June 6, 2016

Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell ( R-Ky.)

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

June 5, 2016

Diversity Remains Elusive in U.S. Churches
By Zenitha Prince

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Churches in the United States remain bastions of segregation decades after the Civil Rights Movement produced legal barriers to the practice.

In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning” and, according to experts, that assertion remains true today. About eight-in-ten American congregants still attend services at a place where a single racial or ethnic group comprises at least 80 percent of the congregation, according to findings from the most recent (2012) National Congregations Study, as cited by the Pew Research Center.

And a new study from Baylor University has found that churches that attempt to create more racially diverse congregations find themselves with scantier pews. Researchers based their findings on analysis of data from more than 11,000 congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ECLA) from 1993-2012, as well as data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

They found that while diversity doubled in the two-decade period, membership declined by 22 percent. “Racial diversity itself is not a detriment to growth,” said lead author Kevin Dougherty, associate professor of sociology in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences, in a statement. “It is the process of changing the racial composition of a congregation that causes difficulties.”

The study, “Congregational Diversity and Attendance in a Mainline Protestant Denomination” tests the belief that homogenous congregations are more likely to grow, the researchers said. “That philosophy for a long time discouraged church leaders from striving for diversity,” said study co-author Gerardo Martí, associate professor of sociology at Davidson College. “But in coming to terms with the historic racial segregation of American congregations, white pastors in the 1990s aggressively committed to overcoming discrimination, urging members to bring in those from ancestral backgrounds and reaffirm the Gospel as rooted in relationships, unity and love. Racial diversity has become a central, and sometimes dominating, ambition for many White churches.”

Despite those ambitions, the researchers concluded that churches that start off as multiracial are more likely to be successful at increasing diversity in a denomination. “We conclude that new congregations started as multiracial represent the best opportunity for diversifying a denomination,” Dougherty said. “It may be that nondenominational congregations may be more adaptable, since they do not have a denominational heritage to sustain.”

The report was published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 

June 5, 2016

As Western Nations Drag Their Feet, African Children Drown

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – There’s no telling when the tidal wave of migrants embarking from Libya to hoped-for safe shores in Europe will end or even decrease.

In miserable camps on the Libya coastline, tens of thousands of migrants, most of them from sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa, are said to be massed, waiting for the chance to cross to Italy while the weather is good and seas are calm.

A Nigerian migrant, in an interview, revealed the dangers prompting those taking the ultimate risk to flee. “I was held captive for six months in a basement of an abandoned building in Sabratha,” he told a reporter. “I saw many people executed, those who tried to escape were killed by the guards, who were all Libyans.”

And some of the worst places are the government-run detention centers for migrants.

Human Rights Watch has taken scores of testimonies that tell of whippings, electric shocks, beatings, strip-searches, "people being hung upside down from the trees".

The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 1,011,700 migrants arrived by sea in 2015, and almost 34,900 by land.

Many of the migrant women are pregnant or have babies – often the result of rapes by smugglers during the long internments.

Over the past week, hundreds were reported to have perished in boats that capsized with 40 children and many newborns aboard.

“We’ll never know the exact number, we’ll never know their identity, but survivors tell that over 500 human beings died,” Carlotta Sami, of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHRC), said on Twitter.

The Independent newspaper of London this week received an International News Media award for creating the hashtag #refugeeswelcome, which followed publication of the photo of Alan Kurdi, a 3-year old toddler whose body washed up on a Turkish beach.

“It was a graphic and tragic example of the many refugee deaths being roundly ignored by most European governments and many media outlets,” said deputy managing editor Will Gore.  “It symbolized both the tragedy of the situation and the failure of authorities to get to grips with the reality of what was happening.

“As our report went viral, we set up a petition with Change.org . The response of our readers urging the government to act, and soon afterwards the Prime Minister's announcement that Britain would take in more refugees, vindicated the decision.”

“Shock tactics ought to be used sparingly,” he cautioned. “And yet it remains deeply shocking that, month upon month, hundreds more people die in overcrowded ships as they attempt to escape war, persecution and poverty.

“It is horrifying that they take the risk; it is mortifying that Western nations appear paralyzed in their attempts to find a lasting solution. In that context, shouldn’t it be a shock that the refugee crisis isn’t on the front page of every paper and the homepage of every news website almost daily?”

June 5, 2016

We Need Literacy Warriors
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Dictionary defines warriors as “a person who fights in battle and is known for having courage and skill.”  In Roots, reimagined Kizzy Kinte tells her dad “Reading is my way of being a warrior, my way of feeling free inside.”  Teaching enslaved people to read and write was illegal in most Southern states, so reading was an act of resistance, an act of rebellion, a warrior act that could get you sold, or worse.  Reading material described as “subversive”, such as David Walker’s Appeal, could get you killed.

While enslaved people deeply desired knowledge, and risked their lives to learn to read, an ugly saying emerged about African Americans and literacy.  “If you want to hide something from a black people, put it in a book.”  I think the saying has less to do with Black folk and reading, and more to do with white people’s wishful thinking.  Still, the achievement gap suggests that we need more African American people to become literacy warriors.

The education system is replete with racial disparity and unfairness.  African Americans, 18 percent of the pre-kindergarten population, garner 48 percent of the suspensions, and are three times as likely as white students to get expelled. Black girls are the most likely to experience expulsions.  African American students are also three times as likely to be held back as other students.

African American students have less access to advanced courses, like Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB).  Too often their schools simply don’t offer the courses that may make a difference in college admissions.  While one in five white students takes calculus in high school, just one in fifteen African American students does.  And, African American students are three times as likely to be taught by first year teachers as whites are.

There are all kinds of reasons for these educational disparities, some of which are a function of income, residential location, wealth, and parents’ education (and all of these are correlated).  There are multiple organizations that advocate for more educational equity and for closing the achievement gap.  Billions of resources have gone into addressing the challenges that come with closing the achievement gap, but educational inequality is persistent.  We need educational warriors, people who are committed to fighting the educational inequality with courage and skill.

It is going to take courage to call out the sacred cows that many dare not criticize.  Who are the teachers who are inefficient?  What can we do about them?  Do programs like Teach for America, “highly regarded” programs that send inexperienced teachers to classrooms serve or disserve young people?  It’s going to take skill, too, to call people out in a way that motivates them toward reform, not resistance.

One of the statistics that bothered me most about the condition of education is the fact that young black people start out behind when they get to kindergarten.  Home literacy is an issue.   Ninety-one percent of white children who are not enrolled in preschool are read to at least three times a week by family members, compared to 78 percent of African American students.  Some say this gap in home literacy is among the factors in producing the word gap, which some say may be as large as 30 million words (some researchers dispute this compilation and its meaning).  There is also a racial gap in the availability of books in homes, and African American youngsters may have less access to libraries.

Where are the literacy warriors who would read to the children who are experiencing gaps?  Where are the ones who will ensure that libraries in some communities are adequately stocked?  Are there warriors who will give children books to take home, warriors who will fight to expand the offerings of our nation’s public schools?

Schools are letting out for the summer in the coming weeks, which means that millions of young people who are not engaged in summer educational activities will actually lose learning by the time they return to school in the fall.  Are there literacy warriors who will stand in the gap and ensure that every child has some meaningful educational program during the summer?  Or will we stand by and watch the achievement gap stay the same or even grow wider?

Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy.” Is available via juliannemalveaux.com or Amazon.com