Page 12
May 16, 2018
O PINION
Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the Portland Observer. We
welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com.
Millions of High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty
My advice for grads:
learn a trade
C huCk C ollinS
In the classic 1960s
movie The Graduate,
a family friend offers
Dustin Hoffman, the re-
cent graduate, one word
of advice: “plastics.”
My advice for today’s high school grad-
uates: “learn a trade.”
Unfortunately, there’s a historic stigma
about “vocational-ed,” the result of snob-
bery toward certain occupations.
Yes, there’s also the shameful practice of
tracking low-income whites and people of
color into blue-collar jobs while encourag-
ing wealthier white students to attend col-
lege. But now there are millions of reward-
ing, high-paying trade jobs sitting empty.
Instead of training for those, tens of
millions of high school graduates are on
college autopilot, loading up an average
of $37,000 in debt, and graduating without
any practical skills.
by
Not only is our economy suffering for
lack of skilled workers, but also a huge
number of workers are unhappy and earn-
ing below their financial potential.
There are legions of depressed Dilberts
out there in cubicle land, sitting in front
of computer screens, wondering who will
be laid off next. And there are millions
of young people sitting in college class-
rooms dreaming of being somewhere
else.
Put these same people in an apprentice-
ship with a skilled adult and they’ll thrive.
Instead of wasting their intelligence in an
office, they could deploy it in a bicycle or
auto repair garage, woodworking shop, or
on a farm or construction site.
Princeton economist Alan Blinder
says the job market of the future won’t
be divided between people with college
degrees and those without, but between
work that can be outsourced and work that
can’t. “You can’t hammer a nail over the
internet,” he observed. “Nor can you fix
a car transmission, rewire a house, install
solar panels, or give a patient an injec-
tion.”
The value of a liberal arts college ed-
ucation is exposure to a wide range of
ideas and knowledge, along with social
networks. But college is certainly not the
only path to such learning. And four-year
residential college today has more in com-
mon with a party on a luxury cruise ship
than a platform for learning a vocation.
True, today the lifelong earnings of col-
lege graduates exceed those who don’t at-
tend college. But there’s no evidence this
will be the case going forward. Have you
paid an electrician or a plumber anytime
lately? There’s a reason they’re hard to find
and can command a high wage. It’s called
scarcity.
Millions more “green collar” jobs are
emerging in our transition to the renewable
energy economy. And at some point, our
nation will have to repair our aging bridg-
es, roads, and transportation facilities and
retrofit buildings to be more energy effi-
cient.
According to the Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics, one third of all new jobs through
2022 will be in construction, health care,
and personal care. The fastest growing oc-
cupations are solar and wind energy techni-
cians, followed by plumbers, machine tool
programmers, HVAC mechanics, and iron
and steel workers.
Changing attitudes about different occu-
pations is part of the challenge.
Parents and guidance counselors can
start by respectfully talking about the op-
portunities in trades. They can introduce
students to people with satisfying careers
in the trades and steer them to useful web
resources on the path to trades.
Congress could help by making Pell
grants available for short-term job training
courses, not just college tuition. It could
also restore funding for Tech-Prep, a ne-
glected federal program that supports vo-
cational education.
Let’s dump the old class-biased stereo-
types. It takes all kinds of intelligence and
advanced training to do a trade. And it can
be financially rewarding and enormously
satisfying.
Chuck Collins directs the Program on
Inequality and the Common Good at the
Institute for Policy Studies. Distributed by
OtherWords.org.
On Maternal Healthcare, Race Trumps Everything
Disparities bring
issue into focus
o SCar h. b layton
Most people of col-
or can point to at least
one moment when
they realize that popu-
lar culture in America
distorts the reality of
their history and exis-
tence.
The most memorable experi-
ence for me was when I was in
the sixth-grade in my segregated
public school in Virginia. One
of our courses was Virginia his-
tory and the state had provided
us with the required history text-
book. Somewhere between the
covers of that book was a picture
of a group of smiling, dancing
enslaved African Americans be-
ing observed by a small group
of amused white people – pre-
sumably the owner and his fam-
ily. The text explained that most
slaves were happy with their
condition and prospered under
the kindly supervision of their
masters.
Fortunately, my sixth-grade
teacher was having none of it. He
had us open our books to that page
and told us that we were being
by
fed lies so that white people could
remain in power in the state. He
explained that truths were being
kept from us because knowledge
is power. It is the power
to improve your life.
There are so many
lies in American popular
culture, beginning with
the moment we’re born
– in the maternity ward.
Several studies demon-
strate that racism in America kills
black expectant mothers and their
newborn babies, but popular cul-
ture tells us that they are receiv-
ing the best health care.
A New York City Department
of Health and Mental Hygiene
2016 report titled “Severe Ma-
ternal Morbidity in New York
City, 2008–2012” put it this
way: “Black non-Latina women
with at least a college degree had
higher Severe Maternal Morbid-
ity rates than women of other
race/ethnicities who never grad-
uated high school.:
The National Center for Bio-
technology Information pub-
lished a paper in 2016 that states:
“Racism and racial discrimina-
tion in the USA is thought to be
a major driver of the differences
between birth outcomes among
different racial and ethnic groups,
particularly between black wom-
en and women of other races.”
The Centers for Disease Con-
trol found that during 2011 to
2013, there were 12.7 deaths
per 100,000 live births for white
women within a year of giving
birth. But for black women, the
rate of death was almost four
times higher at 43.5 deaths per
100,000 live births.
While few popular media
outlets have focused on this
problem, Newsweek magazine
published an article in 2016 that
reported: “The shameful secret
is that even when controlling for
age, socioeconomic status and
education, the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
reports that African-American
women … face a nearly four
times higher risk of death from
pregnancy complications than
white women. In parts of the
U.S. with high concentrations of
women of color who live in pov-
erty, such as Mississippi, mater-
nal death rates can surpass those
of sub-Saharan Africa.”
Despite a mountain of evi-
dence to the contrary, particular-
ly in the area of maternal health
for black women, the popular
thinking is that U.S. health care
is the best in the world.
In 2015, Time magazine,
MSNBC, CBS, CNN and other
news outlets reported that the
nonprofit organization Save Our
Children, in its annual report,
ranked the United States as 33rd
among 179 nations in the world
for quality of life for women and
children. That ranking was based
upon an overall score that took
into account mothers’ and chil-
dren’s health, educational, eco-
nomic and political status.
What these news outlets
did not report is that the Unit-
ed States ranks 61st in mater-
nal health, 42nd in children’s
well-being and 89th when it
comes to the political status of
women.
The high infant and maternal
mortality among black women
and babies is masked by the low
numbers among more affluent
Americans. For example, Save
Our Children points to a 2011
study that revealed that infants
in Washington D.C.’s Ward 8,
where half of all children live in
poverty, died at a rate more than
10 times higher than the death
rate of infants born in Ward 3, the
richest part of the city. The re-
port also pointed to San Francis-
co, where an African American
mother is six times as likely as a
Advertise with diversity in The Portland Observer
Call 503-288-0033 or email ads@portlandobserver.com
white mother to lose her baby be-
fore her child’s first birthday.
Because the United States
performs well on economic and
educational status in the Save
Our Children study, the country
is able to mask its abysmal per-
formance when it comes to the
health and well-being of expect-
ant mothers and newborn babies.
Black expectant mothers,
whether they are well educat-
ed or poorly educated, deserve
the best health care this country
can afford. But pointing out the
disparity in health care between
well-educated black mothers and
poorly educated white mothers
brings into focus the significance
of race relative to health care be-
cause education is supposed to
be the great equalizer. But just
as race trumps everything else in
America, race trumps education.
Those who brag about Ameri-
ca having the best health system
in the world, like those before
them who touted the benefits of
chattel slavery, have no interest
in the truth. They merely want to
keep the truth from us, because
knowledge is power.
Oscar H. Blayton is a former
Marine Corps combat pilot and
human rights activist who prac-
tices law in Virginia.