The War on Poverty - Part Two By Julianne Malveaux

Jan. 14, 2014

The War on Poverty - Part Two
By Julianne Malveaux

malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com)-Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared a war on poverty. Appalled by the way too many Americans lived, he empowered federal workers to develop and implement programs that created jobs, health care, housing and legal assistance. Some of the funds were given to states, and some were given to cities. In any case, President Johnson was committed to closing income gaps, and u to a point he was successful. He had to overcome two sets of obstacles. One was Republican resistance; the other was competing needs, especially, in 1968, the war in Vietnam. Johnson poignantly explained his choices. He said he had to give up “the woman he loved – the Great Society, to get involved in that bitch of a war.”

Why go back down memory lane? President Obama, too, interested in issues of poverty and inequality. To be sure, these are not issues he focused on during his first term as President. Indeed, I’ve described his actions as late and great. He has sent this past month in speeches and gatherings that speak to poverty and ways o eliminate it. Like Johnson, he is likely to face a hostile Congress and budged constraints to get these programs. Still in highlighting just a few areas, -- Los Angeles, San Antonio, Philadelphia, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and Southeastern Kentucky. The President picked a good mix of urban and rural areas, as well as population diversity. Were I choosing, however, I’d add the District of Columbia, where President Obama could throw a stone to find the poorest area in Ward 8, and one of the richest areas in Ward 3. On this matter, though, I’ll not be a distractor. It’s about time the poor got some attention.

Tea Party Republicans, with waning power, are still insisting that any new program must be offset by cuts in existing programs. Their cuts in food stamps, for example, can be eliminated if the Present and Democrats are willing to give something else. The President’s new poverty program must be matched, they say, by other cuts. These folks have effectively tied President Obama’s hands behind his back. Only Congress can loosen the restrictions of these ropes.

I often wonder whether Republicans represent any poor people, because their attacks on things like food stamps hurt the people that keep voting for them. You’d never know by the votes they take, never know by their resistance to higher wages, n3ever know by the ways the block programs designed to help the poor.

There is a movement, though, to increase the minimum wage. At the federal level there are proposals to raise the wage by as much as $10 an hour. Some cities and states have already raised the wage. This is the long-term result of the Occupy Movement that, whole failing to articulate specific goals, raised consciousness about the one percent. Now, people are considering tax breaks on the wealthy and insisting hat Congress look at ways that the poor are disadvantaged compared t the rich.

Some Republicans operate with an amazing arrogance, using the Bible to make their points against public assistance and food stamps. At least two have cherry picked the Bible, using that Thessalonians verse that says, “If you do not work, you cannot eat.” The Bible also talks about feeding the hungry, but these seem to be parts of the Bible that have escaped their notice.

Bible or not, the economic recovery is moving more slowly that anyone would like. The stock market has had tremendous gains, but the unemployment rate has dropped slowly for the overall population, and even slower for African Americans. The status of African Americans is hardly mentioned as economic analysts gloat about poverty, and some members of Congress have been downright derisive toward those who are jobless. These are the same people who voted down the President’s American Jobs Act I 2011.

President Obama is moving in the right direction by paying attention to poverty. Let’s hope Congress allows him to move from conversation to implementation.

Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author.

Promise Zones: White House Announces New Focus on America’s Poor by Hazel Trice Edney

UPDATED Jan. 14, 2014

Promise Zones: White House Announces New Focus on America's Poor
Announcement comes in the 50th year after Johnson's War on Poverty and on the eve of the King birthday holiday.

By Hazel Trice Edney

President Barack Obama announces a new vision for girding up America’s poor. PHOTO: Mark Mahoney/Trice Edney News Wire.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Reminiscient of Pesident Johnson's 1964 "War on Poverty" that followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s. “I Have a Dream” speech, President Barack Obama has announced a new vision for girding up America’s poor.

With students from the Harlem Children’s Zone standing in the background Jan. 9, Obama has announced a new program, Promise Zones, in which the White House will focus on poverty in neighborhoods of at least 20 cities. The program, which comes in the fifth year of Obama’s presidency, also marks years since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “War on Poverty in America”. Johnson’s declaration came a year after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was led by Dr. King.

“It’s now been 50 years since President Johnson declared an unconditional War on Poverty in America. And that groundbreaking effort created new avenues of opportunity for generations of Americans. It strengthened our safety net for working families and seniors, Americans with disabilities and the poor, so that when we fall - and you never know what life brings you - we can bounce back faster. It made us a better country and a stronger country,” he told the audience in the East Room of the White House. “Today’s economic challenges are different. But they’ve still resulted in communities where in recent decades wrenching economic change has made opportunity harder and harder to come by. There are communities where for too many young people it feels like their future only extends to the next street corner or the outskirts of town, too many communities where no matter how hard you work, your destiny feels like it’s already been determined for you before you took that first step.”

He continued, “I’m not just talking about pockets of poverty in our inner cities. That's the stereotype. I’m talking about suburban neighborhoods that have been hammered by the housing crisis. I'm talking about manufacturing towns that still haven't recovered after the local plant shut down and jobs dried up. There are islands of rural America where jobs are scarce. They were scarce even before the recession hit - so that young people feel like if they want to actually succeed, they've got to leave town, they've got to leave their communities.”

In a nutshell, the Promise Zones will bring together non-profit organizations, the government and schools in order to strengthen economic vitality, schools, and public safety – with a specific focus on children. The first five will be located in Los Angeles, San Antonio, Texas; Philadelphia; the state of Kentucky and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. First mentioned in the President’s State of the Union Address last year, the White House describes it as “a way to partner with local communities and businesses to create jobs, increase economic security, expand access to educational opportunities and quality, affordable housing and improve public safety.”

As the U. S. Congress had so far failed to extend emergency unemployment benefits to more than a million people across the nation, the President’s announcement won strong applause from hopeful Black leaders who grapple with issues of economic deprivation every day.

“Necessary, long overdue, and a step in the right, direction,” was the initial reaction of John Hope Bryant, President/CEO of Operation HOPE, which works to strengthen the nation’s entrepreneurship and small businesses. “One of the things I think he’s doing is creating a framework of safety and basic infrastructure support around the kids’ education and aspirations. This is not one grand master plan because the neighborhoods will all need different strategies. But he is wrapping them around an enabling environment.”

Bryant is especially happy that the President is using terms that directly refers to the impoverished. For the past five years, Obama has been criticized by some for almost only referring to the “middle class.”

“It’s not in vogue to talk about poverty in America. But, that’s the conversation they need to be having. Because if we don’t empower the poor and create a true ‘ladder of opportunity’ – to borrow from the President’s phrase – from the working class and the working poor to the middle class, the whole bet’s off for America. So he’s beginning to talk about all the right things. He’s got to go deeper, harder, stronger, more consistent. I have hopes that he will do it.”

Pesident Obama's announcement also comes on the eve of the national Martin Luther King birthday holiday, Monday, January 20. NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton is elated about the timely announcement of a progam that he hopes will finally bring the help that Dr. King called for and that has been historically needed.

“This is a wonderful way to start this year,” Shelton said. “It’s exactly where it needs to be. Before the economic [crisis] hit, African-Americans were disproportionately poor and disproportionately underserved when the economic downturn hit. The number of African-Americans that were in the middle class was cut by half. And only 44 percent of African-Americans owned their homes then.

“So, this is a tremendous move in the right direction. We have to find ways to find folk to move them in to the middle class. The focus has always been on the folks living on Main Street. We all want to live on Main Street. But, we have disproportionately more of African-Americans living on back street that we still need to rise in that direction.”

African-American leaders aren’t the onlyy ones applauding the new program. The Promise Zone has the potential of establishing strange bedfellows. Senate republican leader Mitch McConnell and ultra conservative Sen. Rand Paul both attended the White House announcement. This week, Paul was set to give the keynote speech at an announcement of a similar program at the Heritage Foundation, the ultra-conservative D. C.- based think tank.

Heritage President Sen. Jim DeMint was to the announce “Economic Freedom Zones that would “reduce taxes and ease government regulation in distressed areas,” according to a release.

The statement added, “President Obama recently praised Sen. Paul for his bill currently moving through Congress to create "Economic Freedom Zones".

Obama also acknowledged Paul in the audience at the White House.

“And I’ve been very happy to see that there are Republicans like Rand Paul, who’s here today, who are ready to engage in this debate,” the President said. “That's a good thing. We’ve got Democratic and Republican elected officials across the country who are ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work. And this should be a challenge that unites us all. I don't care whether the ideas are Democrat or Republican. I do care that they work.”

Promising to give more details in his State of the Union Address on Jan. 28, the President concluded that he is excited about this year. “This is going to be a year of action. That’s what the American people expect, and they’re ready and willing to pitch in and help. This is not just a job for government; this is a job for everybody.”

South Sudan - 'An American Creation' - Again in Chaos

Jan. 12, 2014

South Sudan - 'An American Creation' - Again in Chaos

Phillip Madol, a Sudanese "Lost Boy"

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – South Sudan may be barely on the radar screen for most Americans but a bitter split in the ruling coalition threatens to make it one of the worst humanitarian disasters in Africa.

Over 1,000 people have been killed and 200,000 displaced in fighting by rival militia with reports of ethnically motivated atrocities by both sides. It is feared South Sudan could become another black mark for American policy on the continent.

“South Sudan is in many ways an American creation,” explained a Washington correspondent for The New York Times this week, “carved out of war-torn Sudan in a referendum largely orchestrated by the United States, its fragile institutions nurtured with billions of dollars in American aid.”

South Sudan was also the starting point for an exodus of some 20,000 young boys and girls of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups who fled fighting during the second Sudanese Civil War.

They traveled by foot for years in search of safe refuge, on a journey that carried them over a thousand miles across three countries to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya and in various villages in South Sudan.

Over half died along their epic journey, due to starvation, dehydration, sickness and attacks by wild animals and enemy soldiers.

Approximately 3,800 Lost Boys were allowed to resettle in the U.S. Since independence was declared in 2011, many have been returning to re-start their lives in the new nation.

Andrew Bith Abui, 32, was a graduate with honors from a community college in Nebraska. An American citizen who planned to become a police officer, he could not wait to participate in building the new South Sudan, his teachers said. He recently returned to visit his home in Pariang County in Unity State to reconnect with his family and make arrangements for his marriage.

After the fighting began last month, a relative, Simon Nygok Deng, 32, was waiting in the capital city, Juba, refusing to evacuate without Mr. Abui, when he received a call from a satellite phone. A local official informed him that Mr. Abui had been killed.

“They attacked the village and overran the police,” Deng said. “They killed anybody just because they belonged to another tribe.”

Meanwhile, Mahmood Mamdani, director of the Makarere Institute of Social Research, faulted the 8-country political leadership in the region, known as IGAD. “They have made things worse by calling on the two sides of the conflict to negotiate, while brazenly supporting the (President Salva) Kiir faction, where necessary, with troops. Uganda has taken the lead in this.”

“Neither external nor internal conditions for peace are possible,” he warned, “without a change of political perspective in IGAD and the region and a new political leadership in South Sudan.”

Study: Half of Black Men Arrested by Age 23 by Zenitha Prince

Jan. 12, 2014

Study: Half of Black Men Arrested by Age 23
By Zenitha Prince

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Nearly half of all African-American males are arrested by age 23, outpacing their White counterparts, according to a new study published Jan. 6 in the journal Crime & Delinquency.

Robert Brame, the study’s lead author and a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, said the racial differences are the most striking aspect of the study. Compared to the 49 percent of the Black male population arrested at least once for a non-traffic offense by age 23, approximately 40 percent of White males are arrested by that age.

The disturbing findings present weighty implications for the Black community as arrests can severely impact an individual’s ability to find employment, pursue education and participate in their communities, researchers said.

“Many males—especially Black males—are navigating the transition from youth to adulthood with the baggage and difficulties from contact with the criminal justice system,” Brame said in a statement. “Criminal records that show up in searches can impede employment, reduce access to housing, thwart admission to and financing for higher education and affect civic and volunteer activities such as voting or adoption. They also can damage personal and family relationships.”

The study, which researchers said represents the first set of contemporary findings on the risk of arrest across race and gender, analyzed national survey data from 1997 to 2008 of teenagers and young adults ages 18 to 23, and their arrest histories. Excluding arrests for minor traffic violations, the study considered a range of offenses including truancy and underage drinking to more serious and violent offenses.

Among the study’s key findings was that, by age 18, almost one-third of Black males, 26 percent of Hispanic males and 22 percent of White males have been arrested. Some states consider adolescents as young as age 16 and 17 to be adults in the eyes of the law.

As the ages increase, so do the rates of arrest: by age 23, 49 percent of Black males, 44 percent of Hispanic males and 38 percent of White males have been detained by law enforcement, the study found.

Among females, the prevalence of arrests also increased as they aged, but the variations based on race were slight—arrests of White females actually slightly outpace their minority counterparts. At age 18, arrest rates were 12 percent for White females and 11.8 percent and 11.9 percent for Hispanic and Black females, respectively. By age 23, arrest rates were 20 percent for White females and 18 percent and 16 percent for Hispanic and Black females, respectively.

The study builds on a previous effort by the team, which includes Ray Paternoster at the University of Maryland, Michael Turner at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Shawn Bushway at the University at Alban. The earlier study was released in January 2012 in the journal Pediatrics and was the first that examined arrest prevalence since the 1960s; researchers found that one in three persons are arrested by age 23.

Brame said additional research needs to focus on developing an understanding of the economic, social and law enforcement factors that can influence arrests and what role gender and race play.

“As a society, we often worry a great deal about the effects of children watching television, eating junk food, playing sports and having access to good schools,” he said. “Experiencing formal contact with the criminal justice system could also have powerful effects on behavior and impose substantial constraints on opportunities for America's youth.”

Dr. Elmira Mangum Becomes FAMU President

Jan. 12, 2014

Dr. Elmira Mangum Becomes FAMU President

Dr. Mangum

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Florida Courier

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Florida A&M University (FAMU) Board of Trustees has selected Dr. Elmira Mangum, 60, to serve as the institution’s 11th president. Upon confirmation by the Board of Governors, Mangum will make history as the first woman in FAMU’ s 126-year legacy to be installed as a permanent president.

“Dr. Mangum brings to FAMU the experience, expertise and energy needed to lead the university into the next phase of its great legacy,” said Trustee Karl White, chair of the presidential search committee. “She emerged from a noteworthy pool of applicants as the candidate who the Board believes is the best fit for this pivotal season in the university’s history.”

Since 2010, Mangum served as vice president for planning and budget at Cornell University, an Ivy League research institution. While at Cornell, Mangum was the senior administrator charged with managing the university’s resources and annual budgeting process. She has been credited with helping the university overcome a structural deficit that impacted the university after the economic downturn.

“I would like to thank the members of the Board of Trustees, the faculty, the students, the staff, the alumni association and the community for the faith expressed in me through this recommendation. It is an honor to be recommended from among such an accomplished field of candidates,” Mangum said.

For more than 28 years, she has served as an executive at nationally recognized institutions of higher learning, including a stint as senior associate provost at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, vice provost at the University of Buffalo and operations specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mangum also has held faculty appointments at Cornell’s Johnson School of Management, the UNC Chapel Hill School of Government and the UB Graduate School of Education.

Mangum was a member of the inaugural class of the Millennium Leadership Institute, attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education Management Development Program and Cornell’s Administrative Management Institute.

She is also a member of the HERS Board of Directors, the NCCU Creating the Vision Board of Directors, the Board of Directors of the Network for Change and Continuous Improvement (NCCI) and was a university chair of the American Association of University Women. She is a life member of the National Council of Negro Women and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

“The Board of Trustees would like to express its appreciation to everyone who invested their time and effort into selecting our 11th president,” said Board Chairman Solomon Badger. “I’d like to express special gratitude to our trustees, presidential search committee and the entire FAMU community for their hard work and support during this process.”

Mangum’s official start date and salary are yet to be determined.