Part 3 – Who signs off on 0% goals and 0% goals achieved at MnDOT? “A message to Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Director Bernie Arseneau, Commissioner Thomas Sorel and MnDOT’s (Acting) Civil Rights Director Mary Prescott
By Donald W.R. Allen, II Editor in Chief-IBNN and USA Radical Black
“Black contractors were award less than 1% of $600 Million on highway heavy projects. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has awarded less than $1 Million in contracts to African-American Contractors of the $600 Million in Federal Transportation Stimulus Contracts.”
Dear Tom, Bernie and Mary:
Do you see the heinous results from the actions by the Minnesota Department of Transportation in regards to the above statement? Read more
Congressman Ellison – “Where are you?” National Urban League Writes National Leaders on Behalf of 27 Million Underemployed Americans!
Today at 11:35 a.m. on Facebook, the National Urban League delivered the following message:
The below letter outlining National Urban League’s plan for putting Americans back to work was sent to the following National Leaders:
Mr. Lawrence Summers, Director, National Economic Council
Honorable Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, U.S. Senate
Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
Honorable Barbara Lee, Chair, Congressional Black Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives
November 24, 2009
Dear National Leaders,
I am writing to you on behalf of the over 27 million underemployed Americans in desperate need of full-time employment. This includes not only the 
unemployed, but also the marginally attached and those working part-time for economic reasons, all of whom are struggling to make ends meet during these difficult economic times. As you are well aware, the news that in October, the national unemployment rate exceeded ten percent for the first time since the early 1980s was a sobering wake-up for the leadership of this country even to the point of soliciting a call for a Jobs Summit to be held after the Thanksgiving holiday. While I applaud the Administration for publicly acknowledging the gravity of our nation’s employment situation, I would add that double-digit unemployment has been a reality for communities of color since last summer –for African Americans since August, 2008 and for Latinos since February, 2009.
As President and CEO of the National Urban League, the nation’s oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream, I have firsthand knowledge of the tremendous obstacles these families have been facing, not just since national unemployment reached 10.2% in October, but for over a year now. In fact, demand for workforce development, business development and housing counseling services through the Urban League’s more than 100 affiliates located in 35 cities and the District of Columbia increased by 74 percent between 2006 and 2008. Our local affiliates are on the front lines of this jobs crisis and witness the devastating impact it is having on the individuals and families that walk through their doors. In response, the National Urban League went on record last fall drawing attention to the deepening unemployment crisis in urban America and calling for a second stimulus plan that would invest directly in job creation and training for the very communities we interact with and serve every day.
It is now a year later, and I am again calling on our nation’s leaders to invest in a long overdue plan for putting urban America back to work that is targeted, temporary and timely. The National Urban League’s Plan for Putting Americans Back to Work meets these criteria. Targeted because it provides solutions for communities with the highest rates of unemployment and the long-term unemployed who often face the greatest barriers to getting a job the longer they are without one. Temporary in that the recommended investments require less than a three year commitment. Timely because the bulk of the plan involves direct job creation as a means of bringing recovery to those most in need more quickly.
Most economists agree that the pace of recovery will be slow. Yet, the individuals to which this plan is targeted are often the last to experience the effects of even a more rapid economic recovery. Therefore, the National Urban League’s Plan for Putting Americans Back to Work is a comprehensive six-point plan to make a direct investment of $168 billion over 2 years to address the most urgent needs of American families in economic crisis by investing in direct job creation, job training for the chronically unemployed, greater access to credit for small businesses and additional counseling relief for those caught in the backlog of the foreclosure process. The plan also proposes tax incentives for clean energy equipment manufacturers who employ individuals in the targeted communities. The plan proposes to do these things in the following ways:
1. Fund Direct Job Creation by offering financial support to cities, counties, states, universities, community colleges and non-profit community based organizations to hire the personnel necessary to provide critical services in communities across the nation. Eligibility for support will be based on local unemployment rates with a focus on the long-term unemployed. At least twice in American history, the government has responded to high rates of unemployment with investments in direct job creation – the 1935 Works Progress Administration, when nearly one-fourth of the labor force was out of work, and the Emergency Jobs and Unemployment Assistance Act of 1974, which established Title VI of CETA as a temporary countercyclical employment program at a time when unemployment was quickly approaching 9 percent. We propose an investment of $150 billion to create 3 million jobs, a number that represents only half of the current unemployed with a high school diploma or less.
2. Expand and Expedite the Small Business Administration’s Community Express Loan Program through a reduction of the interest rate to 1 percent targeted for those businesses located in areas where the local unemployment rate exceeds the state average. A ten-fold expansion of the program (from $1 billion to $10 billion) should make credit available to an additional 50,000 small businesses nationwide.
3. Create Green Empowerment Zones in areas where at least 50 percent of the population has an unemployment rate that is higher than the state average. Manufacturers of solar panels and wind turbines that open plants in high unemployment areas will, for a period of three years, be eligible for a zero federal income tax rate and a zero capital gains tax under the condition that they hire and retain, for a minimum of three years, at least half of their workforce from the local area.
4. Expand the Hiring of Housing Counselors Nationwide by investing $500 million to fund housing counseling agencies nationwide to help delinquent borrowers work with their loan servicers to secure more affordable mortgages. Over the past 18 months more than $400 million in federal funds have been invested by the Administration to help mitigate the mortgage crisis through housing counseling and, according to a recent report by the Urban Institute, borrowers facing foreclosure are 60% more likely to hold onto their homes if they receive counseling and receive loan modifications with average monthly payments $454 lower than those who did not see counselors.
5. Expand the Youth Summer Jobs Program for 2010 by investing $5-7 billion to employ 5 million teens. While the unemployment rate for African-American youth is over 40 percent, the employment population ratio makes clearer the desperate situation faced by many urban youth. Since the late 1990s, this number has declined from a high of 33 percent down to 15 percent, and labor force participation for this group is now at a record low of 26 percent. A critical factor in eliminating racial and socio-economic disparities in unemployment is providing a solid foundation upon which African American youth can build positive future labor market expectations and experiences.
6. Create 100 Urban Jobs Academies to Implement an Expansion of the Urban Youth Empowerment Program (UYEP) to employ and train the chronically unemployed. UYEP, a four year demonstration project created in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor in 2004, is a youth career preparation initiative designed for at-risk, out-of-school, and adjudicated youth and young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. With 27 Urban League affiliate sites and a total of $29.3 million, the program served 3,900 youth, 65 percent of whom either had job placements (paying an average wage of $9.32/hour) or completed their high school diploma or GED. Two hundred participants were placed in postsecondary schools or college upon completion of their secondary education. Scaling this program up to 100 sites would more than triple the program at a cost of $108.5 million.
At a time of the year when we traditionally give thanks and prepare to share generously with those around us, the American people are both frustrated and disappointed. When the financial industry was hemorrhaging, there was great urgency in devising the TARP plan for its rescue. Despite the ambivalence of most Americans with regards to spending billions of dollars to bail out the very businesses they felt had previously taken advantage of them, they understood the need to take swift and deliberate action to avoid a major national, or even global, financial crisis. We ask that the same urgency be given to the people experiencing a personal financial crisis in cities throughout this country. Recognizing the tremendous amount of work that is required to implement a plan of this magnitude in the most efficient and beneficial manner, I make myself available to meet with you to discuss the ideas proposed herein.
Sincerely,
Marc H. Morial
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Urban League
A message to the Sharptons, Jacksons, and Farrakhans of the World: The struggle is not over; the gauntlet will be passed back to you very soon
By Donald W.R. Allen,II – Editor in Chief of IBNN – 2009 ©
“This generation will have to learn from damn near scratch what a real social movement looks like.”
Reports of racism have increased. Black unemployment is sky-high. The foreclosure crisis has devastated black neighborhoods across the country. Yet no official stance on race relations in the United States has been taken by our Black President, Barack Obama.
“Is racism only prevalent if you’re a professor at an Ivy League school who is arrested in your upscale neighborhood?”
White America allegedly demonstrated their goodness and racial tolerance in 2008 by voting for a Black man to be president of the United States. We have learned that a large and decisive number of whites can be persuaded to vote for a certain kind of Black man: one who never speaks about racism, and in no way, resembles Al Shartpon, Jesse Jackson, or Louis Farrakhan.
Without question, the nation has experienced an election of historical significance, for reasons that go beyond the obvious “first Black” aspect of race. The 2009 presidential race was the most-hyped presidential campaign in U.S.history, if for no other reason than the simple fact that every presidential campaign is more hyped than the last, since hype is what corporate media sells.
But what happened to the champions of the Civil Rights movement– and their ideals? What was wrong with the words and actions of Huey Newton; Malcolm X; Dr. King – whose children are very upset by the government’s abandonment of a commitment to racial justice?
These men fought and died so that all of Black America could have the kinds of lives enjoyed today solely by the (African-American) “talented tenth.” The struggle is far from over!
What about the national Civil Rights Leaders in the United States?
In 2008, while preparing for an interview with Fox News, the Rev. Jesse Jackson apparently did not know that his microphone was on when he made the whispered comments to another guest as he prepared to do an interview. “See, Barack [has] been talking down to black people . . . I wanna cut his nuts out,” Jackson said.
But we have to look at this comment in context.
Jackson, who was shocked and maybe a little jealous at Barack Obama’s mass appeal, did not understand why a Black man, wielding this kind of “across the board popularity” still would not comment or take a position on behalf of Race, Civil Rights or the Black struggle in America.
Why hasn’t Obama addressed this issue since being elected President—other than continuing to talk down to Black people? In part it’s because his victory was contingent upon him having made a pact with white America, that he wouldn’t be like Jesse Jackson, and that he wouldn’t pursue and aggressive Civil Rights Agenda.
Rev. Al Sharpton is one of America’s most eloquent speakers- providing information on day-to-day life in black America, using his trademark in-your-face rhetorical style.
As of June of 2009, Rev. Sharpton has been seen as an ally of President Obama. The online political news blog, Politico wrote this on the “Odd Couple” pairing;
“It might be the oddest political pairing of the year. Barack Obama, whose campaign for president carefully avoided race-based political appeals, is teaming up with the man who practically perfected them: the Rev. Al Sharpton.
This double-take moment came last month (May 2009), with Sharpton holding court with reporters at the White House, fresh out of an Oval Office meeting with Obama in his role as co-founder of the bipartisan Education Equality Project.
So far, Sharpton has been to the White House more times, and for more close-up conversations with Obama, than the leaders of other long-established civil rights organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League.”
Apparently, Sharpton has adopted the notion, “If you can’t beat em, join em.” While Sharpton’s visits to the White House are seen by many Black leaders as photo opportunities for Obama to show allegiance with the “real Black America,” others say that Sharpton is smart to keep President Obama within reach, ala: “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
If President Obama’s ride in the White House becomes more “bumpy,” Sharpton has positioned himself to either support the first-term president or say, “I told him this was going to happen.” No matter what, Sharpton has positioned himself well.
The Minister Louis Farrakhan is another story entirely.
He will never be an administration insider. But black America needs Minister Farrakhan more now than ever. With his knowledge, wisdom and historical perspective, Farrakhan could be there to catch Black America as a whole and assist Jackson and Sharpton in repairing the eventual and pending damage of Black America’s infrastructure in the upcoming months.
Farrakhan, who has a no non-sense approach and is thrilled that there is a Black man in office as the president of theses United States said in an interview with ABC News that if Obama was avoiding controversial Black leaders like himself, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Rev. Jesse Jackson for fear of alienating white voters, this would be an acceptable price to pay.
But Minister Farrakhan also had this to say: “I haven’t made myself available to him … [and] he hasn’t made himself available to me.” As for the controversy over Obama’s early Muslim education, Farrakhan said that, “If anything, it should help him rather than hurt him.”
America has but three Black leaders that can address the disparities that keep Black America from achieving its goals of education, wealth (through employment) and independence. The struggle is not over, nor has it been addressed in a cordial and diplomatic way since the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
The catch-22 for Obama is this: if he were to place leaders like Farrakhan, Sharpton and Jackson into positions where they could truly empower and uplift black America, the notoriously-fickle mainstream media, who once made Obama their darling, would likely shift towards condemnation; unleashing a kind of “buyer’s remorse” among the wider white population, and all-but ensuring that he is voted out of office in 2012.
Slain civil rights leader Malcolm X once said, “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and guilty seem innocent – because they control the minds of the masses.”
Is this good for President Obama?
Through praise and condemnation Sharpton, Jackson and Farrakhan have remained consistent champions of the black community.
Only time will tell what will be the destiny of black American under the Obama presidency.
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