Local community organizer Naomi Davis put together a top-ten list of issues impacting the African-American community in her area of Chicago. Not a bad list:
- NORFOLK & SOUTHERN/CREATE. Opportunity Of A Lifetime. Multi-billion, multi-decade south side economic impact with America’s richest companies without a single negotiated community benefit/jobs plan.
- CRIMINALIZATION OF BLACKNESS. Gulag Economy. Jim Crow/John Burge/Howard Morgan, and millions of our young caught up in a culture of violence without guidance, in a system designed to profit from their downfall.
- FORECLOSURE FRAUD TSUNAMI. Rape & Rescue. Three generations of wealth stripped from our community on purpose, and now investor/gentry with federal subsidies are available to help rebuild…about us without us.
- 50% UNEMPLOYMENT. City of Big Shoulders & U of C. Some of our neighbors in public housing suffer with over 90% unemployment when worker-owned cooperatives like Evergreen in Ohio successfully partner the poor with universities and government in laundries, urban ag, solar enterprises…and more.
- SCHOOL CLOSING & TURNAROUNDS. Mis-education Incorporated. Follow the money and you’ll discover the real reason for ignoring parent and community protests, while some local politicians and preachers are purchased.
- NEIGHBOR-OWNED BUSINESSES. We Are Colonized. Our wealth is extracted rather than circulated in our communities by retailers we permit to take our money without reinvesting, also siphoning out scores of millions in LINK dollars.
- SUFFERING SENIORS. Limited & Isolated. Too many own homes they can’t afford to repair on fixed incomes, and live isolated from neighborhoods while their taxes fund TIF community developments that don’t help, but hurt.
- SMALLER GOVERNMENT. The Rich Get Richer. Privatizing government work creates a fat plutocracy with often questionable net savings to the public, and eliminates middle-class incomes which stabilize us.
- THE BLACK TAX. Equal Enforcement & Traffic Justice. Note the skin color of the 99% in traffic court and the amount of money extracted from our communities in traffic camera tickets and booted vehicle revenues.
- POLITICAL CORRUPTION. Chicago Is #1. In “Leading The Pack,” UIC Professor and former Alderman Dick Simpson document what we already knew: behind-closed-doors, under-the-table, business-as-usual politics here is destroying us.
via Naomi Davis email.
I wonder what race-neutral solutions she would propose?