Minorities Targeted For Traffic Stops In Milwaukee

I almost feel like I am preaching to the choir or I’m in the choir and we’re singing the same ol’ song. It’s no news to us, being the ones that are always sitting on the curbs in these situations with police officers pulling over our vehicles because they think we may fit one of their descriptions. I remember a cop pulling me over in Milwaukee and blatantly saying we’re looking for guns and drugs. He took me out the car, placed me in the back of his squad car and began a search. He found nothing and released me. To some, this may seem like an unfortunate event, however, I’m used to that as much as I am the seasonal snowstorm. The real question is, should I be?

The Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee’s premier news source, has confirmed a recent study that expresses what we’ve known since we were allowed to drive cars: “A black Milwaukee driver is seven times as likely to be stopped by city police as a white resident driver.”

Click HERE to see police chief’s reasoning behind targeting minorities!

Posted by:

DJWillieShakes

Understanding Unequal Unemployment

The unemployment rates you hear on the news are misleading. The overall unemployment rate is currently at a shocking high of 9.6%–but the ethnic breakdown of this figure is still more disturbing.

According to a study released July 15 by The Economic Policy Institute, minorities are significantly more likely to be jobless than their white counterparts. Part of this can be attributed to the recession, which has taken its toll on non-white communities the worst.

Yet even this cannot account for the shocking unemployment gap that exists. African-Americans typically suffer unemployment rates that are twice as high as their white peers, while Hispanics come in at 1.5% more than Whites. For example, currently in Alabama there is a 5.8% unemployment rate for whites while for African-Americans it jumps to 15.1%! In Louisiana, African-Americans were three times more likely to be jobless. And the same is true for Hispanics, who’s unemployment rates are suspected to be higher than reported (it is thought that many illegal aliens would have feared taking part in this study).

The bad news is that the unemployment gap between whites and minorities is increasing. The good news, however, is that there are tentative plans to improve the situation by imposing a small tax on stocks to create extra resources for job creation in these hard hit communities.

Find out more about the inequalities of unemployment rates, and how you can GET INVOLVED at http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE56E83L20090716.

Posted by:

Yolanda Clatworthy