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Ear to the Ground

It Pays to Be White

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Posted on Mar 23, 2009
Flickr / billjacobus1

AP reports that much of the disparity has to do with disproportionate minority representation in industries such as construction, but warns that the professional class has been affected as well.

Black and Latino communities have long suffered significantly higher unemployment rates than those of whites, but the economic collapse is taking labor inequity to new and alarming places. Jobs data shows that blacks and Latinos aren’t just more unemployed overall, but they’re losing jobs faster than their white colleagues.

AP via Yahoo:

Much of the disparity is due to a concentration of Latinos and blacks in construction, blue-collar or service-industry jobs that have been decimated by the economic meltdown. And black unemployment has been about double the rate for whites since the government began tracking those categories in the early 1970s.

But this recession is cutting a swath through the professional classes as well, which can be devastating to people who recently arrived there.

Since the recession began in December 2007, Latino unemployment has risen 4.7 percentage points, to 10.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Black unemployment has risen 4.5 points, to 13.4 percent. White unemployment has risen 2.9 points, to 7.3 percent.

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By Mandi, March 24 at 11:13 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

I read this article, and other articles of the past few days with great interest. It’s one of those “I’ll never believe it ‘till it happens to me” kinda things. Well, it happened to me. And many of my Black and Latino professional friends who have top BA’s and MBA’s. Those don’t matter a hill of beans if your white supervisor is jealous of your accomplisments and wants to save his hide from the chopping block. Blacks and Latinos are still the first to go, Education, tenure or not.

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By NYCartist, March 24 at 5:22 pm #

I read the comments with interest. It’s time for some people in the US to really look at “white privilege” (see Tim Wise writing) and institutional racism.  It’s time for us all to look at racism in the USA.  And, sexism and xenophobia.

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By Jason!!, March 24 at 2:58 pm #

*sigh

More race baiting.

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By cockfight, March 24 at 11:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Actually it pays to be rich…No matter what color or flavor you are..

BTW 4 out of 5 jobs lost have been men.

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By grumpynyker, March 24 at 11:11 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Batsqueeze.  Working age black American citizens are losing jobs to illegal Spanish speaking immigrants from Mexico and Central America.  Just read an article in my local tabloid of a black man from Staten Island who called 911 out of frustration(he threatened to kill Mexicans) because he was turned down for construction work in favor os latino day laborers.  Now he’s giong to jail for venting his anger; guess free speech doesn’t apply to us.  The article neglected to mention the ethnicity of the contractor doin the hiring, but I started gnashing my teeth when I read how the illegals mocked the black man.  Dammit stop including illegal immigrants with black Americans; THEY are part of the problem along with employers who never wanted to hire blacks in the first place.  Paying attention you fake-ass liberals?

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By voice of truth, March 24 at 10:57 am #

And Men are losing women faster than jobs   smile

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By voice of truth, March 24 at 10:56 am #

This article makes no sense at all unless taken in context.  The number one decider of which profession a person goes into is education.  Simply put, and this is fact, so please spare me the racism rants, blacks and latinos, as a percentage of their own population, are less educated.  The argument should be why that is, not that the construction trades are losing the most jobs, because that is the real problem.

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By RdV, March 24 at 8:11 am #

Meanwhile obama advocates for the rich white men.
  Hey, wasn’t that the Bush base?

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By coloradokarl, March 23 at 11:06 pm #

Women are losing men faster than jobs

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By Rock, March 23 at 10:22 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Well of course it pays to be white and it always has.  It is called white priviledge folks.  You all are the ones who has the real affirmative action and have for over four hundred years.  However all that is coming to an end.  You all have been living high off the hog just because of your white skin.  Them days are over.  That hog is getting thinner and thinner by the day.  The bone is exposing itself as the meat of that hog bone is quickly evaporating.  The party if over for you all.  All the things that you have done to us African Americans are now coming back on you all.  You all thought that you where in heaven because the white elite let you have a little something for awhile while they kick us African Americans in the ass.  You all not only condoned this but you all participated and enjoyed yourselves immensely.  Now the tables have turned and they figure they have us where they want us and now they figure that you all had it good long enough and they are now turning the tables on you all.  If you all want to know what the future holds for yourselves just look at what you helped to do to us.  Massive ignorance, poverty,unemployment, broken families, wellfare dependency, out of wedlock childbirth, drugs, alcoholism, domestic violence, no access to resources and etc, etc, etc.  Laugh now and enjoy yourselves but you all are making yourway down here with us now so make yourself at home.  You all denied us full citizenship, equal opportunity and access to resources but I’ll be damn if you will be denied the depth of despair and poverty and hopelessness that you have placed on us.  You all got scared and elected a black man president in hopes that he will save you but you are in such a mmess that you cannot be digged out of it.  It is irreversible.  There will be no jobs for you as you gave us none.  You will not have access to resources as you have denied us access to resources.  You will be treated as second class citizens as you have treated us.  They will bring drugs into your communities and dumb you down as you have done these things ot us.  I voted for Bush twice knowing the damage that he would do and I was right.  I voted for Mccain and Palin and was hoping that they would win knowing that they would bring this thing down whereas with Obama you just got a little more borrowed time.  I agree with the republicans and corporate America.  Unions should be busted. While should you all get good paying jobs and healthcare and benefits.  You never gave us anything.  Move all the jobs overseas and get cheap labor.  You all are fat and lazy and want everything handed to you on a silver platter and do nothing but complain while you try to portray others as such.  You never worked for nothing.  You stole, raped, maimed and murdered throughout your whole existence.  Economic slavery which is just as bad as the physical bondage that you all had us in is just as painful and bad.  Give all the money to the banksters, no money for the car companies, but the unions and no universal healthcare.

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By P. T., March 23 at 7:58 pm #

Men are losing jobs faster than women.

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