Child Poverty in New Orleans Surpasses National Rate By Kari Dequine Harden

March 15, 2015

Child Poverty in New Orleans Surpasses National Rate
By Kari Dequine Harden

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - While the state of the economy in New Orleans following Hurricane has been described as a renaissance – life is not getting much better for a large percentage of the city’s children.

According to a recent report by the Data Center, 39 percent of children in the city are living in poverty. The rates are much higher than Louisiana (28 percent) and the nation (22 percent). Child poverty is measured in terms of family income.

Poverty rates are now very close to what they were in 1999 (41 percent).

Mayor Mitch Landrieu released the following statement after the publication of the Data Center’s report.

“This report is a startling reminder that too many of our children are trapped in a cycle of poverty that robs them of the opportunities, support and resources they need to achieve their dreams. As we continue to rebuild New Orleans, I want every child to have the opportunity to succeed and to live a long, healthy and happy life. “

Poverty for children has much greater consequences than not having enough food to eat or meeting other basic needs – research shows it can have a detrimental effect on brain development.

According to the Data Center: “High poverty levels among New Orleans children are concerning for the long-term economic prospects of the city because of poverty’s effect on child brain development. Scientific research shows that child poverty can lead to chronic, toxic stress that disrupts the architecture of the developing brain. Children in poverty are much more likely to experience exposure to violence, chronic neglect, and the accumulated burdens of economic hardship. This kind of chronic stress causes prolonged activation of the stress response system, which in turn can disrupt the development of brain architecture, leading to lifelong difficulties in learning, memory, and self-regulation. In short, scholars argue that poverty may be the single greatest threat to children’s healthy brain development.”

The report counted 78,000 children (under 18) living in New Orleans as of 2013, down from 129,000 in 2000.

Landrieu continued: “We know that early childhood interventions have strong returns on investment, both for the child and for the community by reducing crime, poverty, homelessness and hunger. My Administration will continue to prioritize initiatives like NOLA FOR LIFE, Economic Opportunity and Racial Reconciliation to aggressively tackle these issues head on and to acknowledge the work yet to be done in New Orleans. The Health Department has also begun work on the social determinants of health, which are based on issues around poverty, economic development and education.”

According to the Data Center report, 48 percent of children in New Orleans live in a single-mother household, compared to 24 percent nationwide. Fifty-eight percent of single-mother households in New Orleans are living in poverty, compared to 41 percent nationwide. Sixty-seven percent of single mothers in New Orleans are working.

Of all families in New Orleans, 82 percent have at least one working parent. Given that relatively high number, the study asks: Why are so many children living in poverty?

“The answer may lie partially in the large number of low-wage jobs offered in the New Orleans area,” the report concludes. “A larger share — 12 percent — of full-time, year-round workers in the New Orleans metro earn less than $17,500 per year, as compared to only 8 percent nationally. And female workers who live in the city of New Orleans itself are more likely than male workers to earn low wages. According to 2013 Census data, more than 64,000 working women in New Orleans earned less than $17,500 in the prior 12 months through either full-time or part-time work.”

Nationwide, the rich continue to get richer while the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears. According to the Pew Research Center, never in the 30 years since the Federal Reserve first started collecting wealth data has the divide between the rich and everyone else been so large.

The wealth gap in the U.S. in 2013 was the biggest since at least 1983, according to the Pew study. The median wealth of upper-income families was 6.6 times that of middle-income families in 2013, up from 6.2 in 2010. The report showed that those same upper-income families are now nearly 70 times wealthier than low-income families.

New Orleans is no stranger to dramatic disparities in wealth. Amid the behemoth mansions of Uptown and the penchant for excess in the upper class, there is widespread poverty and an inequitable distribution of public resources.

In past interviews, Gen. Russel Honore has criticized the recovery of the city as benefitting people from other states and countries more than benefitting the people who were here rebuilding their lives and livelihoods following Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the levee system.

Things globally for children and families are not looking much brighter. According to a 2014 article in The Guardian, “child poverty has increased in 23 countries in the developed world since the start of the global recession in 2008, potentially trapping a generation in a life of material deprivation and reduced prospects.”

Mayor Landrieu concluded in his press release: “This report and others remind us of a difficult truth: the work ahead of us is hard and it will take a long time to bend the arc of history. Nevertheless, we are focused and fearless in our efforts to bend that arc. My Administration will use this report to issue a clarion call to our community to reduce child poverty, and we will continue working around the clock until all New Orleans children are guaranteed a strong start and a fair shot at a bright future.”

The Data Center report concludes: “If we want to further our progress in building a healthy, prosperous, and resilient post-Katrina New Orleans, leaders will need to focus not only on job creation, but on quality job creation. Jobs must offer reasonable wages, some level of job security, and the prospect of work progression. In addition, the poor need to be connected to those quality jobs.”

Black media, Business and Civil Rights Groups Take Issue With Lawsuit Attacking Sharpton

Black media, Business and Civil Rights Groups Take Issue With Lawsuit Attacking Sharpton

Jim Winston, president/CEO, National Association of Black-owned Broadcasters

Michael Grant, president/CEO, National Bankers Association

Ron Busby, President/CEO, U.S. Black Chambers, Inc.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Target Market News

(TriceEdneyWire.com) Three national African-American organizations have issued a joint statement in response to the $20 billion lawsuit filed by television producer Byron Allen charging Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable, the NAACP, the National Urban League, Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, and former FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker with racial discrimination.

In the lawsuit Allen alleges that his production company, Entertainment Studios, is "being denied the same opportunity to contract with Comcast as White-owned channels. Comcast is intentionally treating 100% African American-owned media differently on account of race."

The lawsuit further claims "Comcast has paid Reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network over $3.8 million in 'donations' and as salary for the on-screen television hosting position on MSNBC that Comcast awarded Sharpton in exchange for his signature" on a Memorandum of Understanding saying that Sharpton would not challenge Comcast's proposed merger with NBC Universal in 2010.

In radio and TV interviews, Allen has said Sharpton was "bought off" by Comcast because he was the "least expensive Negro," and that "President Obama was bought and paid for."

The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, National Bankers Association and U.S. Black Chambers today issued a joint statement on Allen's lawsuit, urging the producer to "redirect" his criticism of civil rights leadership and focus on encouraging corporations to increase their business commitments to African-Americans. The three groups had come together in 2010 to raise concerns about the Comcast/NBCU merger.

"We have joined together to issue this statement, because we believe this lawsuit needs to be discussed, but not for the reasons it has drawn so much media attention," said Jim Winston, President of NABOB, which for 40 years has represented African-American radio and TV owners. "The media should be focusing on the underlying issue, the lack of business being done with African American owned businesses by major corporations. In particular, Comcast missed a huge opportunity to advance that goal when it failed to sell any of its cable television systems to companies owned by African-Americans."

"Rev. Sharpton and the organizations attacked by Mr. Allen do important and extensive work on behalf of the African-American community," said Winston. "We hope that the Byron Allen lawsuit will get the discussion ... focused on business and not personal attacks against the leadership of America's foremost civil rights organizations.

"Our organizations have always worked closely with these civil rights organizations in the past, and we look forward to doing so in the future," said Michael Grant, president of the National Bankers Association. "We hope that Mr. Allen will redirect his attention to the corporate practices he highlighted and not to the civil rights organizations."

Al Sharpton and the National Action Network responded to the lawsuit with the following statement:

"National Action Network has not been served with any papers and considers this claim frivolous. If in fact we were to be served, we would gladly defend our relationship with any company as well as to state on the record why we found these discriminatory accusations made by said party to be less than credible and beneath the standards that we engage in."

Comcast issued the following statement in response to the lawsuit:

"We do not generally comment on pending litigation, but this complaint represents nothing more than a string of inflammatory, inaccurate, and unsupported allegations. We are proud of our outstanding record supporting and fostering diverse programming, including programming from African American owned and controlled cable channels. We currently carry more than 100 networks geared teeoward diverse audiences, including multiple networks owned or controlled by minorities.

"Diversity organizations from across the country, including numerous diverse programmers, have supported our transaction with Time Warner Cable. That deal will extend our industry-leading commitment to diverse programming to even more homes across America, one of the reasons so many groups in the African American community have supported it.

"Comcast has engaged in good faith negotiations with this programmer for many years. It is disappointing that they have decided to file a frivolous lawsuit. We will defend vigorously against the scurrilous allegations in this complaint and fully expect that the court will dismiss them."

Retracing the Steps: Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' Marchers Recalled the Pains of the Past and of the Present By Vern Smith

March 10, 2015

Retracing the Steps: Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' Marchers Recalled the Pains of the Past and of the Present
By Vern Smith
selmamarch-vern1

PHOTO: Vern Smith/Trice Edney News Wire

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A day after President Barack Obama walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" - the police assault on civil rights demonstrators that lead to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act--thousand of marchers thronged the bridge beginning in early morning and lasting into late afternoon. From 15,000 to 20,000 people participated in the event, according to the Associated Press.

Obama was introduced on Saturday by Georgia Democratic Congressman John Lewis, an Alabama native and one of the March leaders who was injured in the "Bloody Sunday" violence. Obama praised Lewis as one of his longtime heroes.

"What they did here will reverberate through the ages," Obama said. "Not because the change they won was preordained, not because their victory was complete, but because they proved that nonviolent change is possible; that love and hope can conquer hate."

While there has been undeniable progress in the past 50 years, the struggle is far from finished, Obama said, calling the events of Selma, "one leg in our long journey toward freedom."

Obama was joined on stage by Michelle Obama, former President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell.

More people began arriving early Sunday morning at the foot of Broad Street just below the base of the Pettus Bridge.And by noon the crush of thousands had filled the space in preparation for the symbolic crossing.

Among the many speakers at Sunday's program at Brown Chapel AME Church, the original start point for the 1965 March, out-going attorney general Eric Holder vowed to continue his advocacy to strengthen voting rights laws even after he leaves office as the nation's first African-American attorney general.

No matter what he does, Holder said, "I will never leave this work. I will never abandon this mission. Nor can you. If we are to honor those who came before us and those still among us, we must match their sacrifice, their effort." With many families in the crowd, Sunday's gathering had a festive atmosphere. But the recent events involving police and unarmed Black citizens and the scathing federal report outlining institutional racism in the Ferguson, Missouri police department was on the minds of many.

Marchers carried signs protesting an end to the spate of shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers, gun violence and immigration reform.

The multi-racial, intergenerational marchers sang, kneeled, and locked arms as they retraced the first steps of a march intended to reach the State Capital in Montgomery to protest the shooting on Feb. 18, 1965 of Jimmie Lee Jackson. Jackson, a voter registration worker with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was shot by Alabama State Trooper James Fowler as he attempted to protect his mother from a beating by state troopers after a voting rights march in Marion, Alabama. Jackson, who was unarmed, later died from his wounds in a Selma hospital.

President Obama, Selma and the Meaning of America By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, II

March 15, 2015

President Obama, Selma and the Meaning of America
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

NEWS ANALYSIS

Thousands of marchers, including President Barack Obama and the first family,
crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge last weekend in commemoration of "Bloody Sunday" 1965.
Credit: National Parks Service

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “In one afternoon fifty years ago, so much of our turbulent history – the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham, and the dream of a Baptist preacher – met on this bridge. It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the meaning of America.” President Barack Obama – March 7, 2015

On March 7, President Obama stood in Selma, Ala. at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the events of “Bloody Sunday” where over 600 civil rights protesters were attacked by Alabama State Troopers and local police. Some, such as Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) were beaten within inches of their lives.

“Bloody Sunday” was just another historical example of American terrorism perpetrated by Whites or European Americans against African-Americans. Forty-six years earlier African-Americans were targets of terror during the “Bloody” or “Red Summer of 1919”. In 1921 African-Americans in the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Okla. were victims of European American terror as Whites over reacted to a false claim that an African-American young man assaulted a White woman. This is the meaning of America.

As with any historical analysis, context is very important. It’s no coincidence that “Bloody Sunday” took place on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Sheriff Jim Clarke was carrying on the bigoted legacy of his predecessors. Who was Edmund Pettis? Pettis was a staunch racist. He was a lieutenant in the Alabama Volunteers. After the Mexican-American War he moved to California where he participated in paramilitary violence against Yukis and other Native Americans. He later became a General in the Confederate Army (1861-1865) and after the Civil War he became the Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. He also served as U.S. Senator from Alabama (1897-1907).

President Obama was correct in saying, “It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the meaning of America.” It was a clash of wills…between those Americans who subscribed to the racist tenets of the U.S. Constitution such as the three-fifths compromise, the fugitive slave provision and continuation of the importation of slaves into America until 1808 versus those Americans who believed in liberty and justice for all.

Between those Americans who supported a U.S. Supreme Court that sanctioned American racism with decisions such as Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson versus those Americans who only wanted to and continue to fight for equal access and an equal opportunity to purse the American Dream. This historical context forces one to ask, what is the meaning of America? How is it that one group of Americans, those of White or European decent, can continue to subjugate other groups of Americans?

President Obama continued, “And because of men and women like John Lewis…Diane Nash… and so many more, the idea of a just America, a fair America, an inclusive America, a generous America – that idea ultimately triumphed.” How so? Many of the marchers in 1965 were savagely beaten by those who were sworn to “protect and serve”. All they wanted then and continue to fight for today are the rights guaranteed to every American citizen.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act has been gutted. I’m not sure how the idea of a fair and inclusive America triumphed when the first African-American president is disrespected at every turn by members of Congress who have sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution. America was not fair and inclusive then and it is not fair and inclusive now.

President Obama continued, “What happened in Ferguson may not be unique, but it’s no longer endemic, or sanctioned by law and custom; and before the Civil Rights Movement, it most surely was.” – It is endemic, it is regularly found. Today, young African American men like Patrick Dorismond, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, John Crawford III and Victor White III are not in streets being bitten by police dogs; they are in the streets being shot down by the police like dogs.

These extrajudicial actions are sanctioned by law and custom as the judicial system fails to indict the police officers who kill them and Americans have become too accustomed to it. True, it’s not sanctioned by law but that matters not if their killers are not indicted and held accountable for their actions.

Again, President Obama, “We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, or that racial division is inherent to America.” American history proves that it is. We do a greater disservice to the cause of justice by acting as though racial division is not inherent to America. The artificial construct of race was created by whites in America and as referenced earlier in this piece has been ingrained into America’s culture. Racism was written into the American Constitution. It is as American as cherry pie.

Obama went on to state, “If you think nothing’s changed in the past fifty years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or L.A. of the Fifties. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing’s changed. Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was thirty years ago.”

Yes, there has been change, for some but the movement was about improving the circumstance of the collective not the individual. Three things to consider, first, yes, other oppressed groups such as women and the gay community have benefitted from the Civil Rights Movement and that’s a wonderful thing. But Selma was not about women’s rights or gay rights. It was about civil and voting rights for Black people. Period, full stop, end of sentence.

Second, many of the same people who were poor in Selma in 1965 are poor in Selma today and there are more of them. Go to Watts or South Central, L.A. or the Southside of Chicago – those people are still poor and struggling. According to the Washington Post, the Black-White economic gap hasn’t budged in 50 years. "Even as racial barriers have been toppled and the nation has grown wealthier and better educated…the economic disparities separating blacks and whites remain as wide as they were when marchers assembled on the Mall in 1963."

Here’s the third thing. Ask the female CEO about her success or ask individual African-Americans and you will find many stories of achievement? The struggle has always been about, the collective not the individual – the masses are still struggling. For example, per the Washington Post, the Black unemployment rate has consistently been twice as high as the White unemployment rate for 50 years.

The gap in household income between Blacks and Whites hasn't narrowed in the last 50 years. In fact, the wealth disparity between Whites and Blacks grew even wider during the Great Recession. Also, the Black poverty rate is no longer declining. Black children are far more likely than Whites to live in areas of concentrated poverty.

As we celebrate Selma 50 years hence, remember the words of Langston Hughes, “There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.” Touting the achievements of the individual at the expense of the collective is neo-liberal fantasy.

DOJ: Ferguson Police Acted as Collections Agents, Targeting Blacks by Frederick H. Lowe

March 9, 2015

DOJ: Ferguson Police Acted as Collections Agents, Targeting Blacks
Also, Black Drivers Account for 85 percent of traffic stops

By Frederick H. Lowe

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Ferguson, Mo., police department, which sparked weeks of violent unrest following a white cop’s shooting death of an unarmed African-American teenager, used their badges to collect revenue for the St. Louis suburb by targeting black residents for illegal fines that violated their constitutional rights, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division wrote in a 102-page report that Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the city’s focus on revenue rather than public-safety issues.

“The emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community,” said the report titled “Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department.”

The DOJ reported that Ferguson budgets for sizeable increases in municipal fines and fees each year.

“City officials routinely urge Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson to generate more revenue through enforcement. In March 2010, for instance, the City Finance Director wrote Jackson that unless ticket writing ramped up significantly before the end of the year, it will be hard to significantly raise collections next year….Given that we are looking at a substantial sales tax shortfall, it is not an insignificant issue.”

In March of 2013, the finance director wrote to the city manager that court fees are anticipated to rise about 7.5%. ” I did ask the police chief if he thought the police department could deliver a 10% increase. He indicated that he would try.”

The DOJ said the city’s emphasis on revenue generation has a profound effect on the Ferguson Police Department’s approach to law enforcement.

“Patrol assignments and schedules are geared toward aggressive enforcement of Ferguson’s municipal code with insufficient thought given to whether enforcement strategies promote public safety or undermine community trust and cooperation,” the DOJ reported. “Officer evaluations and promotions depend to an inordinate degree on productivity, meaning the number of citations issued. Partly as a consequence of city and police department priorities, many officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Ferguson’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.”

The report gave an example of an unidentified 32 year-old black man who was resting in his car after playing basketball at a public park.

A Ferguson cop pulled behind the man’s car and demanded his Social Security number and his identification. The cop accused the man of being a pedophile, referring to the children in a public park.

The cop then ordered the man out of the car for a public pat down, although the police officer had no reason to believe the man was armed. After patting him down, the cop asked the man if he could search his car. When the driver objected, citing his constitutional rights, the police officer arrested him at gunpoint and charged the man with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code.

One of the charges included making a false declaration. On a short form, the man signed his name as Mike, not Michael. Michael was also charged with not wearing a seat belt, although he was sitting in a parked car. In addition, he was charged with having an expired operator’s license and with having no operator’s license. All of the charges resulted in substantial fines and jail time.

The report noted that cops expect and demand compliance even when they lack legal authority.

“They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free speech as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence,” DOJ reported. “The result is a pattern of stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment; infringement of free expression, as well as retaliation for violation of the First Amendment; and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

According to the 2010 census, Ferguson’s African-American population was 67 percent. The Ferguson Police Department has 54 sworn officers and only four are African American, according to the DOJ. Ferguson’s population was 21,111 in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Also, in Ferguson, Black Drivers Account for 85 percent of traffic stops.Between October 2012 and October 2014, the Ferguson, Mo., police department reported making 11, 610 vehicle stops, according to a U.S. Justice Department report released Wednesday.

Of those traffic stops, African Americans accounted for 85 percent, or 9,875 , of those stops despite making up only 67% of Ferguson’s population. On the other hand, white individuals made up 15 percent, or 1,735, of the stops during the same one-year period despite representing 29% of the population, according to the DOJ’s report titled “Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department.”

“These differences indicate that the Ferguson Police Department traffic stop practices may disparately impact black drivers,” the Justice Department reported.

The 102-page report noted that when a Ferguson cop stop African-American drivers, they are more likely to receive citations and to be subjected to searches of their vehicles.
“Black people are significantly more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than whites people. From October 2012 to October 2014, 11 percent of stopped black drivers are searched, whereas only 5 percent of stopped white driver were searched,” DOJ reported.

Although African Americans were searched at higher rates, they are 26 percent less likely to have contraband found on them than whites: 24 percent of searches of African Americans resulted in contraband finding, whereas 30 percent of searches of whites resulted in contraband findings.

The DOJ reported that 91 percent, or 8,987, of stopped black drivers received traffic citations compared to 87 percent, or 1,501, of all stopped white drivers.
The study noted that 891 of stopped black drivers—10 percent of all African-American drivers—were arrested as a result of the stop, whereas only 63 stopped white drivers—4 percent of all white drivers—were arrested.

“This disparity is explainable in large part by the high number of black individuals arrested for outstanding municipal warrants issued for missed court payments and appearances,” DOJ reported. Blacks are more likely to have warrants issued against them than whites and are more likely to be arrested for an outstanding warrant than white motorists.
In 14 cases, Ferguson cops arrested black drivers following traffic stops for “resisting arrest.” No white person was arrested during the time period for resisting arrest, the DOJ said.