The State of Opportunity

You're Invited to a Hill Briefing on CERD and Health Inequality

Here's an event that folks interested in health equity and human rights might want to attend ...

Congressional Briefing on Health Inequality and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

The U.S. government recently filed a required periodic report to the United Nations on the nation's progress toward the elimination of racial discrimination. The report cited progress in many areas, including health and health care. The U.N. CERD Committee agreed with some aspects of the report but noted that the United States has failed to recognize and remedy instances where facially-neutral policies contribute to inequality in health and health care.

To address these issues, several dozen non-governmental organizations and individual scholars, under the leadership of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, prepared a "shadow" report, Unequal Health Outcomes in the United States (available at http://www.prrac.org/pdf/CERDhealthEnvironmentReport.pdf), that illustrates instances of non-compliance with CERD in the right to health, health care access, and treatment, and outlines steps to correct them.

You are invited to a special briefing with some of the collaborators on this report to learn of the extent of racial inequality in health and environmental health, their causes, and actions that government can take to address them. This panel discussion, moderated by Brian Smedley of The Opportunity Agenda, will feature presentations from Katrina Anderson of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Steve Hitov of the National Health Law Program, Rea Pañares of Families USA, and Philip Tegeler of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, and will take place on April 24 from 1:30pm - 3:00pm in room HC-8 of the Capitol. To RSVP for the briefing, please call or email Kara Forsyth of the Raben Group at (202) 223-2848 or KForsyth@rabengroup.com. All are invited, but seating is limited and priority will be giving to Congressional staff and members.

All Things Being Equal: Instigating Opportunity in an Inequitable Time

• Alan Jenkins and Brian Smedley are the editors of the newly-released book "All Things Being Equal: Instigating Opportunity in an Inequitable Time," also mentioned by the ACS Blog.  Jenkins explained their work in this week's TomPaine article on "The Vision Thing":

"One year from now, our country will choose a new president. And while the candidates have debated extensively on individual issues like health care, the war, the economy, and the environment, they have offered far less in terms of a positive, overarching vision for our country that both addresses and transcends individual issues.

While candidates' positions on the issues of the day are crucially important, it's equally important to take their measure on what George H. W. Bush called "the vision thing": the clarity of ideals, values, and principles that inspire and shape a president's approach to a broad range of issues, including ones that no one could have anticipated on the day he or she was elected.

A new book by The Opportunity Agenda offers such a vision on the domestic front; one to which we hope the presidential contenders of both parties will respond. Not surprisingly, that vision centers on opportunity, the idea that everyone deserves a fair chance to achieve his or her full potential. In the book "All Things Being Equal: Instigating Opportunity in an Inequitable Time," a dozen leading thinkers paint a picture of what opportunity means in our society, where we are falling short, and what must be done to instigate opportunity for all. Their vision bridges myriad issues—education, employment, housing, criminal justice, immigration, health care, human rights—and disciplines—public health, economics, criminology, law, sociology, psychology, education, social work. The authors provide a clear and hopeful path to the future, a wake-up call to our nation's current and future leaders, and concrete solutions that promise to carry us forward.

As I've written before in this column, opportunity is not just a set of national conditions, but a body of national values: economic security, mobility, a voice in decisions that affect us, a chance to start over after missteps or misfortune, and a shared sense of responsibility for each other-as members of a common society. Analyzing their own and others' research through the lens of those values, the authors of All Things Being Equal warn that opportunity is increasingly at risk for all Americans and, therefore, for our country as a whole. They find that many communities are facing multiple barriers to opportunity that cannot be overcome through personal effort alone. But, most importantly, they find that we have it in our power as a country to turn those trends around."

• The Immigration Equality blog has posted about yesterday's confirmation of Michael Mukasey as US Attorney General, after a long struggle in the Senate Judiciary Committee over his unwillingness to label waterboarding as illegal and torturous. The blog also notes that his position on the matter is being interpreted by some as a way of insulating the Department of Justice from future lawsuits or charges against government officials for human rights violations.



• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog reposted a recent New York Times article on the Surge Seen in Number of Homeless Veterans.  While many veterans have ended up the sort of post-traumatic stress disorder which often correlates with homelessness, it's unusual that veterans would show up in shelters as soon after deployment as have the most recent batch after duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Sexual abuse is another factor which correlates with homelessness -- the article states that "roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military."


• Finally, the Too Sense blog posted a graph of the racial diversity in campaign staff among the top 2008 presidential candidates.  While Clinton's staff is the most diverse, Giuliani's staff is 100% white.

San Francisco Hospital Closure Will Deny Health Care Access to Underserved Communities

• The Happening Here blog has a new post up on a newly-announced hospital closure in San Francisco's Mission District.  While a hearing will be held next week on the plan to shut down St. Luke's Hospital, author Janinsanfran notes:

"Opponents of the closure quickly discovered unearthed evidence that the impact of CPMC's plan would be to dump most of their Black, Brown and charity care patients. CPMC wants to build yet another North of Market Street hospital on Cathedral Hill, while leaving the South of Market area entirely to the care of the over-crowded, under-funded county hospital."

Decreasing access to medical care for communities of color and low-income communities is a reality in New York City as well, as illustrated by our google map mash up Health Care That Works. This process continues despite the fact that the majority of New Yorkers agree that health care is a human right.

• Feministing has blogged about a recent Kansas City ruling on women's access to contraception, in a lawsuit in which women had alleged discrimination because AT&T refused to provide health insurance coverage for birth control for female employees. The appellate court ruled that "contraception was not 'related to' pregnancy for purposes of the law" and therefore AT&T's actions did not comprise discrimination.

• The Sentencing Law and Policy blog has featured an innovative new website created by the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition ("CCJRC").  The site includes a Drug War Clock depicting the millions of dollars spent yearly on the war on drugs, the Think Outside the Cage blog, and a series of devastating statistics on modern mass incarceration such as "65% of women in prison are mothers of children under 18 years old."

• The Facing South blog has posted about the recent introduction of the Gulf Civil Works bill in Congress, legislation aimed at addressing the problem that "there are still about 100,000 fewer jobs in the Gulf than there was pre-Katrina." In the spirit of the New Deal construction works, the program would create these jobs working on much-needed public infrastructure projects. According to Stephen Bradberry, head state organizer of ACORN Louisiana, the region’s largest association of low and middle income families,

“Communities across the Gulf Coast suffer from crumbling roads and water systems, ill constructed flood protection, and closed police stations, fire house, schools and hospitals...We have an opportunity to jumpstart the recovery by empowering communities with the resources they need to lead.”

• Finally, Ezra Klein has written an insightful piece on Affluence vs. Security.  Discussing whether or not American living standards are getting better or worse, Klein says:

"I haven't quite worked this theory out yet, but my sense is that economic status has been cleaved free of economic security. So the sort of goods that signal affluence -- iPods and iPhones and laptop computers and plasma televisions -- are becoming much cheaper, more broadly accessible, and thus more widely owned. Lots of people, particularly young people, can thus claim economic status. The trappings of our wealth are all around us.

Yet economic security is quite a bit further from reach. It's impossible for me to imagine how I'll ever buy a home. Further education for me and eventual education for my kids are far beyond what my salary seems able to bear. And let's not get into health care. Point being: The affluence I can easily purchase into my 20s seems liable to crash right into the security I discover is out of reach in my 30s.

Meanwhile, from where I sit, the American Dream is a pretty weak force. White picket fences aren't the culturally transmitted vision of prosperity. Electronics are. Awesome stuff is. We're seeking goods, not security. And we can buy goods. Which makes us feel prosperous. And if you feel prosperous, if you consider yourself affluent, you can't merge that self-conception with economic insecurity, and thus it's hard to consider yourself part of a coalition in need of economic reform, or more advantageous public policy. By offering status without security, folks lose the class discontent that would turn them into a constituency for the security. And so they don't get it."

Do we agree that true economic security remains elusive for our younger generations? What can we do to bolster the American Dream, to promote policies that will create opportunities and stability for everyone in America?

ICE Detention Center Employed Undocumented Immigrants

• The ImmigrationProf Blog mentioned an article in today's Austin Chronicle which reports that,

"The dirty little secret is out: The T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center, a detention facility for immigrant families in Taylor, has employed undocumented workers, as well as contractors with criminal records. The revelation has put Williamson Coun­ty, which administers the center for owner-operator Correc­tions Corporation of America, in an embarrassing legal bind."

It's painfully ironic situation, for sure, but one that can be read as statement that our nation does indeed depend on immigrant labor to function.  Hopefully this situation will force us to question the role of these detention centers and our broken immigration system as a whole, with the intention to increase opportunities for everyone in America and abroad.

• Also in Texas, Latina Lista has written about this year's 'Day of the Dead' celebration in the two sister cities of El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico.

"From a 'culture cruise' which is an organized tour of museums in El Paso to the creation of the 'bones market' that serves as an opportunity for artisans from both sides of the border to showcase and sell their handiworks to a film fest and cultural festival, the three-day celebration is being used by city government officials to make a statement to Washington that a border wall is not needed nor wanted...

Though the concept is a way of life for El Paso and Juarez and countless other cities and towns along the U.S.- Mexico border, Washington still has a hard time wrapping their minds around that relationship.

But it doesn't matter to border residents. They'll keep the issue alive and not bury it until Washington understands that sisters are family and families don't build walls between each other."

The spirit behind this festival is a great reinforcement of the community frame that 'we're all in it together,' even showing that borders are often arbitrary constructions that keep us apart.

• The death penalty has been in the news a good deal lately, as an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment has descended while the Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of the lethal injection practice. Yet another pending Supreme Court case concerns the fate of a Mexican man on death row. The Pro Inmigrant blog has written about the sole Canadian citizen awaiting execution in the United States, a man begging for redemption amid a climate in which 72 nations urged the UN just yesterday to call for an international moratorium on capital punishment as a clear violation of human rights.

• David Whettstone over at Afro-Netizen has touched on a media event planned for this past Wednesday. Document the Silence developed a campaign to have people wear the color red on Halloween in order to spread awareness about violence against women of color.  Participants are also encouraged to take photographs and video showing their solidarity and email them in with the goal of 'flooding the web with RED." Of its objective, the campaign states:

"Recent events in the United States have moved us to action. Violence against women is sadly, not a new phenomenon in our country or in the world, however, in the last year women of color have experienced brutal forms of violence, torture, rape and injustice which have gone unnoticed, received little to no media coverage, or a limited community response. We are responding to:

• The brutal and inhumane rape, torture, and kidnapping of Megan Williams in Logan, West Virginia who was held by six assailants for a month
• Rape survivors in the Dunbar Housing Projects in West Palm Beach, one of whom was forced to perform sexual acts on her own child
• A 13 year old Native American girl was beaten by two White women and has since been harassed by several men yelling “White Power” outside of her home
• Seven Black lesbian girls attempted to stop an attacker and were later charged with aggravated assault and are facing up to 11 year prison sentence"

Here's hoping that we see more red and less violence against women of color in the coming months.

• Let's wrap up with a very brief update from yesterday's post, courtesy of blogger Conium: The new anti-immigrant law in Oklahoma has led to the first US-citizen arrest.

 

Crime is Not an Isolated Action, in New Orleans and Beyond

• Bill Quigley at the Black Agenda Report has written a piece on the apparent meltdown of the criminal justice system in New Orleans, where violent crime rates are hovering at seven times the national average. Quigley speaks of the integral relationship between socioeconomic security and crime rates:

"Crime is not an isolated action. It is impossible to fix the crime problem if the rest of the institutions that people rely on remain deeply broken....Only when the criminal justice system is supported by a good public education available to all children, sufficient affordable housing for families, accessible healthcare (especially mental healthcare), and jobs that pay living wages, can the community expect the crime rate to go down."

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog has highlighted a community in Western Massachusetts in which those without the financial means to post a few hundred dollars in bail are held for months before their trials. While eighty-five percent of women being held have substance abuse problems, and many have families to care for, the county has opted to spend thousands of dollars each month to keep women in newly-constructed jails rather than offer treatment programs that would offer inmates a chance at rehabilitation and redemption. Author Lois Ahrens notes that "holding women and men who are too poor to make bail results in devastating consequences: more jail building, greater impoverishment of the poor, and continued criminalization of addiction and mental illness."


• Jack and Jill Politics has alerted us to the fact that the Bush administration is working with the Senate to discontinue federal downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers. Some striking statistics from the post: "From 2000 through 2006, more than 650,000 buyers got their down payments through nonprofits" working with this program, and "the move to get rid of downpayment assistance programs will bar approximately 40% of African-American homebuyers from utilizing Federal Housing Administration insured loans. Also affected are potentially 30% of Latinos."

• We'd previously noted that the California wildfires had resulted in undocumented immigrants turning themselves in to the border patrol because they feared for their safety. A number of blogs, however, have exposed other effects of the fires on immigrant communities. The Black Agenda Report has discussed raids of the displaced people at Qualcomm stadium as well as farmers not permitting their workers to evacuate. IntraPolitics talks about how the San Diego Sheriff's department is checking for ID among people returning to their homes, and continues to the draw further comparisons between the wildfires and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina:

"The policies undertaken by law enforcement and developers in these regions of natural disasters, in my opinion, is part of a general scheme to displace the poor and minority property owners and renters. The backlash against social programs designed to help people obtain affordable housing, combined with the expected pitfalls of subprime mortgage lending, have placed us in a crisis of vulnerable populations losing the small allowances of economic power and self-determination they've had."

• 'Just News Blog' and the ImmigrationProf Blog have covered the story of 'a new low' in immigration raids: harassing a Latino community on their way to and from church services. Local law enforcement officials have been setting up roadblocks along two streets in Mount Olive, North Carolina in order to request documentation of churchgoers, many of whom are employed at the Butterball slaughterhouse two miles away.

• Finally, in honor of the holiday, Racialicious has a very interesting post up entitled 'Reasons I Hate Halloween,' which discusses the prevalence of costumes that "reinforce the eroticized and/or dangerous stereotypes associated with Muslim and Middle Eastern men and women." Author Fatemeh Fakhraie provides a variety of examples to support her discomfort with the use of these stereotypes as 'dress-up' options.
  

DREAM Act Vote Today in Senate

• The DREAM Act legislation which would provide undocumented students the means to stay in the country legally if they attend college or join the military is up for a vote today in the Senate. The Border Line reports that it remains unclear if enough Senators will come out in support of the bill, measure which would provide many students who arrived in the US legally as young children with access to federal funding for continue their education in hope of giving back to their communities.


• As the wildfires continue to rage in Southern California, Immigration News Daily has posted that about fifty undocumented immigrants have turned themselves into border patrol agents out of fear for their safety. Various bloggers such as Prometheus 6 are starting to draw comparisons between the immense devastation of the wildfires and that of Hurricane Katrina, and how the socio-economic status of the displaced populations has affected the care and attention each received.


• RaceWire has done a piece about Blackwater's new bid to get involved with security on the US-Mexico border.  Author Seth Wessler explains how problematic this situation would be, despite apparent bipartisan support in Congress:

"Given Blackwater’s 'shoot first' policy, enacted with bloody clarity in Iraq and on the streets of New Orleans after Katrina, the plans to expand to the border region do not bode well. With vigilante groups like the Minutemen already taking their racist, nationalist stance to the front lines, guns in hand, the addition of Blackwater to the scene would only mean more dead immigrants with less accountability.

In a political climate where the rhetoric on immigration employs the lexicon of war, the possibility of Blackwater’s entry into the border security scene seems to fit the frame. As if it were not enough that the United States is building a wall along the border and the the total number of deportations has increased by over 400% in the past ten years, the border itself may be handed over to private firms whose interests could not be less in line with the common good."

• The Unapologetic Mexican has joined the ranks of those reporting on a coalition of major newspapers and television networks who are petitioning to gain access to Jena Six member Mychal Bell's sealed criminal trial.  Bell's lawyer seems to agree that the media presence may help temper further questionable rulings by District Attorney Reed Walters, and that the case has been publicized enough to date that Americans have a right to know what is going on.
  


• The Republic of T is spreading the news about the just-announced date of next July's 'Blogging While Brown' conference.  In a blogosphere in which people of color remain the minority, it is tremendously important for bloggers of color to organize themselves in order to maximize potential to publicize issues of import such as the Jena Six case.


• Feministing posts that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke this past weekend about the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling, about how she doesn't forsee the ruling being overturned in the next few years.  She added, however, that if it were overturned, abortion would always be available to 'women of means' who could afford to travel to other states, but "would have a devastating impact on poor women."

Fear of a Black Princess

Alan Jenkin's new piece at Tom Paine is now live.  In this latest essay, Alan expresses hope and dread over Disney's decision to finally feature an African American princess in one of their films.

There’s an old joke, retold by Woody Allen in the film "Annie Hall," in which two elderly women are having dinner at a Catskill mountain resort. One of the women says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." I had a similar reaction when I heard last week that Disney would soon be releasing its first film to feature an African-American “princess”: It’s about time; and I kind of wish they wouldn’t.

As the father of two young girls, I’m immersed in princess-land and, for that matter, everything Disney—from the excruciating "High School Musical" I and II to the mildly redeeming Cheetah Girls franchise. And as the father of two young African-American girls, the effort to find positive role models in whom they can see themselves and who have resonance in their world is both exhausting and frustrating.

I'm Not Racist, But You Probably Are

A few quick hits from around the blogosphere today:

• Race and Media reports on some new Zogby polling data about American's racial prejudices.  Apparently we tend to think that we're not racist, but those other folks over there probably are:

The “Report Card on American Prejudice” is described as part of a wide-ranging effort by the Game Show Network, sponsors of the poll and of a new television show, “Without Prejudice,” to spur a national dialogue on intolerance and bigotry.

The poll showed: While 67 percent of respondents claimed to have no preference themselves between a white, black or Arab clerk in a convenience store, 71 percent said, “most Americans” would seek out the white clerk. Just 1 percent said Americans’ first choice would be to approach a black clerk, while less than 0.5 percent said the same for an Arab clerk.

And yet, 55 percent of respondents said race relations have improved over the past 10 years.

• Looks like health insurers are getting ready to exploit undocumented immigrants under the guise of providing health services (aka tapping an underutilized market).  In some respects this could be a good thing, but the potential for exploitation is really high - particularly when you factor in language difficulties and a general unfamiliarity with the American health care system.  On the other hand, could this also be a potential ally in future immigration battles?  If SEIU can team up with WalMart, anything is possible.  Or am I being naive?
• The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed in the House of Representatives.  The bill will "return the industry to the longstanding “paycheck accrual” rule, and allow a pay discrimination action to accrue every time the employee receives a paycheck that is affected by a discriminatory action."  A similar bill is now in the Senate.

Daily Blog Round-Up 6/13/07: Part 2

• The Washington Post discusses the sub par health care that many undocumented workers receive while serving jail time with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Lawyers are currently investigating numerous claims on behalf of undocumented workers who were taken into custody with minor illnesses and released with life-threatening infections. The ACLU stated that detainees often have poor English skills, don’t know their rights and have no access to counsel; another example of how our current system fails to treat both immigrants or those enmeshed in the criminal justice system fairly and humanely.
• In an update to previous coverage of the 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, ACS Blog reports on the House Committee on Education and Labor held a hearing today to consider restoring anti-discriminatory protections for workers. Leadership Conference on Civil Rights’ Wade Henderson stated before the committee that this outcome is “fundamentally unfair to victims of pay discrimination” and that the outcome “ignores the realities of the workplace.”
• Huffington Post reports with more information on the Dreams Across America project (refer to our previous posting): an immigrants’ rights group using Web 2.0 to put a human face on immigration and advocated for comprehensive positive reform that expands opportunity for all in America. As ImmigrationProf adds, the opposition to legalization is strong, with grassfire.org sending 700,000 faxes and emails and making 1 million personal contacts with Senators. Groups like Dreams Across America, with innovative, online strategies, are necessary to combat these opposition organizations that are rallying online.

Daily Blog Round-Up 6/8/07

• Racialicious reports on the discrepancies in the 2000 U.S. Census, stating that over 700,000 blacks were not counted nationwide. Committees are looking for ways to clear up such problems in future census counts, as mistakes skew the representative character of our government. The census has presented a number of problems for communities of color, who are frequently miscounted in a number of ways. As featured on the State of Opportunity website, the 2000 Census counts prison inmates as inhabitants of their prison towns, not their home towns. This miscount of the populations of those areas, results in a loss of both resources and equal representation for those communities.  An accurate census is important to maintaining a true democracy that suits the people’s needs.
• Racialicious continues its coverage on the lack of the diversity on TV networks, especially in television writers. While certain prime-time shows do feature minority actors, on the whole, many of these characters are merely supporting predominantly white casts. In response to the new line-up of shows for the fall, Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, voiced her dismay: “It seems to me that we're losing ground. I'm puzzled. Where there has been diversity, there's been success…But with a few exceptions, this is the least diverse lineup we've seen in recent years.”  In a study of the Writers Guild of America, West showed that white males disproportionately dominate film and TV jobs in Hollywood, and that minority writers accounted for fewer than 10% of employed television writers between 1999 and 2005. Without proper representation of the true diversity in this country, TV networks are showcasing a false view of the country, thus contributing to more hostilities and stereotypes in race relations.
• BlogHer reports on the importance of comprehensive sex education and access to birth control within the frame of a “basic human right and a normal value.” In addition to explaining how much support throughout the country exists across gender and party lines, BlogHer’s use of language truly exemplifies the type of communication strategies advocates need to unite the country. By framing access to birth control as a basic human right, BlogHer elevates the reproductive rights struggle to a more universal issue, one to which many people can relate. This framing is a positive step for advocacy everywhere!
• Sakaduski Marketing Blog reports on a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health, which grouped people based on race, country of residence and a few other community characteristics and compared life expectancy rates in each “race country.” These researchers found that life expectancy rates differed dramatically between these eight “race countries”: Asians, northland low-income rural whites, Middle America, low-income whites in Appalachia and the Mississippi valley, Western Native Americans, black Middle America, southern low-income rural blacks, and high-risk urban blacks. For example, the gap between the high-risk urban black males and the Asian females was nearly 21 years. Differences in access to health care and health insurance, as well as the quality of care one receives, are a primary cause such disparities, severely hurting many minority groups. Without equality to health care, these eight Americas will continue to show such huge unfair discrepancies.