opinion
london’s Calling, But Are we listening?
“challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ErNIE F OStEr
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L
ast year, on my second day
on the job as the new Senior
Director of Economic
Programs for the NAACP, I went
to London with our President and
CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous to
attend a conference on Global
Youth Employment. Eight months
later I, along with the rest of the
world, am seeing images of eco-
nomically disenfranchised youth
throughout England rioting and
rebelling. The ignition for these
rebellions appears to be the fatal
shooting of Mark Duggan, a
young Black man, by the police.
Youth rioting and rebelling in
economically
disenfranchised
areas in relation to possible racial
discrimination and police brutality
is something with which most
Americans are all too familiar. In a
BBC video clip in which Darcus
Howe, a Black English migrant, is
interviewed about the riots, Mr.
Howe states that what is happen-
ing throughout England is similar
to insurrections throughout the
Arab world, where youth have
been a leading force in street
protests demanding change from
their government. Where I agree
with Mr. Howe is that these inci-
dents of riots and rebellions from
economically disappointed and
disenfranchised youth are not lim-
ited to the context of London, or
even England.
During the 2010 Global Youth
Employment Conference in
London, sponsored by the
NAACP, CNBC, The Blackstone
Charitable
Foundation,
the
International Youth Foundation
and others, leading minds high-
lighted the crisis of global youth
E cONOMIcS FOr NaacP
Dedrick Muhammad
unemployment. Between the years
2008 and 2009, global youth
unemployment increased by
almost seven million. This is
about 35 times the increase that
occurred before the recent global
recession.
As BusinessWeek
wrote in its February 2011 article
“The Youth Unemployment
Bomb,” “[A]n economy that can’t
generate enough jobs to absorb its
cries. A riot is the language of the
unheard.”
Laurie Penny, in her article
“Panic on the Streets of London,”
writes:
The people running Britain had
absolutely no clue how desperate
things had become. They thought
that after thirty years of soaring
inequality, in the middle of a
recession, they could take away
the last little things that gave peo-
ple hope, the benefits, the jobs, the
possibility of higher education, the
support structures, and nothing
would happen.
They were
Between the years 2008 and 2009,
global youth unemployment
increased by almost seven
million. This is about 35 times the
increase that occurred before the
recent global recession.
young people has created a lost
generation of the disaffected,
unemployed, or underemployed
— including growing numbers of
recent college graduates for whom
the post-crash economy has little
to offer.”
This relationship
between youth unemployment and
long-term social and economic
disenfranchisement, coupled with
austerity budgeting, which threat-
ens to lessen the opportunities and
support provided to the youth of
today, reminds me of the words of
Dr. King: “The people will rise up
and express their anger and frus-
tration if you refuse to hear their
wrong. And now my city is burn-
ing, and it will continue to burn
until we stop the blanket condem-
nations and blind conjecture and
try to understand just what has
brought viral civil unrest to
Britain.
The rebellions happening in
Britain today – similar to what
happened in France in 2005 and
2007, and in Israel with some of
the largest demonstrations focused
on growing economic insecurity –
can serve as a warning to the
United States. We must recognize
that our current economy is one
that can also breed despair that
can easily turn to rage. The
record-breaking global youth
unemployment rate of 13 percent
is far below the 2010 youth unem-
ployment rate in the United States
of 19.1 percent. Just like in
England, American youth of color
have even worse unemployment
numbers. In the U.S., about 22
percent of both Asian-American
and Latino -American youth are
unemployed. For African-Ameri -
can youth the unemployment rate
was 33.4 percent, representing just
over a third of all African-
American youth in the labor mar-
ket.
There is a consensus as to how
to address these types of chal-
lenges. In a 2010 report on
employment
trends,
the
International Labor Organization
notes that comprehensive training,
as well as programs that include
classroom and on-the-job training,
technical and non-technical assis-
tance, financial support for the
employer and employee, and job
placement services have all been
shown to have the most success in
advancin
youth
employ -
ment. These types of programs
require private- and public-sector
partnerships in order to properly
function.
Recently, such a program was
announced in New York City.
Mayor Bloomberg announced a
$130-million project focused on
Black and Latino men that will be
funded by two private foundations
and the New York City
budget. This program will invest
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State of Black American housing
The National Association of
Real Estate Brokers just made a
game-changing announcement at
its recent national convention in
New Orleans. NAREB detailed a
historic engagement with Wall
Street investors to launch a $800
million Homeowner’s Assurance
Program to address the devastat-
ing effects of the housing mort-
gage crisis for Black America and
other minority families and com-
munities across the United States.
The state of Black American hous-
ing is in crisis more disproportion-
ately than any other group in
America. Combined with the
unemployment crisis that has also
increased the ranks of abject
poverty in the African American
community, the housing crisis
makes it paramount that national
organizations like NAREB step up
to the plate with solutions to the
economic challenges facing Black
Americans.
The good news is that NAREB
has gone considerably beyond
describing the magnitude of the
problems confronting the Black
community in 2011 with respect to
the array of critical housing
issues. They are taking quantita-
tive and qualitative financial
action proactively and the Black
community and other minorities
engulf in the national housing and
mortgage crisis will be the direct
beneficiaries of the NAREM
Housing Assurance Program
(HAP). We all should be very
Page 4 The Portland Skanner august 17, 2011
E DUCATION
S ERVICES
Benjamin F.
Chavis Jr.
grateful to the national leadership
of the National Association of
Real Estate Brokers for putting the
real estate and housing interests of
the Black community as a national
priority.
If other African American pro-
fessionals would consider follow-
freedom, justice, equality and
empowerment will be consider-
ably advanced with greater
progress and achievement.
Various Wall Street investors,
including Paul R. Taylor, Jr. and
Cicero
Wilson
of
SRP
Development Management, have
committed to providing initial
capital for the purchase of non-
performing loans and REO assets
up to $200 million per quarter for
the HAP initiative of NAREB
beginning this month, August
2011. At the NAREB conference
in New Orleans, representatives of
one of the top four national banks
Combined with the unemployment
crisis that has also increased the ranks
of abject poverty in the African
American community, the housing
crisis makes it paramount that national
organizations step up to the plate with
solutions to the economic challenges
facing Black Americans
ing the leadership methodology
that is being exhibited by NAREB
on the housing issue as well as the
other related critical economic
empowerment issues challenges
our families and communities,
then the future of our plight for
in the United States also indicated
the HAP initiative has the poten-
tial over the next several weeks
and months to attract additional
capital and non-performing loan
or bank-held mortgages to the tune
of $1.2 billion per month.
Thus, the sheer magnitude of
what the NAREB is launching has
already caught the immediate
attention of the major players in
the U.S. banking industry. We are
talking about the financial recov-
ery and economic development of
the Black community through the
systematic recovering of property
and real estate ownership. The
wealth and empowerment of
African Americans is directly
related to homeownership. This
not about giving charity, this is
about gaining back a sense of self-
reliance,
responsibility
and
empowerment for our communi-
ties. We need more homeowners
with mortgages that they can
afford. NAREB understands this
point and is taking an important
step forward to assist brothers and
sisters in our community to be
viable homeowners again.
Prior to announcing the innova-
tive Housing Assurance Program,
NAREB published a Public Policy
Paper on Housing and African
Americans. The policy paper doc-
umented that Black communities
have borne a disproportionate
share of the damage from fore-
closed real estate left in the wake
of the country’s severe housing
and economic crisis. The acceler-
ated rate of massive evictions of
Black families from their fore-
closed homes, and the subsequent
dumping of foreclosed or abandon
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