VivirLatino

Democracy Now! has a really good show today–the first segment in particular was really good. We all know that communities of color are hit hardest by economic recessions–generally, we all are surviving on a day to day basis, so when something harder hits, we go into tailspin. The DN interview showed very clearly how this crisis is not just hitting communities of color hardest, but how the stimulus package may continue the downfall of our communities.

MAYA WILEY: But the other is, we’re going to stimulate jobs through the recent stimulus act through construction, right? I mean, a big part of that is “shovel ready,” projects that are ready to start digging in order to get those construction jobs going, to get people working, to get money flowing into the economy. Well, blacks and women of all races are deeply underrepresented in the construction trades. So if we’re stimulating those jobs, we’re not actually stimulating jobs for the communities that have the highest unemployment rates, unless—unless—unless we learn from some of the lessons of cities like Los Angeles, where both the city and the unions really took leadership in making sure that they got tracked people of color, women into apprenticeship programs, so that when those construction contracts came, there were real community benefits. That’s the model that’s very important, and our implementers, our public officials that are going to be looking at stimulus implementation, should also be taking the leadership to demand, for example, that 30 percent of the jobs that are part of the construction jobs that are stimulated go to people who are living at poverty level at the time that they’re hired.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m always amazed when we hear unemployment numbers. They say they could hit double digits, when the

unemployment figures for African Americans that are over 12.6 percent—in some communities, young black men at 50 percent.

MAYA WILEY: Correct. If you look at the demographic, particularly for black and Latino males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, those statistics can get as high as 50 percent in some communities. And I think nationally it’s in the high twenties. So we’re talking about communities where you literally have no economy that is supporting those communities.

Here’s the segment if you want to watch it:

You can also read it here.