Economic Recovery for Everyone:
Racial Equity and Prosperity
by The Center for Social Inclusion
Published by POVERTY & RACE
RESEARCH ACTION COUNCIL
March/April 2009
Volume 18: Number 2
States are poised to receive significant federal funding to stimulate the economy and put people back to work. Much of it targets “shovel ready” projects. Government has to be smart about how it uses our money. The stimulus package alone will not be enough to put everyone who needs a job back to work. And it will not support all the services our communities need. But if it is allocated wisely and fairly, it can be a powerful boost to the economy and improve the lives of many.
To do that, states must ensure that those in the most need benefit from the stimulus. While we have made much progress on race and gender equality in this country, we have not yet achieved full fairness, and these inequities limit prosperity for all of us.
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The picture in the ad immediately caught my attention. The photo was of a very dignified older African American man looking into the camera, very determined and equally pensive. Underneath his photo was a caption giving his name—T. Willard Fair—and the fact that he was the veteran of 40 years of struggle in the Civil Rights Movement.
This was certainly enough to pique my interest.
Beneath the caption was a statement declaring that the alleged threat to African Americans comes from documented and undocumented immigrants. He went on to suggest that any notion of legalizing undocumented workers was a slap in the face of African Americans. The ad is associated with a group called the “Coalition for the Future American Worker.â€
Fair’s attack is not surprising, although the virulence and historical nature of it is very unsettling, particularly because it is bound to strike a chord among many African Americans.
Black America has been taking a prolonged economic hit since the mid 1970s. The economic reorganization which many people call de-industrialization has had a devastating impact on the 
by Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report
Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel is right to be scared of most of the Democratic field of presidential candidates. Except for Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the contenders jockey for the title of most-likely-to-attack-Iran. Impeachment "is the only way to discredit Republicans enough to insure a Democratic victory in 2008," but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will hear none of that. Even if the Democrats somehow triumph, nothing much will change, because the frontrunners are all beholden to Big Money and enthralled with war.
During the first Democratic presidential debate a little known candidate, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, ended up with one of the most memorable lines of the evening:
"And I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me - they frighten me. When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect to Iran, that's code for using nukes, nuclear devices. 
[Note from SolidarityEconomy.net editors: We encourage readers to post this story far and wide, especially to those who think we live in a 'colorblind' society.]
In Texas, a white teenager burns down her family's home and receives probation. A black one shoves a hall monitor and gets 7 years in prison. The state NAACP calls it `a signal to black folks.'
By Howard Witt, Tribune senior correspondent
PARIS, Texas -- The public fairgrounds in this small east Texas town look ordinary enough, like so many other well-worn county fair sites across the nation. Unless you know the history of the place.
There are no plaques or markers to denote it, but several of the most notorious public lynchings of black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were staged at the Paris Fairgrounds, where thousands of white spectators would 
by Glen Ford
"Barack Obama is our son and he deserves our support," declared Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr., speaking to a gathering of Black Democrats at the party's winter meeting, in Washington, earlier this month. By Jones' logic, Condoleezza Rice deserves automatic African American support as "our daughter," and Colin Powell, her predecessor as George Bush's Secretary of State, was due fealty as "our brother."
Jones' embrace of the entire African American family tree must also, therefore, extend to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, the most reactionary, anti-Black member of the High Court; and to "our brother" J. Kenneth Blackwell, the former Ohio Secretary of State whose consuming mission in 2004 was to deny the franchise to as many fellow Blacks as possible. 
by Rhone Fraser
Finding a Way to Solidarity
By Glen Ford
BAR Executive Editor
When as many as two million immigrants and their supporters, most of them Latino, turned out for demonstrations against draconian undocumented worker legislation in cities across the nation this spring, everywhere the question was raised: Is this the new civil rights movement? By all appearances, some kind of great awakening had indeed occurred which, if sustained, would transform the participants and, eventually, the society at-large.
However, Black opinion was decidedly mixed. Traditional and progressive African American organizations generally supported the explosion of Latino activism, and marveled at the coordination and sheer size of the rallies in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Dallas, Houston, Seattle – at least two dozen cities, nationwide. Luminaries such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP chairman Julian Bond, the SCLC’s Rev. Joseph Lowrey, and numerous Black congresspersons were quick to make a positive connection to the struggles of the Sixties.
