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Showing Original Post only (View all)Black America is getting screwed: Shocking new study highlights the depths of economic disparities [View all]
Before being assassinated, Martin Luther King envisioned a Poor Peoples Campaign descending on Washington to demand better education, jobs and social insurance. He saw it as an extension of his work on civil rights, equal in importance and scope. In a nation gorged on money while millions of its citizens are denied a good education, adequate health services, meaningful employment, and even respect, King wrote in announcing the Poor Peoples Campaign, all of us can almost feel the presence of a kind of social insanity which could lead to national ruin.
Forty-seven years after the Poor Peoples Campaign ended, political discussion in liberal activist circles has bifurcated in unnecessary ways. There are separate economic and racial justice movements, and as my Salon colleague Joan Walsh points out, political leaders too often speak to only one or the other. But these movements are different facets of one fight; if black lives matter, surely their economic lives matter too. And a new report shows that people of color still face discrimination and hardship in their fight for economic dignity, as sure as they do in the fight for basic respect.
The report, released today by the think tank Demos and the NAACP, focuses on African-American and Latino workers in the retail industry. While were supposed to believe that e-commerce and Amazons dominance has destroyed retail, the industry is actually the fastest growing in America, representing one out of every six new jobs in the economy last year. And while low wages and occupational hazards define retail work generally, that experience is even worse for people of color.
According to the Demos/NAACP study, black retail workers are nearly twice as likely to be living below the poverty line as the overall workforce. African-Americans and Latinos have fewer supervisory roles in retail relative to white counterparts, and more low-paid cashier positions. Among retail workers of color, there are more involuntary part-time employees, who want more hours but cannot receive them. And Black and Latino workers make less than their similarly situated colleagues 75 percent of the average wage of a retail salesperson, and 90 percent of the average wage of a cashier, for example.
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/02/black_america_is_getting_screwed_shocking_new_study_highlights_the_depths_of_economic_disparities/
Forty-seven years after the Poor Peoples Campaign ended, political discussion in liberal activist circles has bifurcated in unnecessary ways. There are separate economic and racial justice movements, and as my Salon colleague Joan Walsh points out, political leaders too often speak to only one or the other. But these movements are different facets of one fight; if black lives matter, surely their economic lives matter too. And a new report shows that people of color still face discrimination and hardship in their fight for economic dignity, as sure as they do in the fight for basic respect.
The report, released today by the think tank Demos and the NAACP, focuses on African-American and Latino workers in the retail industry. While were supposed to believe that e-commerce and Amazons dominance has destroyed retail, the industry is actually the fastest growing in America, representing one out of every six new jobs in the economy last year. And while low wages and occupational hazards define retail work generally, that experience is even worse for people of color.
According to the Demos/NAACP study, black retail workers are nearly twice as likely to be living below the poverty line as the overall workforce. African-Americans and Latinos have fewer supervisory roles in retail relative to white counterparts, and more low-paid cashier positions. Among retail workers of color, there are more involuntary part-time employees, who want more hours but cannot receive them. And Black and Latino workers make less than their similarly situated colleagues 75 percent of the average wage of a retail salesperson, and 90 percent of the average wage of a cashier, for example.
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/02/black_america_is_getting_screwed_shocking_new_study_highlights_the_depths_of_economic_disparities/
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Black America is getting screwed: Shocking new study highlights the depths of economic disparities [View all]
ismnotwasm
Jun 2015
OP
Your responses baffle me. There is virtually no connection between them and the broader context
Romulox
Jun 2015
#5
It's also how the discussion has been "bifurcated in unnecessary ways." It's quoted *in your OP*. nt
Romulox
Jun 2015
#10
But you seem to disagree with it, or, disagree with the people who agree with it. Confusing. nt
Romulox
Jun 2015
#13
And why economic justice and social justice are one in the same. The so-called "conflict" is bogus.
Romulox
Jun 2015
#16
How do you propose addressing institutionalized racism and economic injustice?
ismnotwasm
Jun 2015
#17
I don't claim to have all the answers. I just know we need to do both or it's ultimately futile. nt
Romulox
Jun 2015
#18
You mean the culture white music execs commercialized and made a fortune from?
LittleBlue
Jun 2015
#29