MN's racial jobless gap biggest in U.S.

[azurnoir]

Minnesota's unemployment rate has been typically better than the national average, but black Minnesotans have a jobless rate of 22 percent compared to 6.4 percent for whites — the biggest racial disparity in the nation, the Star Tribune reports.

The paper, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, notes that the state's unemployment rate for whites is the 10th-lowest in the country. For blacks, it's the third-highest. The numbers aren't much better in the metro: A study by the Economic Policy Institute also found that the Twin Cities have the biggest gap between white and black employment among the country's 18 largest metro areas.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/morning_roundup/2011/03/mns-racial-jobless-gap-biggest-in-us.html

[kickysnana]

1. (sigh) The new Mississippi. n/t

[annm4peace]

2. so many MN think they are too nice to be racists

I have even had someone tell me that because there are so many Scandinavians here and that culture values everyone so they aren't as prejudice so they don't see an issue. This is true both at my work and in an organization I am in. We have also read of the great disparity at the Minneapolis schools and for contract work for minority business for the city of Minneapolis.

Yet many whites don't see that there is disparity.


This is just a way to avoid recognizing or dealing with the problem.



seems like a good time to mention this event


http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/index.html

12th Annual White Privilege Conference

April 13 – 16, 2011
Sheraton Bloomington
Minneapolis, Minnesota

What is the WPC?

What is the White Privilege Conference?
WPC is a conference that examines challenging concepts of privilege and oppression and offers solutions and team building strategies to work toward a more equitable world.

It is not a conference designed to attack, degrade or beat up on white folks.

It is not a conference designed to rally white supremacist groups.

WPC is a conference built on the premise that the U.S. was started by white people, for white people.

WPC is a conference designed to examine issues of privilege beyond skin color. WPC is open to everyone and invites diverse perspectives to provide a comprehensive look at issues of privilege including: race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, etc. — the ways we all experience some form of privilege, and how we’re all affected by that privilege.

WPC attracts students, professionals, activists, parents, and community leaders/members from diverse perspectives. WPC welcomes folks with varying levels of experience addressing issues of diversity, cultural competency, and multiculturalism.

WPC is committed to a philosophy of “understanding, respecting and connecting.”



*************

One more example. if you have ever seen the cars driving into the Wells Fargo Mortgage Campus at the old Honeywell site of 35W and Lake Street, a site that has around 4000 employees.. you will see 90% of the people driving in to the garages are white, yet the surrounding neighborhood is more diverse than that. That is just one business

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Back in the early 1980s I survived by temping

Many, many companies had new locations that were, at the time, in the middle of nowhere.

When I remarked about how hard it was to find the job site, someone would invariably say, "That's because we don't want any blacks working here. They just want to sit around and collect welfare."

No one even seemed to notice that the two sentences were contradictory.