Researchers Find Black Mortality Rates Higher in Racist Locales By Zenitha Prince

May 17, 2015

Researchers Find Black Mortality Rates Higher in Racist Locales

By Zenitha Prince

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A groundbreaking study led by researchers from the University of Maryland College Park’s School of Health found Black mortality rates are much higher in areas with greater levels of racism.

The study gauged the levels of racism across 196 media markets based on the volume of Google searches containing the “n-word” in each area. Researchers qualified that not all the searches were necessarily motivated by racism, but assumed “that areas with a greater concentration of these searches have higher levels of racism overall.”

The difficulty of measuring racism through surveys led the researchers to apply the methodology of an Internet query-based measure—previously designed by study co-author Seth I. Stephens-Davidowitz—to find the relationship between racism and mortality risk.

“Racial disparities in health and disease represent a significant public health concern,” David H. Chae, assistant professor of epidemiology in the University of Maryland School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Racism is a social toxin that increases susceptibility to disease and generates racial disparities in health.”

The examination found that areas with higher frequencies of racist Google queries had a higher prevalence of Black deaths. Those findings remained the same when additional demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the areas, such as the number of Blacks, and levels of education and poverty, were taken into account.

The correlation also remained unchanged when results were adjusted for the White mortality rate and other socioeconomic factors.

“These findings add to mounting evidence that population-level racial disparities in health are driven by racism,” said Chae. “Racism represents a serious social and moral dilemma. The persistence of racial disparities in disease and mortality reflects the fact that issues of racism remain unresolved.”

The study, entitled “Association Between an Internet-Based Measure of Area Racism and Black Mortality” was published in the online journal PLOS ONE.

Mothers Stand Against Police Shootings of Blacks

May 11, 2015

Mothers Stand Against Police Shootings of Blacks

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Toya Graham has been recognized for publicly reprimanding her son while he was participating in the Baltimore riots. (Facebook photo)

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - What do Toya Graham, Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Maryland National Guard Major Gen. Linda Singh and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch have in common?

They are African-American mothers who share similar sentiments about the shootings of Black people by police officers. All four women have held a prominent role in not only bringing justice to the forefront in Baltimore in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray, but also bringing about peace.

“To those who are angry, hurt, I urge you to channel energy peacefully,” Mosby told NBC on May 1. “I heard your call for ‘no justice, no peace.’ However your peace is severely needed. To officers, these accusations are not an indictment of the entire force.”

Mosby is a mother of two girls, who has a family of law enforcers. However, according to news reports she is keen on holding officers accountable for their actions. Mosby, lead Maryland prosecutor in the case, filed charges against the six police officers involved in the arrest and death of Gray.

Gray, 25, died on April 19 from a spinal cord injury while he was in police custody. It sparked a massive riot in Baltimore, Md. with hundreds of young Black Americans expressing their anger and frustration with a justice system that unfairly and improperly targets them.

Rawlings-Blake led and continues to lead Baltimore through riots, burnings, media turmoil and enforced curfews. On May 4 the city’s mandatory curfew was lifted.

According to CNN, “the goal,’ said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake ‘has always been to not have the curfew in place a single day longer than was necessary.”

Lynch, new to the job, travelled to Baltimore May 5 to meet with city officials, members of Congress, law enforcement officials, as well as faith and community leaders, CNN reported.

Graham, a concerned Baltimore mother who caught her son throwing rocks at police has also staked a claim in the fight for justice and safety of Black citizens. Titled as “Mother of the Year” for what some say as adhering to the Black mammy stereotype, but as others say, truly caring for her son, she showed not only passion but resembled Black mothers – really all mothers – in America through her fear of losing a child.

“He gave me eye contact,” Toya Graham told CBS News. “And at that point, you know, not even thinking about cameras or anything like that — that’s my only son and at the end of the day, I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray. Is he the perfect boy? No he’s not, but he’s mine.”

As shown by the mothers, racist actions spur trauma for all income levels as numerous Black people have been shot by police forces across the country. Whether it is Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Dante Parker, Yvette Smith or any one of the several dozens of Blacks killed, the trauma affects us all, no matter religion, race, creed, socioeconomic status or income. In fact, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was born in West Baltimore, Gray’s neighborhood.

President Obama also echoed the same sentiments as the mothers on May 4 during a press conference on the launch of My Brother’s Keeper Alliance in Bronx, N.Y.

“I want you to know you matter,” he said. “We are one people and we need each other. We should love each and every one of our kids and we should show that love.”

CBC Chair Rebukes Baltimore Police Union Prez for Statements to Prosecutors By Zenitha Prince

May 10, 2015

CBC Chair Rebukes Baltimore Police Union Prez for Statements to Prosecutors

By Zenitha Prince

U. S. Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), Chair, Congressional Black Caucus

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus lambasted the president of the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge 3 for statements addressed to Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby just before charges were brought against the officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray.

In a letter dated May 1, FOP President Gene Ryan asked Mosby to recuse herself from the case and to appoint a special independent prosecutor, citing alleged “conflicts of interest,” including Mosby’s marriage to Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby.

“These conflicts include your personal and professional relationship with Gray family attorney, William Murphy and the lead prosecutor’s connections with members of the local media,” Ryan alleges in the letter. He added, “Most importantly, it is clear that your husband’s political future will be directly impacted, for better or worse, by the outcome of your investigation.”

Ryan also asserted the innocence of the six officers charged in the death of the 25-year-old West Baltimore man who died of a severe spine injury while in police custody last month.

“Not one of the officers involved in this tragic situation left home in the morning with the anticipation that someone with whom they interacted would not go home that night,” the letter states. “As tragic as this situation is, none of the officers involved are responsible for the death of Mr. Gray.”

But CBC Chairman G.K. Butterfield chided Ryan for his statements. The North Carolina Democrat claimed the authority of his 30-year legal career—including stints as a Superior Court judge and State Supreme Court justice—to deem Ryan’s demand for a special prosecutor as “illogical and unfounded in the law.” He also said that Ryan’s blanket assumption of the officers’ innocence was “reckless and irresponsible.”

“You do not have the ability to make those determinations,” Butterfield said in a letter dated May 5. “It will be a jury verdict of Baltimoreans that will decide these cases after the parties present substantial evidence of guilt or innocence, not the Fraternal Order of Police.”

The congressman also called Ryan to the mat for questioning State’s Attorney Mosby’s ability to be impartial.

“These frivolous and inflammatory statements are repugnant to any citizen with knowledge of our criminal justice system,” Butterfield continues. “…You have damaged the good reputation of your organization in writing the letter, releasing it to the media, and making accusations that amount to nothing more than propaganda intended to interfere with the proper administration of justice.”

High Unemployment and Low Wages in the Black Community Affects Everything By Frederick H. Lowe

May 11, 2015

High Unemployment and Low Wages in the Black Community Affects Everything

By Frederick H. Lowe

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Fifty years after Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act overturned laws that overtly restricted blacks to a limited number of low-wage occupations, African Americans still suffer from the affects of high unemployment, low wages and limited access to higher-paying jobs that encourage marriage, better health care, neighborhood safety and discourage crime, according to a report, titled #BlackWorkersMatter, issued this month.

Before Title VII, blacks were mostly limited to working as domestics — maids, butlers — and in agriculture as laborers.

Although blacks today can be found in a wide-variety of occupations, their numbers are small and most African-Americans are consigned to low-wage jobs, making it difficult for them to marry and support a family.

The report takes its title from the popular #BlackLivesMatter, which was established after an unarmed Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, who was later acquitted of Martin’s murder by an all-women’s jury.

Algernon Austin, a Ph.D. sociologist with the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, which is based in Oakland, California, said the lack of jobs and low-wage jobs contribute to crime, low rates of marriage and health disparities in the African-American community. Austin areas of expertise are workforce development and access to jobs.

“The relative number of jobs available to blacks remains inadequate, even now, more than half a century after the Civil Rights Act,” Austin wrote in a chapter of #BlackWorkersMatter, titled “The Importance of Good Jobs to the Social and Economic Health of Black Communities.” “Since the 1960s, the black unemployment rates — the share of blacks looking for but unable to find it — has ranged from 2 to 2.5 times the rate for whites.”

Austin’s comments were confirmed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ April jobs report released Friday.

The unemployment rate for African Americans on a seasonally adjusted basis was 9.6%, compared to 4.4% for Asians, 6.9% for Hispanics, and 4.7% for whites.

The jobless rate for black men 20 years old and older was 9.2 percent in April, BLS reported. The unemployment rate for African-American women 20 years old was 8.8 percent. The jobless rate for black men and black women 20 years older is higher than that of any other racial or ethnic group.

The unemployment rate for white women was 4.2 percent and for white men the jobless rate was 4.4 percent.

During the recession, the unemployment rate topped out at around 8 % in 2010, but even during the best economic times, black unemployment exceeds 8 percent, Austin wrote. Even with anti-discrimination laws on the books, employers still prefer to hire white workers, he said.

Low wages is one of the major issues crippling the black community.

“African-American workers’ wages are on average lower than white workers’ wages and the gap is widening,” Austin wrote. “In 1989, the average white man with only a high school education earned $3.76 an hour more than the average black male high school graduate. By 2011, this difference had grown to $4.19 per hour. Black workers are overrepresented among workers earning the minimum wage or less and more than a third of black workers do not earn enough to lift a family of four out of poverty.”

Austin also noted that black workers have also seen significant declines in wages, an important measure of job quality and the black and white wage gap has been growing.

“Nearly all of the problems facing African-American communities are directly or indirectly the result of the lack of jobs and low wages among African Americans,” Austin wrote.

#Blackworkerslivesmatter contains four other articles: “Working While Black: The State of the Black Worker Organizing in the U.S.,” “Gender and the Black Jobs Crisis,” “Low-Wage Work in the Black Community in the Age of Inequality” and “Partnership between the Labor Movement and Black Voters: The Opportunities, Challenges and Next Steps.”

Baltimore, America Now Awaiting Justice By Hazel Trice Edney

May 5, 2015

Baltimore, America Now Awaiting Justice
By Hazel Trice Edney

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Now that six police officers have been arrested in the death of Freddie Gray. The community must wait for the course of justice to see whether they will be convicted and punished. PHOTO: Roxanne Fulton/Trice Edney News Wire

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As the smoke clears in the city of Baltimore leaving more than 200 burned out or destroyed businesses, a mourning family, and a still skeptical community struggling to maintain new hope for justice, President Barack Obama has weighed in vowing, “We can't leave entire sectors of our economy or entire communities behind.”

Speaking to a private Democratic National Committee gathering in New York City, President Obama indicated that – though he hasn’t visited Baltimore since the destructive uprising in response to the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police - the city and cities like it are on his mind.

“What’s been brought to, once again, America’s attention over the last several months is that there are still folks left behind from recovery. There are communities that are still locked out of opportunity,” Obama said. “And part of our task over the next two years, next five years, 10, 20 years is making sure that the basic ideal upon which this country was founded is realized; that there’s not a child in America who, if they’re willing to work hard, can't make it.”

He concluded, “And whether we see the news in Ferguson, or New York, or Baltimore, what we know is that's still not the case.”

The story of Freddie Gray, yet another Black male dead at the hands of police, is now known around the country. Millions await to see whether justice will prevail as six police officers have now been charged in his death due to injuries sustained while in police custody.

State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, at 35, now has the eyes of the nation. She has charged the six officers with events leading to Gray’s death. All six police officers have been arrested and now await justice. Mosby contends:

The officers had no probable cause to arrest Gray in the first place.
The endangered him by placing him in the police wagon unsecured; yet shackled by his hands and feet face down.
They denied him medical assistance although he was obviously in pain and requesting help.

Upon the May 1 announcement of the charges, the streets, which only a few days earlier were crowded with angry looters and protesters turned into streets packed with celebrants marching by the thousands with hope to see justice prevail. It’s been a long haul. The U. S. Department of Justice, led by new Attorney General Loretta Lynch, is also considering whether to file civil rights charges against the police department. She was scheduled to visit Baltimore on Tuesday to continue that discovery process.

“We’ve got to reevaluate how there’s been a shield around police officers, but no protection for citizens,” Baltimore Pastor Jamal Bryant said in an interview. By this time next year, Bryant says, “It is my hope that there will not be one presidential candidate where we don’t talk about the Black prison pipeline, a year from now we will have raised a new generation of young politicians who are not just protestors but shaping the policies.”

President Obama, in New York, went on to announce enhancements for “My Brothers Keeper”, his signature program to address socio-economic issues pertaining to Black and Latino males.

“The private sector and corporate community came together, initially have raised $80 million, and are going to keep on going, for us to provide mentorship programs and apprenticeship programs, and to work with cities and communities all across the country that are focused on this issue,” Obama said. “I intend to get as much done in the next 22 months as possible.”