Social Security Denied to Many Ethnic Elders
By Paul Kleyman

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from New America Media

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Even in this period of intense national debate over the National Debt, Americans fiercely want to protect Social Security from benefit cuts. But while 40 million seniors received retirement support from the program in 2012, about one in 10 seniors in the United States don’t qualify for Social Security, leaving many without a safety net.

Of the approximately four million U.S. seniors not receiving Social Security old age support, a disproportionate one-third are ethnic elders. In fact, according to the U.S. Census, one-in-six African-American, one fifth of Latino—and nearly one-in-three (29 percent) Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) seniors cannot draw on the national retirement pension program to make financial ends meet.

African-Americans ‘Under the Radar’

Many older African-Americans who don’t qualify for Social Security “have lived under the radar because they have worked in domestic roles and been paid cash for their labors” with no contributions going to the program, said Karyne Jones, president and CEO of the National Caucus and Center on Black Aging (NCBA) based in Washington, D.C.

Jones continued, “With most women, it’s the child rearing and caregiving years that don’t rake up any credit towards Social Security.” She added, “Let us not forget chronic unemployment.”

Also affecting access to Social Security support, she and other experts said, may be the high incarceration level among Black men. As they get released at older ages, many will end up with little or no Social Security benefits. This would leave their spouses with inadequate incomes later in life.

Because the Social Security Administration calculates retirement benefits based on credits people receive for at least 40 quarters of covered work—10 years’ worth during one’s working life, she said, many African Americans paid cash or under the table don’t realize they benefit from the program “until it’s too late.”

Ineligibility for Social Security is particularly high for immigrants. Many who arrive at age 50 or older end up with very low coverage or none at all. About half of Hispanic seniors in the U.S. and 80 percent of older Asian Americans who receive no Social Security support are either naturalized citizens or immigrants.

While undocumented immigrants are flatly ineligible for U.S. benefits, many legally present immigrants do not have enough documented years of work to quality for eligibility.

Financial security for the growing number of black and other ethnic elders is a looming issue. A poll released in September by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found, “Nearly half of black Americans (46 percent) — and about a third of white Americans (36 percent) — say they would ‘like to save for retirement, but don’t seem to have enough money to do so.’”

Wilhelmina Leigh, who coauthored the survey report, stated in an earlier study, “Modifying the Social Security system must include voices of African Americans and other racial/ethnic subpopulations whose dependence on the system is great, but whose patterns of usage may differ from the norm.”

Barriers Facing Immigrants

Making ends meet is especially difficult for Asian retirees. Those who do get Social Security checks average $2,000 a year ($13,066) less than the total for all U.S. retirees, says a 2011 report from the Insight Center. Pacific Islanders receive even smaller benefits—if any at all—says the study. For instance, Native Hawaiian seniors, because so many had low-wage jobs, average Social Security benefits of less than half that of other Hawaiian elders, including other Asians.

The Insight Center report’s author Meizhu Lui noted cultural and other barriers to assistance for Asian and other immigrants. “Language barriers lead to a lack of knowledge about the Social Security program,” she wrote.

Among other barriers to Social Security that Asian elders encounter, says Lui, are “cultural aversions to large bureaucracies, pride in being independent and a fear of government based on home-country experiences can make eligible foreign-born Asian seniors hesitant to apply.”

A University of Southern California analysis of Latino retirement cites another reason for many low-income immigrants. It calls agricultural labor “a telling example of sub-minimum wage employment where salaries and Social Security contributions for workers often go unreported.”

Ironically, the Social Security Administration has estimated that unauthorized immigrants contributed more than $12 billion alone to the program’s trust fund in 2010 more than the $1 billion the agency says it paid out in fraudulent benefits to undocumented residents. Many undocumented immigrants pay into the system through jobs they got using fake Social Security cards. But they can never collect benefits when they need them.

Nov. 18, 2013

Remembering November 22,1963
By A. Peter Bailey

SPECIAL COMMENTARY

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - On November 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, I was a 23-year old editorial reference clerk working in Time Inc.’s biography files. The job, among other things, required my responding to calls from Time, Life and Sports Illustrated reporters for files on individuals about whom they were writing.

As can be ascertained, the afternoon of the assassination created an absolute deluge of ASAP requests from frantic reporters for the huge number of bio files on President Kennedy, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, Jackie Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and dozens of other political and public figures even remotely connected to the Kennedy administration. As I remember we worked throughout the night under hectic but not chaotic conditions.

My initial reaction to the assassination was wonderment at how a U.S. president could be so boldly shot down in broad daylight. I must admit that I was not then and am not now among those who were dazzled by or impressed with the Kennedy administration. One of my most lasting memories from that time was the day I loudly booed President Kennedy as he was driven away after a speech at the United Nations. I had positioned myself at a turn where I knew his limousine had to slow down.

As it passed by, while most of the crowd applauded enthusiastically, I booed as loudly as I could. This resulted in hard stares from members of the Secret Service and numerous threats from onlookers, including Black ones. I quickly exited my spot, feeling satisfied about taking advantage of an opportunity to show my anger at the failure of the Kennedy administration to do more to protect the lives of Black folks who were being repeatedly brutalized by predatory white supremacist terrorists who opposed the demand for equal rights, equal justice and equal opportunity in this country.

Ten of 40 names on the civil rights memorial in Montgomery, Ala. are those of people killed by terrorists during the Kennedy administration. It was several decades before any of them were arrested for those heinous crimes. The 10 included Medgar Evers and four young girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing.

I didn’t believe 50 years ago and still don’t believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only person involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. Once, as a young man, I complained to my grandmother about something that was bothering me. When I asked her advice on what to about it, her response was “Boy, use your common sense.”

My common sense won’t allow me to believe the official position on the Kennedy assassination. And the possibility of anyone ever persuading me to change my mind was shattered forever when Oswald was fatally shot by Jack Ruby while in the custody of the Dallas police.

The assassination, in my opinion, was not the action of a zealot passionately promoting or defending a cause or of someone striving for the limelight since Oswald denied his involvement to the bitter end. I believe it was plotted and executed by cold-blooded professional killers with no desire for the limelight.

Whether Oswald’s cohorts were members of the FBI or CIA, pro-Castro Cubans or anti-Castro Cubans, members of the Mafia or rightwing white Americans, I don’t claim to know. I just believe he was working with someone else and those forces, as far as it is generally known 50 years later, have gotten away with successfully assassinating a president of the U.S.

Nov. 18, 2013

A Dearborn Heights, Mich., man has been
charged in the murder of Renisha McBride.
She was seeking help following an automobile
accident.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Wayne County, Mich., prosecutor Kym Worthy today charged Theodore Paul Wafer with second-degree murder in the death of Renisha McBride, a 19 year-old Detroit woman, who sought help following an automobile accident in Dearborn Heights, Mich.

Worthy also charged the 54 year-old Wafer with manslaughter and with felony firearm. The second-degree murder charge carries a penalty of up to life in prison, and the manslaughter charge carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison. The felony firearm charge carries a penalty of two years in prison.

McBride, who appeared to be disoriented, knocked on Wafer's door on Nov. 2, 2013, following a traffic accident. The white Ford sedan she was driving crashed into a parked car in the 7200 block of Bramell at approximately 12:57am. McBride was seeking help following the accident.

McBride knocked on Wafer's door in the 16800 block of West Outer Drive in the Dearborn Heights. At 4:42 am, police responded to a 911 call, and they found McBride's lifeless body lying on the porch. She had a large gunshot wound to her head.

"It is alleged that McBride was unarmed when she was shot in the face by Wafer as she knocked on the front screen door of the house. There were no signs of forced entry at the location," Worthy said in a statement.

Wafer said through his attorney he believed someone was breaking into his house. He said he fired in self defense.

"We have issued these charges because we believe the evidence will show that self defense was not warranted," Worthy said. "Under Michigan law, there is no duty to retreat in your own home, however, someone who claims self defense must honestly and reasonably believe that he is in imminent danger of either losing his life or suffering great bodily harm and that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent that harm. This 'reasonable belief ' is not measured subjectively by the standards of the individual in question, but objectively, by the standards of a reasonable person."

McBride is the second Black motorist shot to death since September while seeking help following an automobile accident.  Jonathan Ferrell, who also was unarmed, was shot to death by Randall Kerrick, a cop with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (N.C.) Police Department, after Ferrell sought help following a traffic accident. 

Nov. 18, 2013

Rights Leaders Fight for Obama Justice Nominee
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Civil rights leaders, still shell-shocked over the GOP’s U. S. Senate rejection of Rep. Mel Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, are now expressing vehement support for former NAACP Legal Defense lawyer Debo P. Adegbile, nominated by President Obama as the next assistant attorney general for civil rights.

“Debo Adegbile is one of the preeminent civil rights litigators of his generation and a bipartisan consensus builder. His experience as the two-time defender of the Voting Rights Act in the Supreme Court puts him in a class of his own when it comes to understanding the application and enforcement of complex civil rights issues,” says Wade Henderson, president/CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a statement. “Add that to his stellar career over ten years at the nation’s leading civil rights law firm – the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund – as well as his work in the Senate and in the private sector, and it becomes clear that Adegbile’s skill set, talents, and experience make him the perfect choice to head the Civil Rights Division.”

Henderson was among several civil rights leaders on a press call last week to push their support for Adegbile, who is currently senior counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position he has held since July 2013. His nomination follows a major disappointment Oct. 31 when the Obama nomination of 30-year Democrat Congressman Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to head the FHFA was rejected by the Republican members of the Senate who refused to support advancing the nomination to a vote. The Senate's vote of  56-42 to proceed was four votes short of the 60 needed to filibuster-proof threshold needed to advance the nomination to a final vote. 

Watt, a Yale Law School graduate, specializes in corporate and real estate law and is a member of the House Committees on Financial Services and the Judiciary. The GOP senators’ refusal to give enough votes to even forward his nomination to a final vote hints at the possible battle ahead for other qualified Obama nominees.

“I am very disappointed that today the Senate failed to move forward with the vote of confirmation for Rep. Mel Watt,” said CBC Chair Marsha Fudge. “At a time where American families are still recovering from the effect of the mortgage crisis, Rep. Watt’s leadership of this agency would be critical to restoring the integrity of the housing finance system and return homeownership in this country as a key to building wealth.”

The White House and the Congressional Black Caucus have both called on the Senate to reconsider Watt’s nomination. Meanwhile, the political rejection of Watts has placed rights leaders on notice as they go to bat for the 46-year-old Adegbile.

“As we navigate the new Civil Rights-era, Debo offers precisely the type of leadership necessary,” says Fudge in a statement. “From reforming America’s criminal justice system to expanding equality for all Americans, Debo has the civil rights experience and expertise needed to head the Division. Debo’s integrity, professionalism and respectable reputation as a legal practitioner and litigator are evidence that he is the right person for this incredibly important role…Members of the Congressional Black Caucus strongly support President Obama’s nomination of Debo Adegbile and encourage our colleagues in the Senate to confirm him for this position without delay.”

During his 10-year career at the LDF, Adegbile served as acting president and director-counsel, director of litigation, and special counsel. Having twice defended the Voting Rights Act before the U. S. Supreme Court, civil rights leaders are counting on his legal acumen to continually deal with the voting rights issue after the important Pre-clearance Clause was gutted early this year. Other hot civil rights issues are stand your ground, police profiling, and economic justice.

The White House has forwarded Adegbile's nomination to the Senate. He would succeed Thomas E. Perez, who resigned.

“Debo has worked tirelessly to ensure that our nation lives up to its promise of equality for all Americans,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, NAACP-LDEF president and director-counsel. “He is highly respected as one of the Nation’s leading civil rights attorneys.”