New Orleans Province High School Colloquium
Blurb
<p>Racism was the topic discussed by faculty from 5 Jesuit High Schools in the south on Saturday, February 23, 2008, as part of the New Orleans Province High School Colloquium held at Strake Jesuit in Houston. JSRI director Fr. Ted Arroyo, S.J. facilitated their reflection.</p>
"Racism" was the topic discussed by faculty from 5 Jesuit High Schools in the south on Saturday, February 23, 2008 as part of the New Orleans Province High School Colloquium held at Strake Jesuit in Houston. JSRI director Fr. Ted Arroyo, S.J. facilitated their reflection.
Neighborhoods and boys of color
Blurb
<p>A new report finds that neighborhoods are a major influence on the health of boys and young men of color. The study, “Healthy Communities Matter: The Importance of Place to the Health of Boys,” was funded by the California Endowment, includes contributions from the Drexel University School of Public Health, the Drexel Department of Emergency Medicine, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute of Harvard Law School, PolicyLInk, and the RAND Corporation.</p>
<p>While it may seem obvious, if you grow up in a neighborhood with a good school, where it is safe, where you can walk and play outside, where you can have a regular doctor, and where you have access to good food, you are more likely to live a long and healthy life. Conversely, if you grow up in a neighborhood where it is not safe, where schools are failing, where you do not have a place to go if you are sick or a grocery store with fresh food, then you are more likely to live a shorter life, earn less money, to be a victimizer or victim of violence, and to be far less healthy emotionally and physically.</p>
<p>While it may seem obvious, if you grow up in a neighborhood with a good school, where it is safe, where you can walk and play outside, where you can have a regular doctor, and where you have access to good food, you are more likely to live a long and healthy life. Conversely, if you grow up in a neighborhood where it is not safe, where schools are failing, where you do not have a place to go if you are sick or a grocery store with fresh food, then you are more likely to live a shorter life, earn less money, to be a victimizer or victim of violence, and to be far less healthy emotionally and physically.</p>
by Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
The Color of Economic Under-Recovery
Blurb
<p><strong>Recommended Policy Responses</strong></p>
<p align="left">As the economic crisis exacerbates long-standing challenges facing marginalized communities, the economic recovery has been elusive for too many people of color. Although the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the overall unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7 percent last month, the Black unemployment rate has risen from 15.8 to 16.5 percent. This is the second similar jump in the past five months in which unemployment among people of color continues to increase while unemployment for whites remains steady or has decreased.</p>
<p align="left">As the economic crisis exacerbates long-standing challenges facing marginalized communities, the economic recovery has been elusive for too many people of color. Although the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the overall unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7 percent last month, the Black unemployment rate has risen from 15.8 to 16.5 percent. This is the second similar jump in the past five months in which unemployment among people of color continues to increase while unemployment for whites remains steady or has decreased.</p>
Recommended Policy Responses
By Alex Mikulich, Research Fellow
U.S. Xenophobia and Racism - The Presence of the Past
Blurb
<p>Current anti-immigrant sentiment, largely focused on the influx of Mexican and Latino newcomers—and the fact that Latinos, along with African Americans and Asian peoples, are projected to represent a majority of the U.S. population by 2042—decries the fact that, in the words of former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan “they are taking our country away from us.”<sup>1</sup> The fear, bluntly stated, is that “they”—Mexicans and Latinos—will erode “our”—white European—power over U.S. identity. Buchanan articulates only the most recent U.S. American antiimmigrant animosity that finds deep roots in the nation’s history.</p>
By Dr. Alex Mikulich, JSRI Research Fellow
Dr. Martin Luther King's Enduring Challenge to Fund American Promises!
Blurb
<p> When Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., introduced his “I have a Dream” speech, he marked the 100th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and cited the great promises made by the architects of our republic in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The architects “were signing,” Dr. King said, “a promissory note to which every American was heir. This was the promise that all men, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He continued with these immortal words on August 28, 1963 before the Lincoln Memorial:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check: a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check: a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”</p>
</blockquote>
By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D.
Immigrants as People, Not Files!
Blurb
<p>Earlier this year, I participated on a panel of immigration attorneys speaking to law students about immigration law careers. One panelist recalled her final days of clerking at the immigration court located within the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. During a break in the docket, the immigration judge for whom she worked asked if she would be continuing her career with the government. The attorney responded that she did not think so and that during her clerkship it had been difficult to witness the deportation of families, the separation of children from parents, and husbands from wives. The judge thought for a moment and replied, “Yep, if you’re gonna think of ‘em as people, you can’t work for us. They’re files!” This article is not intended to impugn the integrity of immigration judges or others who do government work. I have met fine men and women who serve as judges or other immigration employees. However, this sentiment of immigrants being files or non-human or not like “us” is pervasive in the national immigration debate. It subtly, and at times not so subtly, influences our country’s attitudes and policies regarding immigrants.</p>
By Fr. Tom Greene, S.J.
Catholic Social Teaching on Race
Blurb
<p>In-depth theological reflection and social analysis of the reality of race, racism, and xenophobia were not developed in magisterial Catholic social teaching until the late 20th century. This annotated bibliography of official Roman Catholic and U.S. episcopal teaching regarding racism highlights key points of the most significant documents from the past 70 years. This teaching contributes critical theological, biblical, and moral insight for personal, institutional, and societal conversion, including that of the church, in the struggle for racial justice and equality.</p>
A Select Bibliography of Papal, Conciliar, Vatican, and U.S. Episcopal Statements and Pastoral Letters
By Dr. Alex Mikulich, JSRI Research Associate
Got Privilege? The Ironies of White Privilege and the Gospel Call to Conversion
Blurb
<p>One irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americans to presume racial innocence. White ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words, it is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.</p>
by Alex Mikulich, Ph.D., JSRI Fellow
One irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americans to presume racial innocence. White ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words, it is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.
Guilt, accusation, or moralistic finger-pointing at the “cabal of bigots”1 who keep people of color down, misses the problem. Rather, the complexity of white privilege concerns how good people—including myself—perpetuate and benefit from racial hierarchy.
A Must Read
Blurb
<p>The demand that social science and public policy address both inner-city behavior and social structures is a key insight of William JuliusWilson’s scholarship. Too often, social scientific and policy debates create a dichotomy between culture—the beliefs, modes of decision-making, and meaning-making that pervade the inner city—and social structure— the ways larger institutions of the economy, polity, and education shape the life chances of groups and individuals. Wilson avoids this false dichotomy.</p>
More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson
Reviewed by Dr. Alex Mikulich, Research Fellow
Where Y'at Fair Housing?
Blurb
<p>As we say in New Orleans, to learn how a person is doing, it is an appropriate time to ask: Where Y’at, Fair Housing? Significant gains for homeownership have been won for people of color in the last 50 years. Due largely to the success of the Civil Rights Fair Housing legislation, African-American homeownership increased from one in three in 1950, to nearly one in two by 2000.</p>
By Alex Mikulich, Ph.D., JSRI Research Fellow
As we say in New Orleans, to learn how a person is doing, it is an appropriate time to ask: Where Y’at, Fair Housing? Significant gains for homeownership have been won for people of color in the last 50 years. Due largely to the success of the Civil Rights Fair Housing legislation, African-American homeownership increased from one in three in 1950, to nearly one in two by 2000.