Detroit: African American Students Test Scores Worst in State, Nation

What U wont see on TV #2

1] Whites leaving the Democratic Party in droves

2] Detroit Officials To Shut Half The City's Schools

3] Mom Arrested For Duct-Taping Baby Daughter

4] Blood Tests Show Chemicals In Gulf Citizens Blood From SeaFood

5] If Libyan unrest spreads, gas could reach $5

6] BABY DOLPHINS ARE WASHING UP DEAD ALONG THE GULF

7] Security Industry Association recommends biometric authentication for federal E-Verify program

8] Italian Stock Exchange suspended due to 'technical issues'

9] 5.7 Volcano Island Japan and 5.8 Santiago Argentina.

Mr. President: Recession hitting us folk hard

The recession is crushing African American communities in major urban centers like Detroit and Memphis. Since the collapse of the auto industry and housing market, Detroit’s population has dropped to under a million from 1.8 million.

Today it is possible to buy a three-bedroom home in Detroit for around $10,000, however there are no buyers. Given this predicament, Mayor Dave Bing, a former NBA star, has suggested reducing the size of the metropolitan area in hopes of reducing the city’s expenses.

Bing’s proposal would require the city to demolish nearly 40,000 homes over the next several years. Poverty rates in Detroit are far above the national average. Some have asserted that such draconian approaches border on being a form of "ethnic cleansing." The fact is that almost a third of the city's 139 square miles is uninhabited.

Foreclosure procedures have been initiated against 1.7 million of the nation’s households, with the average borrower in foreclosure being delinquent for more than 400 days before actually being evicted. More than 650,000 households had not made a mortgage payment in 18 months.

In cities such as Memphis, the recession is having a similar effect due to rising unemployment and growing foreclosures. The median income of black homeowners in Memphis has dropped to pre-1990 levels. The unemployment rates for African Americans in the city is approaching 20 percent when it was below 10 percent just two years ago.

The recession is creating an ever-widening economic gap between whites and African Americans across the nation. Several studies have documented this disheartening trend.

The Economic Policy Institute notes that as of December 2009, median white and African American wealth fell 34 percent and 77 percent, respectively. A study conducted by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University concluded that for each dollar of wealth owned by a white family, a black family owns just 16 cents, based on Federal Reserve numbers.

The recession is real and it may take several years before any progress or improvement is noticed or felt at the community level. So for the time being, African American families will have to deal with rising unemployment and foreclosure rates and manage to survive the best way they can.

1967 Again, maybe?

As a kid, I recall a little of the Detroit Riot of 1967. I was in Memphis and the flames on the front porch were a lot more visible at the time. It began after a police raid in a predominantly black neighborhood. And although race was significant as well as police brutality, economic, and social factors such as lack of affordable housing, added to the Riot, another one may be brewing in the D-town, if it don’t become a ghost town first. Today may be even worse with the collapse of the big car manufacturers, Ford, Chrysler and GM. Monday, and this Dec 23, 2008 report noting that the average price of a home is now $18,513 (less than a new car) and unemployment has reached 21 percent. Just in June the average home price was $19,448.

In October, 98 metropolitan areas reported jobless rates of at which was up 7.0 percent, up from 16 areas a year earlier, In October, Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich., Add to the mix a 21.7% graduation rate for the 11th largest district in the country, Detroit Schools – this may be where the economic crisis first blows up and gets an human face.

Nationally some project that the December's job loss total will exceed November's and predicts the economy will have lost 3 million to 4 million jobs for the two years ending at December 2009. True, I look at it as the glass is half full and with the understanding that there aint no consistent definition of a Depression. The only consistent thing is the presence of long scale and extended unemployment. Im just cautious and with the way things work now: online banking and ATMS. Long lines in hospital emergency rooms because of no insurance and food prices across the country increasing about 7 percent alone in 2008, one doesn’t have to be absorbed with economics to know things do not look too good or that the depression looming will look a lot different than the great depressin. For if it ever gets to where 6 out of 10 households are economically distressed, then something is liable to hit the fan – question is where? So tell me what it looks like in your city.