Parity still elusive

Opinion: March 15, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Lewis Diuguid

McClatchy Newspapers

The nearly 400-year history of black people in America has always been a race to catch up. Recent data shows that history has not changed.

United for a Fair Economy last month released its “State of the Dream Report” showing that African-Americans have only 10 cents in net wealth compared with 12 cents for Latinos and a dollar for whites. Among retirement-age adults, 60 percent of African-Americans and 65 percent of Latinos depend on Social Security for more than 80 percent of their income compared with 46 percent of whites.

Major problem

Joblessness is a major problem, too, among people of color. Unemployment among African-Americans is 16 percent, 13 percent for Latinos and 9 percent among whites.

This is a “who you know” job market, which embraces white privilege. That excludes a lot of people of color. The National Urban League’s “Jobs, State of Black America 2010: Responding to the Crisis” report said that in 2009 the unemployment rate for black youths ages 16 to 24 was 31 percent.

The State of the Dream Report also found that with the tax cuts for the rich that Congress passed last year, whites are three times as likely as blacks and 4.6 times as likely as Latinos to benefit from the tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000.

Widening gap

That and the weakening of the estate tax will continue to widen the wealth gap.

In his speech at the Interfaith Service during the holiday program last month honoring the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr. said African-Americans and others in the long civil rights struggle need “a second wind.” Forbes, senior minister emeritus of Riverside Church in New York, said it was how blacks could catch up to living as equals in America.

He said the struggles were for safe housing, good schools, justice, jobs, civil rights, a fair foreign policy, equality, and an end to violence and wars.

My hope is that the downturn in the economy has awakened people and that the 21st century civil rights struggle for jobs, equality, justice, peace and opportunity will get a much needed second wind.

Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of The Kansas City Star’s Editorial Board. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.