Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for African-Americans in August was 11.4 percent, the same as July, although the jobless rate for black men dropped slightly but rose for black women, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.

The jobless rate for Black men 20 years old and older was 10.8 percent compared with 11.1 percent in July, BLS reported. Some 929,000 Black men were unemployed in August compared with 967,000 in July, according to BLS's monthly household survey. The labor-participation rate for black men, or the number of men actively looking for work, dropped to 60.1 percent in August, compared with 60.4 percent in July. Some 7,676 million Black men were employed in August, down from 7,704 in July.

The unemployment rate for African-American women 20 years old and older was 10.6 percent compared with 10.1 percent in July. Some 1,015 million Black women were out of work in August compared with 984,000 in July. The August labor-participation rate for women dropped to 61.5 percent compared with 62.3 percent in July. Some 8,581 million African-American women were employed in August compared to 8,736 million in July.

The jobless rate for Blacks is higher than all other ethnic and racial groups as the nation's non-farm businesses added 142,000 jobs in July. The nation's unemployment rate remained little changed at 6.1 percent.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate for whites was 5.3 percent. White women 20 years old and older reported a jobless rate of 4.8 percent. The unemployment rate for White men 20 years old and older was 4.9 percent. The jobless rate for Hispanics was 7.5 percent in August compared to 7.8 percent in July.

Sept. 21, 2014

Atlanta’s Spelman College Claims Top Ranking Among HBCUs
By Zenitha Prince

Spelman College in Atlanta, GA (Courtesy Photo)

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga., the liberal arts college for women in Atlanta, was named the nation’s top historically Black college or university for the second year in a row by U.S. News and World Report. The publication’s 30th annual ranking of tertiary education institutions in the United States was released last week and included nearly 50 different types of numerical rankings and lists to “help students narrow their college search.”

In addition to its ratings of the best national universities and liberal arts colleges, the magazine also ranked regional colleges and universities and HBCUs. In the ranking of HBCUs the schools were compared only with one another. Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Morehouse College in Atlanta, ranked second and third best, respectively.

The institutions switched spots from last year’s rankings when Morehouse was second and Howard third. Following closely behind was Virginia’s Hampton University and Tuskegee University in Alabama, which held the fifth spot as it did a year ago. Rounding out the top 10 positions in descending order were: Xavier University, of New Orleans; Fisk University, of Nashville; Florida A&M University, of Tallahassee, Fla.; Claflin University, of Orangeburg, S.C.; and North Carolina A&T State University, of Greensboro, N.C. Morgan State University in Baltimore tied for the 15th spot with Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. The University of Maryland-Eastern Shore came in 23rd; Bowie State University came in 25th and Coppin State’s ranking was not published.

The ranking of historically Black schools comprised only those institutions currently designated by the U.S. Department of Education as HBCUs. To qualify for the U.S. News ranking, HBCUs also needed to be an undergraduate baccalaureate-granting institution that enrolls primarily first-year, first-time students. 

Sept. 21, 2014

By Zenitha Prince

 

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and the police department’s bungled response has renewed cries for police reform.

The slaying of Brown, who was unarmed, spurred protest among residents, who saw it as the latest in a string of injustices perpetrated by Ferguson police officers against the mostly-Black community.

The police department’s heavy-handed response—enforcing an information blackout, deploying K-9 dog units, armored vehicles and SWAT officers clad in bulletproof vests and military-grade rifles, some of whom were calling demonstrators “animals”—only exacerbated tensions and further highlighted the frayed relationship between police and the community.

Federal officials, lawmakers, social scientists, civil rights activists and other experts have contemplated several solutions to Ferguson’s problem. A civilian review board has been one of them.

“The Ferguson Police Department is in need of a wholesale re-evaluation of how it does its work…. Policing must be done in a way that meets the community’s needs and does not abuse their constitutional rights. [And] I do think civilian oversight of police is part of the solution,” said Ari Rosmarin, policy director, ACLU of New Jersey.

According to Brian Buchner, president, The National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE), the concept of civilian oversight of police departments developed around the middle of the 20^th century.

“The history of civilian oversight is deeply rooted in the Civil Rights Movement, when communities of color who were suffering from harsh police tactics, discrimination and abuse began to call for increased oversight over police practices and for [just] having a voice,” he told the AFRO.

But the idea really took off, Rosmarin added, when the so-called “War on Crime” unleashed by President Nixon spurred clashes between police and communities of color that prompted an outcry for aggressive oversight of police departments.

“For any democratic society it is a basic tenet that there needs to be checks and balances for any part of government,” Rosmarin said. “By law we give police more power than we give anybody else. We believe that with great and tremendous power must come equally robust accountability.”

Today, as communities continue to figure out how to police the police, civilian oversight has evolved to the point where you have different models, sometimes with different goals. And, there are more than 200 civilian oversight entities throughout the United States, according to Buchner.

Some civilian boards, for example, may investigate and offer findings on individual complaints of police misconduct, while others may concentrate only on big-picture issues, such as framing police policy. Oversight also varies in terms of the powers given to that board—some have subpoena power, for example.

“Whatever model of citizen review a critical [function] is that everyday people have the ability to be heard,” Rosmarin said.

Buchner agreed. He added that while no civilian review board is perfect, there are some factors that can make them more efficient.

“Access, making sure the oversight board has access to police officers and records of the agency,” said Buchner, who sits on a civilian oversight board in Los Angeles. “It’s [also] critical for oversight boards to be independent in thought and action, and oversight needs to be careful to avoid overidentification with the community or with police. They are to be advocates for the law and standards and not any particular group.”

A major criticism of oversight boards is that they often seem to over-identify with police and just “rubberstamp” police findings or the police account of an incident/issue.

Buchner said from his experience, an oversight board’s investigation may veer away from the police’s in terms of approach, prioritization of evidence, evaluation style, etc. and still come to the same decision as the police.

“But all the community knows is that we have the same conclusions,” he said.

“In some ways that is not problematic because it can prove to the community that they can have faith in the department’s investigation and that it was thorough, fair and objective,” Buchner added.

Rosmarin pointed out that while citizen review boards have varying levels of independence, none has independent disciplinary power. As a result, too many times CRB findings and recommendations for disciplinary measures/change are not acted upon by police commissioners and other relevant authorities.

In New York, for example, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) in 2012 received 5,741 complaints, 258 of which were substantiated and processed by the NYPD, according to a report by WNYC, New York’s public radio.

The CCRB recommended—from the most serious to less serious penalty—charges in 175 cases, command discipline in 70 cases, and instructions in 12 cases.

Of the 175 cases in which CCRB recommended an officer should be charged, the NYPD only sought charges in seven.

Similarly, according to {The New York Times}, in the first six months of 2014, the NYPD has chosen not to impose sanctions in 25 percent of the cases for which the CCRB found cause for discipline.

“It raises many serious questions when the people charged with implementing accountability may have been your squad car partner a few years before,” Rosmarin said, then added, “That’s why people lose faith in review boards.”

Sept. 15, 2014

Will Ferguson Be a Tipping Point for National Black Youth Voter Turnout?

By Khalil Abdullah

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from New America Media

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A week before National Voter Registration Day Tuesday, September 23, civil rights leaders hope to increase African American youth voter turnout by citing the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., a city where only 12 percent of registered voters turned out to vote in the last city council elections.

Community organizers in New Orleans and Houston -- two cities with a long history of confrontations between African-Americans and the police -- have mixed views on whether outrage over Ferguson will translate into voter participation.

Ferguson may be a rallying call in New Orleans, but it won’t be the dominant theme for staff and volunteers as they work voter registration tables around the city on Sept. 23, says Erica Buher of VAYLA-New Orleans, a multi-ethnic community organization focused on youth empowerment. Big Easy youth are attuned and empathetic to Brown's killing on August 9, but, according to Buher “what happened in Ferguson happens frequently in New Orleans.”  Young people have their own Michael Browns to focus on. Their names, Buher says, are virtually unknown outside the city.

Buher remembers when the police officer -- convicted of shooting Ronald Madison on Danziger Bridge in Hurricane Katrina's wake -- was freed after a court upheld his appeal in September of 2013. James Brissette, 17 years old, also died on the bridge from police gunfire. Henry Glover was killed in a separate Katrina incident. The police officer charged in his death was also acquitted on appeal last year in December. “The court’s reversal hit the community hard,” Buher says of the Glover case.

Just weeks ago, Armand Bennett, a 26-year-old African-American man, was shot twice in the head during a NOPD traffic stop by an officer who allegedly turned off her camera before the confrontation. The incident initially went unreported to the public by the police superintendent’s office. Buher says it reminds people all over again of the NOPD’s lack of transparency.

“We will work to register voters through National Voter Registration Day up until October 6 which is the last day for us,” Buher says. Some 23 sites include college and university campuses as well as organizations like Covenant House and Liberty's Kitchen, which offer services to the homeless and formerly incarcerated juveniles, respectively.

“We work hard to reach that 18 to 24-year-old transitional age group because they’re such a critical age and they’re the hardest to reach,” Buher explains, adding that In Louisiana, “you can actually register to vote when you’re 16. A lot of that under-18 age group is pushing back on the concept that voting is the only way you can be civically engaged.”

Yet, in Houston, Christina Sanders, the director of the Texas League of Young Voters Education Fund, is convinced that Ferguson has been an “aha moment” for some of her city’s youth and a catalyst that may yield an increase in voter registration rolls.

“This is a time when I’ve seen more young people connect to the power of the ballot,” Sanders said. She attributes increased interest to social media. “Social media, like Facebook, and the ability to connect with people around the country who are saying the same thing, feeling the same way, that changes the conservation.”

Sanders concurs with Buher that voter registration is not a panacea or silver bullet to foster change, but the Houston native sees voter registration as the gateway for young people to become more involved in determining how to define and address critical concerns within their communities.

“Youth should not expect everything to happen overnight, because things didn’t get the way they are overnight,” Sanders said. “Voter registration isn’t sexy, but if you connect with young people about Ferguson and how it affects people’s lives on so many different levels, you have the capacity to build on the fire in people’s bellies. You can build these small fires into a firestorm. What I say to young people is that voting is an opportunity, but your job is to constantly participate.”

Sanders maintains that Ferguson has brought out a higher level of interest among African American youth in Houston than any single recent incident, an observation about other cities that is shared by Hazel Trice Edney, former Editor-in-Chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association and current president of the Capital Press Club in the District of Columbia.

After a visit to Ferguson before the funeral of Brown, Edney says she had intense discussions with the media writing class she occasionally teaches at Howard University as an adjunct professor.

“The students are extremely interested in what’s going on in Ferguson. They wanted to know about the disposition of the people, about the next steps the community plans to take. Even more than the Trayvon Martin shooting almost two years ago, Michael Brown’s death has been a wake-up call to many communities.”

Edney found the stories Ferguson residents told her about police abuse to be appalling, but Brown’s death seems to be a tipping point. “People are in a mood for action. They feel it’s time to do something.”