays on the GSN.
The New York Times profiles younger members of the New York immigrant community, as well as its support of the DREAM Act. Many of these
children of undocumented workers are legal citizens, born in the US. Not all are registered to vote, but they could be a powerful voice on behalf of their parents in the U.S. and local politics. Some groups are trying to gather support there for
the DREAM Act, a provision of which has been added as
an amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill (thanks, ImmigrationProf Blog!). In this
amendment, undocumented residents of military age who arrived in the US before age 16 and could immediately enter a
path to citizenship if they serve at least two years in the armed forces. The Boston Globe has an update of the bill's progress.
In a review of over 100 studies, TheBoston Globe reports that black women are less healthy because of the pressures of racial discrimination (thanks, RaceWire!). In one study, black women who indicated that
racism was a source of stress in their lives developed more plaque in their
carotid arteries – an early sign of heart disease – than black women who
didn’t. These studies could reshape
racism as a public health problem. These
findings come at a time of severe racial disparities in American health care. African Americans face a higher risk than any
other racial group of dying from heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and
hypertension. These health disparities
are exacerbated by lack of access to quality health care and health
insurance. Higher poverty rates and
lower wages also hinder progress in equality. Check out our fact sheet about African Americans and Opportunity.
DMI Blog reports on Rinku Sen’s reflection on the possible
unity between immigrants and US.-born Blacks, Latinos, Asians and American
Indians. She looks at the origin of the
term “people of color”, and how it has affected identity in political
action. In her experiences
as an advocate working in partnership with multiracial organizations, she felt it necessary to “expand [her] identity
in a way that tied [her] to Black people as part of their rebellion.” Sen confronts the impact the term has on our immigration debate, and asks whether immigrants fall under the definition of
“people of color.” At the end of the day,
she acknowledges that she cannot decide this question, but expresses that a
positive immigrant policy will include dialogue on race and color as well as
nationality and class.
Our view:
The best way to achieve fair legislature and rights for
immigrants is to understand the common struggles we all face in achieving
equality. “People of color” everywhere
want the same basic rights – better education, living conditions, wages, and
health care – and the only way to achieve anything is to recognize this common
struggle. We’re all in this together,
and achieving opportunity for one group will be best fought with many partners.
Over at TomPaine.com, Alan Jenkins has a new opinion piece discussing the OECD report on Mobility in America (which we previously covered here).
both equality and mobility are at risk in our country, along with
other core elements of opportunity. And that's bad for all of us. In
discussing the OECD report, a recent New York Times editorial quotes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's argument
that while economic outcomes need not be equal, "economic opportunity
should be as widely distributed and as equal as possible." That
economic truth echoes our country's moral belief that where you start
out in life should not preordain where you end up, and that what you
look like or where you come from should not determine the benefits,
burdens or responsibilities that you bear in American society.
When those values are threatened, as they are today, it's time to
take bold steps. In a presidential election cycle, it's incumbent upon
all of us to ask what the men and woman seeking the presidency would do
to reignite opportunity for everyone.
The New York Times is running an editorial today about Opportunity in America - specifically how a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development dismantles the myth of economic mobility in America. Americans famously put faith in the idea that - existing inequality aside - anyone in America can strike it rich or pull themselves up out of poverty by their bootstraps.
Recent research surveyed by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, a governmental think tank for the rich
nations, found that mobility in the United States is lower than in
other industrial countries. One study found that mobility between
generations — people doing better or worse than their parents — is
weaker in America than in Denmark, Austria, Norway, Finland, Canada,
Sweden, Germany, Spain and France. In America, there is more than a 40
percent chance that if a father is in the bottom fifth of the earnings’
distribution, his son will end up there, too. In Denmark, the
equivalent odds are under 25 percent, and they are less than 30 percent
in Britain.
America’s sluggish mobility is ultimately
unsurprising. Wealthy parents not only pass on that wealth in
inheritances, they can pay for better education, nutrition and health
care for their children. The poor cannot afford this investment in
their children’s development — and the government doesn’t provide
nearly enough help. In a speech earlier this year, the Federal Reserve
chairman, Ben Bernanke, argued that while the inequality of rewards
fuels the economy by making people exert themselves, opportunity should
be “as widely distributed and as equal as possible.” The problem is
that the have-nots don’t have many opportunities either.
Kudos to the Times for attempting to explode the myth of mobility in America, which has been in decline for some time. Not only are the rich getting richer, but as we saw with the lack of response to Hurricane Katrina, the government of late has not been doing its part to help people who suffer misfortune to start over, let alone help those born into poverty overcome their situation. As Al Franken noted in his excellent speech announcing his Senate candidacy - it's great to talk about lifting yourself up by your bootstraps, but first you need the boots. Government is here to provide those boots to help all of us achieve our full potential in life, regardless of the circumstances of our birth, our race or in income level.
But let's also not forget that economic mobility isn't the only measurement by which we judge the accessibility of opportunity in America. Opportunity is comprised of a number of other qualities - security (for instance, the ability to know that a medical emergency won't bankrupt your family); voice (the ability to have a say in our government and the decisions that impact our lives), community (the recognition that we are all in this together and have a moral obligation to help each other succeed in life), as well as redemption and equality. These are the Core Values that, together, constitute true opportunity.
In 2006, we released a report measuring Opportunity in America along all of these indicators - not just mobility. Just a few months ago we updated that report. In that update we found:
Equality in America is stagnant. The gender gap in wages continue to persist, as does significant racial discrimination in the housing market, in health care and elsewhere.
Redemption is also stagnant. Violent crimes have declined, but felons are still denied their voting rights after serving their sentences and the United States continues to set new records for incarceration rates.
Security is declining. Poverty remains as persistent a problem as ever in 2007. Health insurance coverage is down, with nearly 1 in 7 Americans lacking coverage and there is still a significant lack of affordable housing in America.
These are just a few of the over 70 indicators measured in our full report (pdf), but they point to an even greater crisis in opportunity than that identified by the New York Times editorial or the OECD Report. For more information on the state of opportunity in America - and for solutions to the crisis of opportunity we now face - read our report: The State of Opportunity in America and its 2007 update.
Ezra Klein reports on new figures in a Brookings Report
regarding the state of social mobility in this country, especially in
comparison to other industrialized nations. Klein highlights the
changes in income of men in their thirties, and shows that growth for
the top 1% of income-earners has increased the
most out of any group. His post corroborates data from The State of Opportunity in America (pdf), which found the least mobility in the bottom and top income quintile. People in the lowest income quintiles
experience the least mobility, from 19-38 percent average annual mobility over
10 years. Only 7 percent of those
starting in the bottom quintile were in the top on follow up. These figures are particularly troubling when
viewed in context with racial imbalances. In a 20-year study, African-American and Hispanic median household
income was lower than that of whites at each point, and increased to a smaller
degree. Only when greater opportunities
are given to the lower income brackets can the “American Dream” of rising to
the top based on one’s merits exist.
Related to last week’s blog post, Facing South continues the
discussion on the changing racial trends in school. Facing South points out that recent reports don't take into
account private school students, who comprise a large percentage of Southern
white families. A Duke University study shows that private schools have contributed to the re-segregation of
schools in the south, although they accounted for less than a fifth of all
school segregation. Importantly,
segregation tends to be the highest in the school districts that have non-white
percentages between 50 and 70 percent. This comes as the public awaits two Supreme Court decisions on critical
school segregation cases which will determine whether school districts may
voluntarily continue to integrate the schools. The State of Opportunity in America (pdf) cites
that since the mid-1980s, virtually all large school districts have had
increasingly lower levels of integration. The 1954 Brown decision promise of acceptance and diversity cannot be
fulfilled until school districts encourage integration in ways that work for
community.
Feminist Blogs reports on new statistics from the National Center for Children in Poverty (pdf) about how
state policies affect low income children. Most notable is the comparison between the level of poverty among
children and the percentage of Non-Hispanic White members of the population. These figures parallel those in The State of Opportunity in America (pdf), which states that in
2000, the poverty rate among African Americans and Hispanics was slightly over
2.6 times greater than that for white Americans. In addition, from 2001 to 2003, poverty rates
for all racial and ethnic increased more than for whites. Poverty is represented disproportionately
based on race in this country, which threaten the well-being of a diverse
country.
Feminist Blogs also reports on a Department of Public Health study which shows that minority women in Los Angeles country have disproportionately higher rates of chronic disease than others. The report found that black women have the
highest mortality rate of any group, and many minority groups reported
significant percentages of poverty and low access to health care. The large gaps in health status among
racial/ethnic groups are obvious in The State of Opportunity in America (pdf),
which explores figures that mortality rates among African American females’
mortality rates have been consistently 25 percent higher than for women
overall. Examples like the LA Country’s
disproportionate health care coverage and poverty situations highlight a national
problem requiring new social reforms.
Ally Work reports on an article from Lip Magazine which breaks down the ways in which white supremacists exploit tragedy to further their own causes. Besides using any crime committed by a non-White as a race crime attempted to bring down the majority, many of these groups believe that the media purposely ignores black-on-white killings. In reality, the media over-represents blacks as offenders, relative to their share of crimes committed. The State of Opportunity in America (pdf) cites findings from the General Social Survey that significant majorities of African Americans are more prone to violence than whites. When Americans continue to endorse these racist attitudes, the goals of equal access through renewed social policy become compromised.
Prometheus 6 reports on a New York Times article exposing the rapid growths of minorities in school rolls, especially Hispanics. This number has peaked at 42% of public school enrollment from 22% thirty years ago. These figures reflect the changes in the greater composition of the country, where great ethnic shifts are taking place in all regions. Despite rising enrollment, large test score gaps exist between whites and minority groups. The State of Opportunity in America (pdf) cites that while 87% of U.S. adults have obtained a high school diploma or the equivalent, the high school degree attainment among Hispanic adults is only just above 60%. Schools need to provide the proper resources to close this immense gap. As a way to combat the prejudice that students from lower socioeconomic status may face, some higher education institutions are courting low-income students with offers of grants and tuition wavers, recognizing that their test scores and performance is only in reflection to their resources. This New York Times articlehighlights the ways in which Amherst seeks to make their class more diverse, not only racially, but also across class differences.
The Huffington Post reports on the disadvantages of living with such large discrepancies between the top of the wealth index and the bottom, even if you find yourself in the better half. Citing his new book, The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America, Daniel Brook explains how the more unbalanced a society is, the more the top will need to pay to keep it afloat. The State of Opportunity in America (pdf) cites the increases in class divide in the past three decades, in which the wages for the top 5 percent of wage earners grew by 31%, but the wages for the bottom 10% of workers slightly declined. With these severe trends, it becomes that much more challenging for social mobility and equal opportunity to all members of society.
The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog reports on the recent increases in California spending on prison budget, extrapolating that in five years, this budget will supersede spending on the state universities. The author attributes the disorganization in California’s prison department and unprecedented numbers of incarcerations to unclear goals for the function of prisons, either a way to remove criminals from society or rehabilitate them. These figures in California parallel those found on the national level. The State of Opportunity in America (pdf) found that in mid-2004, more than 21.13 million people were incarcerated, a number higher than other nations and unprecedented in our history. Without proper rehabilitation programs, these rates will continue to increase, forcing our law-makers to spend high percentages of budget money to sustain the populations when the money could be used better elsewhere.
Earlier this year, we teamed up with students in the Masters in Media Studies program at the New School University here in New York. As part of a media production class, we became the "client" and the students became graphic designers, tasked with creating images representing the core values of community, equality, and human rights apply to one of three initiatives: Immigration reform, health care equity, and the 2008 election.
Here's a sample of some of the great work they produced. These images are creative commons licensed (Attribution), and the name of the designer can be found in the description. We encourage everyone to Remix and Reuse them in your own work. You can find the full set of images here.
LAUREL, Md. — Over the last four decades, even as failed experiments
and partisan disputes took the luster off the war on poverty, the Job
Corps, the government’s main effort to give poorly educated youths a
second chance at a diploma and a trade, was widely seen as one of the
few success stories.
But now, as the economy has
turned against those with low skills and researchers have questioned
the long-term impact of the Job Corps on the lives of its graduates,
this remnant of the Great Society is facing an urgent need to reinvent
itself.
“Once you could go into the Job Corps and get a G.E.D.
and go out and make a living,” said Esther R. Johnson, a career
executive in the Labor Department with a doctorate in education who
took over the corps last March. “You can’t do that anymore.”
Dr. Johnson wants the Job Corps to aim higher, helping graduates into careers with a bigger paycheck.
Job Corps is a perfect illustration of the positive role government can play in safeguarding and providing opportunity for citizens. Many of the participants have dropped out of high school in an age where a college degree is the minimum barrier to entry into a shrinking middle class, and many more require a second chance to restart their lives after going astray in their youth. Job Corps - and other similar programs mentioned in the piece - provide for that, to the benefit of the participants, their communities, and the nation:
With better training, high school diplomas or, better, degrees from
community colleges, many graduates of such programs, it is hoped, will
become chefs instead of hamburger flippers; plumbers, electricians or
carpenters instead of pickup laborers; nurses instead of health aides.
A newer course at the Laurel center trains students to install cable
and other electronic systems.
A study published in
2001 that surveyed Job Corps graduates and a control group, conducted
by Mathematica Policy Research for the Labor Department, found that the
program led to significant increases in self-reported earnings over
four years and to lower arrest rates.
Michael Whitfield, a subject of the Times' article, says it best:
Now 19, he has been accepted by a two-year college where he will study
criminal justice to become a police or parole officer. He credited the
Job Corps with helping him straighten up and discover his goals. “I
really can’t see people making it these days without a diploma,” he
said. “I was lucky; I had a second chance.”
Sixty-five years ago today, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the wartime removal and incarceration of over 110,000 Japanese Americans. This single act has had endless ramifications on the lives of Japanese-Americans and is undeniably one of the worst chapters in American history.
In the decades leading up to World War II, there was a good deal of institutionalized discrimination against Japanese people in the United States. Japanese immigrants could not legally naturalize. Children born in the US were granted citizenship, but immigrants themselves were unable to become citizens. Further, the ability of Japanese immigrants (non-citizens) to own property in the US was revoked entirely. It had been legal, previously.
When the Japanese military forces attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, pandemonium and fear broke loose. American media coverage painted the Japanese to be a threat of unprecedented scale, quoting blatantly racist remarks by military leaders such as the assertion that the Japanese were going to 'overtake' the West Coast with help from the local Japanese population. The US was also at war with Germany and Italy, but somehow only the Japanese were thought to be a danger to national security.
On February 19, 1942, FDR ordered that everyone of Japanese descent living on the West Coast be 'evacuated.' These 110,000 people were given a certain number of days to liquidate their possessions, which essentially meant selling everything they owned, land included, to their non-Japanese neighbors for dirt-cheap prices. Once transferred to the camps, many families occupied what were formerly horse stables, a frightening gauge of the dehumanization to which they were subjected.
When the camps were finally closed in 1944, evacuees were sent home with three items: train fare, $25 each, and a pamphlet advising them on how to readjust to society. Many families have never recovered the economic gains they had made before the war. Much of what they had put into storage before heading to the camps was long gone. There were a good number of college-educated Japanese professionals in the camps, who had an extraordinarily difficult time finding employment after their stays in the camps. Similarly, Japanese students struggled to be admitted to universities. Many went eastward for greater opportunities.
While the US government made an official apology for its actions in the 1980s, its attempts at reparations have been insufficient compared to the damage done to so many of its own citizens and their families.
While it is true that no one was tortured or killed in the 'internment camps' (not to be confused with 'concentration camps'), it’s worth a look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with this situation in mind. While the UDHR was adopted in 1948, after the camps opened and closed, it has become a standard reference point for assessing human rights violations – and it provides a clear illustration of how many basic human rights were violated by the incarceration order.
At the end of December, three advocacy groups in San Francisco released MTC, Where Are Our Buses?, a report about disparities in transportation funding which adversely affect people of color and low-income populations. Public Advocates, Urban Habitat, and Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) have labeled the Bay Area's transit system "Separate and Unequal," and provide compelling evidence to support their claim.
Released on the 50-year anniversary of the civil rights campaign to integrate bus service in Montgomery, Alabama, the report details recent funding and route decisions made by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), and how they have impacted the local population. At issue are the differences in subsidies provided to Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Caltrain (both of which service primarily white suburbs), and AC Transit buses to the East Bay area (a region in which 80% of the residents are people of color). According to a press release by Urban Habitat, the report "details both the sizeable funding disparities per passenger, and the resulting disparities in transit service as BART and Caltrain services have more than doubled, while AC Transit service has contracted by 30%." Further, the report provides data that "public dollars subsidize the trips of BART and Caltrain commuters, who are disproportionately white, at three to five times higher levels than the trips of AC Transit’s mostly minority ridership."
The report also discusses local efforts to hold the MTC accountable, from a class-action law suit filed in federal court, alleging racial discrimination, to the MTC Minority Citizens’ Advisory Committee’s (MCAC) which has issued a series of recommendations on improving environmental justice. So far, the MTC has yet to institute any changes in its policy.
According to AJ Napolis of Urban Habitat, "At stake is not only the access of low-income bus riders and their families to economic and educational opportunities, but the vitality of our communities," citing a study that a cut in transport funding can cost a community ten times more in travel costs and lost income.
Over at TomPaine.com, our Executive Director Alan Jenkins has a column about Bush's State of the Union and the State of Opportunity in America:
During his State of the Union speech last month,
President Bush used the word “opportunity” nine times, to talk about
our nation’s economy, public schools, immigration policy, energy needs
and health care system. The president is correct in suggesting that how
opportunity fares is a crucial measure of our nation’s condition. So
just what is the state of opportunity in America?
Next time you head to the movies you must check the powerful and inspiring film, God Grew Tired Of Us. It will be released in NYC and around the country this week. It explores American opportunity through a unique lens, following the lives of Sudanese refugees from the war in Southern Sudan to resettlement in the United States. It highlights how these men try to retain their culture while seizing opportunity in America -- earning a living, going to school, and providing for families back home. It investigates American culture and the American dream, and explores the pros and cons of life in the Unites States.
Here’s a trailer for the movie: and a summary from the website: “Winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, GOD GREW TIRED OF US explores the indomitable spirit of three “Lost Boys” from the Sudan who leave their homeland, triumph over seemingly insurmountable adversities and move to America, where they build active and fulfilling new lives but remain deeply committed to helping the friends and family they have left behind. Orphaned by a tumultuous civil war and traveling barefoot across the sub-Saharan desert, John Bul Dau, Daniel Abol Pach and Panther Blor were among the 25,000 “Lost Boys” (ages 3 to 13) who fled villages, formed surrogate families and sought refuge from famine, disease, wild animals and attacks from rebel soldiers. Named by a journalist after Peter Pan’s posse of orphans who protected and provided for each other, the “Lost Boys” traveled together for five years and against all odds crossed into the UN’s refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. A journey’s end for some, it was only the beginning for John, Daniel and Panther, who along with 3800 other young survivors, were selected to re-settle in the United States.”
For another interesting take on opportunity (and the barriers to it) in America and the Lost Boys, the book What is the What by David Eggers is a must read. It is based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng, and at 400+ pages, the book provides a nuanced account of the history of the Lost Boys and life after resettlement in America.
Finally, if you’d like to learn more about the conflict in Sudan and join efforts to help out, The International Crisis Group website has a short list of recommendations, including writing to your elected representatives and writing to media urging more coverage of the situation.
Here are The Opportunity Agenda, we are fortunate to have a strong partnership with the New School University in New York, where we teach a class on media and social justice, and work with some great professors who use our organization as a case study in their classes. Most recently,
Professor Kit Laybourne used our organization as the "client" in his media production class.
Students in the class were tasked with producing an image that was representative of:
an issue area in which The Opportunity Agenda was active; and/or
Students tasked with producing two images. One of which contained text and could function as an iconic image on our blog or website when we cover a particular issue or message around a particular core value. The second image was designed specifically for use by others. It was to contain no text, and was meant to be a "blank canvass" that other nonprofit organizations or social justice activists could use to remix and reuse the images for their own work. To that end, all images were to be original photos taken by the students, original graphic illustrations, or images found under a suitable creative commons license.
The results are in, and we're really please with the results. I've created a Flickr set of the images and tagged the photos with a number of common tags - non profit, creative commons, etc.
I'd invite you take a look at the work the students produced, pass the
photos around, and use them in your own work. If anyone has questions
about our process, usage rights, or recommendations on how we might take this to the
next level, please let me know.
I just want to add one thought to the great piece that our executive director currently has posted at TomPaine.com (which you should all go read).
Alan makes the point that this election wasn't just about Iraq, but about the economy broadly defined as the opportunity for every American to get their shot at the American Dream:
Voters have clearly shown a yearning for a new domestic agenda. This
time, it’s not just the economy on voters’ minds, but something deeper
and more profoundly American: opportunity.
While the economy, narrowly defined,
may be relatively healthy, more and more Americans see our national
promise of opportunity—the idea that everyone in our country should
have a fair chance to achieve his or her full potential—moving farther
out of reach.
A recent CNN poll found
that 54 percent of Americans feel “the American dream has become
impossible for most people to achieve.” And 55 percent say they’re
dissatisfied with “current opportunities for the next generation to
live better than their parents.” A poll of American workers commissioned by Change to Win found that 81 percent believe “no matter what you hear about the economy, working families are falling behind.”
This rising sentiment is not only about economic conditions, but
also about national values like fair treatment, a voice in decisions
that affect us, a chance to start over after misfortune, and a sense of
shared responsibility for each other.
I think this is right, and just wanted to point out that it was also the main message in some of the Democrats more surprising pick-ups this November. Jim Webb, who beat out George Allen, just published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for fairness in the economy. Here's some excerpts:
This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.
...
Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.
...
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.
Hopefully Webb is right - and his colleagues take his concerns seriously. The American people voted for change. They voted for a restoration of opportunity and the American Dream. It's the responsibility of our newly elected leaders to make that happen.
Our executive director is in the news again. In a well-framed article from Reuters, Alan is interviewed about FEMA's decision to shut down a busing program that shuttles displaced New Orleans residents from their current home in Baton Rouge to their jobs and schools in New Orleans.
Theresa Jones hangs on to her low-paying job in New Orleans by riding a
free, government-funded bus 80 miles to work from the temporary housing
she has lived in since Hurricane Katrina. But her efforts to
keep a job in hand and a roof over her head are in peril, as the bus
service for displaced New Orleans residents is running out of money and
poised to shut down at the end of this month. ... The demise of the LA Swift bus service comes as a blow to its riders,
many of whom are low-paid workers who cannot afford to live in New
Orleans, where a housing shortage has sent rents soaring since the
storm devastated the city in August 2005.
Alan's take:
"People want to work, they want to get jobs and it's not asking very
much of government to keep those doors open through something as meager
as bus service from Baton Rouge to New Orleans," said Alan Jenkins of
Opportunity Agenda, a research and advocacy group based in New York.
"It makes no sense." ... At Opportunity Agenda, Jenkins argues the rebuilding of New Orleans,
with affordable transportation, housing and health care and quality
education, is "a test of our national values."
"We're supposed
to be a land of opportunity, which means that everyone should have a
fair chance to start over," he said. "We're falling very far short of
that promise of opportunity in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
Read the whole piece. As I noted above, it is very well-framed, laying out the institutional barriers that hurricane survivors are struggling to overcome, and the role that government can and should play in keeping open the doors of opportunity to those who were displaced by Katrina.
Not a lot of time to blog today. I'm giving a guest lecture on blogging at the New School today, and I need to practice my presentation. I promise I'll have a cornucopia of posts tomorrow on all sorts of interesting opportunity issues.
To tide you over, check out Ezra Klein's interesting analysis of the wage gender gap.
Campus Progress is running a new campaign - Debt Hits Hard - to raise awareness about the unmanagable levels of debt that students now face, and the way that college loans can seriously hamper their opportunities for personal and professional success later in life.
This is a great, innovative campaign from the folks at campus progress. The message is right-on, and the videos illustrate how debt can be an opportunity-ending event for many young Americans in a way that no fact sheet ever could. We've added the video to our favorites on YouTube.
Also interesting is their use of text messaging. I haven't tried it yet, so its unclear to me whether the text message element is a viral awareness raising tool, a way to deliver information directly to the younger demographic they are targeting, or whether it functions as an action item that can connect students to their representatives.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. We saw a lot of creative use of text messaging during the immigration demonstrations this past spring, and its been used to great effect overseas during elections. All of these past examples, however, are of organic campaigns that arose from the ground up without guidance from professional advocates. Can Campus Progress manufacture a successful TXT campaign? I hope so. It can be a potentially invaluable tool for all of us working to expand opportunity in America.
If you are unfamiliar with TXT messaging and the potential it holds for advocacy organizations, I suggest you read this white paper from the New Politics Institute. Also check out the guide from Mobile Active.
Five Nobel Prize Winners and 650 economists agree, raising the mimimum wage is a good idea.
Right now, the minimum wage is at its lowest real value since 1951. As the experts all note below (5 Nobel winners - how's that for backing up my claim?), indexing the minimum wage to inflation is an excellent way to protect our lowest paid workers and provide them with the economic security they need to support their families and pursue the American Dream.
My one quibble is that they make a special effort to note that this increase will mostly assist low-income, female, adults. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sounds like a counter argument to the oft-repeated claim that a raise in the mimimum wage will primarily effect teenagers. To which I would respond - what's wrong with that? College costs are skyrocketting, student debt is at unmanageable levels. Don't working teenagers deserve a pay raise as much as anyone?
As I said though, maybe I'm reading too much into those lines. In any case, a strong statement in favor of workers, economic security, and the American Dream. Check it out.
The minimum wage has been an important part of our nation’s economy for 68 years. It is based on the principleof valuing work by establishing an hourly wage floor beneath which employers cannot pay their workers. In so doing, the minimum wage helps to equalize the imbalance in bargaining power that low-wage workers face in the labor market. The minimum wage is also an important tool in fighting poverty. The value of the 1997 increase in the federal minimum wage has been fully eroded. The real value of today’s federal minimum wage is less than it has been since 1951. Moreover, the ratio of the minimum wage to the average hourly wage of non-supervisory workers is 31%, its lowest level since World War II. This decline is causing hardship for low-wage workers and their families.
We believe that a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed. In particular, we share the view the Council of Economic Advisors expressed in the 1999 Economic Report of the President that "the weight of the evidence suggests that modest increases in the minimum wage have had very little or no effect on employment." While controversy about the precise employment effects of the minimum wage continues, research has shown that most of the beneficiaries are adults, most are female, and the vast majority are members of low-income working families.
As economists who are concerned about the problems facing low-wage workers, we believe the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005’s proposed phased-in increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 falls well within the range of options where the benefits to the labor market, workers, and the overall economy would be positive.
Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have set their minimum wages above the federal level. Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio, are considering similar measures. As with a federal increase, modest increases in state minimum wages in the range of $1.00 to $2.50 and indexing to protect against inflation can significantly improve the lives of low-income workers and their families, without the adverse effects that critics have claimed.
August 29 marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. In New Orleans, the storm not only scattered homes and belongings, but also thousands of residents who now represent a diaspora of Katrina survivors around the country.
For those of us following the economic numbers coming out of New Orleans and the diaspora, two lessons have become clear over the last twelve months: that race still makes a difference in the opportunity people enjoy, and that our government still has an important role to play in ensuring opportunity for all.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been tracking the labor market status of Katrina evacuees. Its data have some limitations, the biggest of which is that the BLS survey covers only households, and thus misses people still living in shelters, hotels, and churches. But even with that drawback, the data tell a compelling story about the hardship that African-American evacuees have encountered in starting over.
For African Americans who remain away from home, the share with jobs is extremely low, 32 percent, and unemployment rates are at recessionary levels. In the most recent quarter, April-June of 2006, the jobless rate for African-American evacuees was 46.5 percent, about where it has been since the Bureau began tracking evacuees a few months after the storm. In contrast, most blacks who have returned to the city are working: their employment rate was 60 percent last quarter, comparable to the national average for black workers.
For whites, however, relocation has had virtually no effect on job opportunities. Sixty percent of white evacuees are working, regardless of whether they stayed in their new communities or returned home.
What explains this vastly different experience for whites and blacks? The characteristics of black non-returnees are slightly less favorable than those of returnees—they’re a bit younger with somewhat fewer skills—but not enough to explain the 28-point employment-rate gap.
Given the size of that racial difference, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that whites have simply faced fewer hurdles than blacks integrating into their new communities.
Whatever the causes, it’s apparent that government intervention is needed to clear the pathway home for evacuees of all races, and to address the labor market hurdles that disproportionately face displaced African Americans. Otherwise, this trend of unequal opportunity will only continue, shutting out hundreds of thousands of storm survivors who have already lost everything.
In the short term, Congress should restore unemployment benefits to the 80,000 Katrina victims who lost their jobs because of the hurricane yet saw their disaster-related unemployment benefits end last month. That effort should be coupled with incentives to rebuild the most disadvantaged communities rapidly, as well as job training and other services for groups that face the steepest employment barriers.
The promise of America is that opportunity should not depend on where you live or what color you are. As we mark the one-year anniversary of Katrina, Congress should act to fulfill that promise for those who have lost so much over the last twelve months.
