opinion
Debating the State of Black America in 2011
N
ext Thursday, I invite you
to join the debate about the
number one issue facing
the nation – the deep and persist-
ent jobs crisis that has been espe-
cially devastating in urban com-
munities of color. As part of the
National Urban League’s annual
Legislative Policy Conference in
Washington, D.C., we will con-
vene a free State of Black America
town hall meeting on March 31,
from 10 a.m. to noon at Howard
University’s Cramton Audit -
orium.
A panel of notable policy
experts, scholars, and jour-
nalists will lead a public
dialogue about ways to
end the jobs crisis in our
communities. But, the
most important voices
invited to this meeting
belong to you – the student
struggling to pay college
tuition, the father who lost his job
six months ago and is wondering
if he will ever be able to support
his family again, the single mother
having to choose between child
t o B e
e quaL
Marc Morial
care and health care for her kids.
The great recession has seen a
loss of more than eight million
jobs. Many of those jobs are in
declining industries and may
facturing jobs due to plant clos-
ings. The finance and real estate
sectors lost more than 500,000
jobs.” Unfortunately, many of
those lost jobs are never coming
back.
That is why the discussion about
bringing jobs back to urban
America must focus on ensuring
that people in our communities are
educated, trained, and have access
to the jobs of the future. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics projects
that between 2008 and 2018, the
industries projected
to produce the largest
number of new jobs
are health care and
social assistance, and
professional
and
business services.
Nearly half of all
new jobs created dur-
ing those years will
require some type of
post-secondary education
Because of high dropout rates
and low college graduation rates
in communities of color, it is pro-
jected that 70 percent of prime
If you can’t attend in person,
the event will be webcast live
at www.nul.org beginning at
10 a.m. Eastern Time
never return. According to a recent
CNN Money news report, “Home
building lost nearly 1 million jobs
since the start of 2008, while the
auto industry shed 300,000 manu-
working age African American
adults and 80 percent of Hispanics
will lack the requisite education
dropouts and older workers whose
jobs were eliminated by the reces-
sion. We must also do more to
Nearly half of all new jobs created
during those years will require some
type of post-secondary education
for almost 40 percent of projected
new jobs.
Clearly, immediate action is
needed to turn this picture
around. The National Urban
League’s 12-point Blueprint for
Quality Job Creation offers sever-
al powerful remedies, including a
plan to boost minority participa-
tion in emerging Broadband and
Green Industries. We also call on
Congress to reform, revise, and
reauthorize
the
Workforce
Investment Act to focus on prepar-
ing and retraining workers for 21st
century jobs by targeting young
adults with less than college edu-
cation as well as high school
reverse troubling recent trends in
minority high school dropout and
college enrollment rates.
These are just some of the ideas
that will be discussed at the March
31 town hall meeting. We need
your input too. If you can’t attend
in person, the event will be web-
cast live at www.nul.org begin-
ning at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. You
can also join the conversation on
Tw i t t e r @ N a t U r b a n L e a g u e
using # SOBA11 or on Facebook.
Marc h. Morial is the President
and Ceo of the national urban
league.
Japan: Could Our Inner-City Communities Survive?
I
am among the many who are
stilled, freighted, and chal-
lenged by the tsunami and
nuclear power breakdown in
Japan. The tragedy raises all kinds
of questions including a very self-
ish one – what would we do if a
tsunami hit the United States? As
we see people missing, and watch
the tragedy, I wonder how we
would cope if anything like that
happened here. What would hap-
pen if New Orleans happened in
Washington, New York, or San
Francisco? How prepared are we
for tragedy?
President Barack Obama has
talked about infrastructure devel-
opment and the many ways that
we might improve our highways,
byways, and roads. This is a first
step. It seems to me that 2001,
2005, and Japan are reminders that
all of us need to be concerned
about the quality of our infrastruc-
ture and our emergency responses
to unexpected acts of nature.
What might we do if 10-foot gales
of water hit one of our major
B ennett
c oLLege
Julianne
Malveaux
okay. We know that we could
invest more, and we could achieve
more, but we have decided that we
don’t want, to quite move in that
direction. We have to, we say, pay
attention to money. But, we also
have to pay attention to our future
and to outcomes.
Among the outcomes we must
be careful of are outcomes in edu-
cation. It is challenging to find
that so very many people think we
should cut educational spending
because we are in a budget
crunch. Cutting education is like a
farmer eating her seed corn,
deciding to sacrifice consumption
today for investment tomorrow. If
we are to excel as a nation, we
All of us need to be concerned about
the quality of our infrastructure and
our emergency responses to
unexpected acts of nature
cities? Is this something that we
have even thought about?
At a time when we must be pre-
pared to do much more, it appears
that we are prepared to do much
less. In other words, we are in the
middle of an economic meltdown,
and people are talking about
spending less money. Doesn’t
Japan suggest we should spend
more to shore up our infrastruc-
ture?
The fact is that we in the United
States have chosen not to invest in
infrastructure for more than a gen-
eration. We drive over potholes,
look at detours in roads, and send
children to school in dilapidated
buildings, and we think it’s
need to invest fully in educa-
tion. We’ve not done so. Why do
we have crumbling schools and
state of the art prisons?
The United States leads the
world in having educated people
who are 55-64. Nearly 40 percent
of us have AA or BA degrees. We
have not improved our ability to
deliver educational services in 30
years, so that nearly 40 percent of
those 25 to 34 have AA and BA
degrees. We lead in the education
of seasoned people, but we rank
10th in the education of younger
people. That speaks poorly to our
possibilities for the future.
What must we do? We must
spend the dollars that we need to
strengthen our infrastructure. We
must
put
dollars
into
education. This is hardly the time
to cut back on an investment on
the future. Instead of holding
back, we must move forward,
boldly, with our investment.
Japan should be a wake-up call
for all of us. A country that was
seen as stable has been destabi-
lized by a natural disaster. Could
that happen here? Further, what
else could happen here to hurt us?
We are so complacent about edu-
cation that we run the risk of being
run over by dozens of other world
powers. Yes, there are dozens of
others now, and even that might be
disconcerting for those of us who
are wedded to a paradigm that
places the United States first.
If we take the call to wake up
then we will look at infrastructure
and opportunity. Can we learn
from Japan, or will we simply
offer the compassion that we offer
to so many others? Learning
means doing something differ-
ent. Is that within the realm of our
possibility?
Julianne Malveaux is president
of Bennett College for women in
greensboro, n.C., and author of
“Surviving and thriving: 365
Facts in Black economic
history.”
Week on the Web
Soul and Disco Singer
Loleatta Holloway has
died after a brief illness.
She was 64 years old. … in
“Music Reviews”
The trial for baseball
homerun great Barry
Bonds got underway
Tuesday, with Bonds’
longtime trainer again
refusing to testify and a
childhood friend telling the court
that he often saw bonds’ coach
with needles … in “Latest News”
Chronic divorcee
and actor
Elizabeth Taylor
is dead at 79 … in
“Latest News”
President Obama
says a land inva-
sion into Libya
isn’t on the plan-
ning book. It’s
now up to the
ragtag team of rebels to take down
Gadhafi … in “National News”
www.
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march 23, 2011 The Portland Skanner Page 5