Study: Gentrification benefits many blacks
June 30, 2008
UPI
- The authors of a study on gentrification in U.S. cities say its supposed ill effects on low-income urban neighborhood residents are exaggerated.
The study by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Pittsburgh and Duke University found that when white, college-educated residents move into low-income neighborhoods, the resulting economic benefits did not all accrue to the newcomers as is usually assumed. Instead, black householders with high-school degrees accounted for a plurality of the total income gains in such neighborhoods, Time Magazine reported Monday.
“We’re not saying there aren’t communities where displacement isn’t happening,” Randall Walsh, an associate professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, told the magazine. “But in general, across all neighborhoods in the urbanized parts of the U.S., it looks like gentrification is a pretty good thing.”
The study, which examined Census data from more than 15,000 neighborhoods across the United States in 1990 and 2000, found that low-income, non-white households did not disproportionately leave gentrifying areas. Instead, it found that while the white newcomers accounted for 20 percent of the total income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods, black householders with at least high school educations accounted for 33 percent of the income gains.
Why Barack Owes Clarence Thomas
June 30, 2008
Sam Fulwood III, TheRoot.com
- Lately, I’ve had the most spirited debates with my students and friends, and I always come away feeling like the loser.
I, for argument’s sake, draw a straight line between Barack Obama’s White House aspirations and the embarrassing spectacle of Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation.
As soon as I dare utter “Thomas” in the same breath as “Obama,” I’m often hooted into silence. Just the mere mention of the justice’s name is a conversation stopper, except when it serves to start a separate argument.
African Americans Break Billion-Dollar Barrier
June 30, 2008
Latif Lewis and Tanisha A. Sykes, Black Enterprise
- Born Sarah Breedlove in 1867 in Delta, Louisiana, the legendary Madame C.J. Walker was the daughter of former slaves. From her beginnings as an uneducated farm laborer and laundress, she transformed her life to become one of the most successful businesswomen of the 20th century. Walker, who made her fortune through a haircare products company targeted to the African American community, is widely reported to be the first self-made African American millionaire. When asked the secret of her success, Walker responded: “There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. … If I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard.” In 2003, media mogul Oprah Winfrey carries on this legacy, becoming the first African American woman billionaire. Other North American billionaires include Robert Johnson, BET founder and first African American owner of an NBA basketball franchise, and Michael Lee-Chin, a bouncer turned mutual fund magnate. Read on for more about these self-made billionaires.
Fox News Channel has crossed the racist line
June 30, 2008
Harry C. Alford, NNPA Columnist
- The famed comedian D.J. Hughley has stated that whenever he accidentally rests his television dial on the Fox News station it will automatically start tilting to the right.
That’s funny, but it also illustrates the dogma and mantra that comes from this station that claims to be “fair and balanced”.
That claim is indeed untrue. In fact, there has never been a cable channel so devoted to one area of political debate. Fox News is not extremely committed to the right wing dogma of the political debate it is pro ultra conservative awash with neo conservative views which are not compatible with traditional or progressive Black views.
Obama pursues aggressive Southern strategy
June 30, 2008
UPI
- Aides say likely U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is aggressively courting voters in the U.S. South, a region long considered hostile to Democrats.
Ever since the region consistently began electing Republican candidates 40 years ago, the Democratic Party has debated how much effort it should put into trying to sway white Southern voters. But now, even though its candidate is black, the campaign of Obama, D-Ill., is launching an major effort there by scheduling appearances is North Carolina and Virginia and by making ad buys other Southern states, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Monday.
“If you go in and look at the number of unregistered voters in demographic groups that are important to Barack’s candidacy — younger voters, African-American voters — the potential (in the South) is just incredible,” Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand told the newspaper.
Recent Democratic presidential nominees have typically gotten about nine out of 10 of the votes of Southern blacks but since 1968 have been unable to get anywhere approaching a majority of white voters in the region.
Obama’s camp hopes to change that by signing up unregistered voters, the Times reported, adding that the strategy relies on significantly increasing black registration and turnout.
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