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Editor's Note A Crisis Without ManagementThe numbers are shocking. According to a new study by the Community Service Society, just 52 percent of New York City’s black males between the ages of 16 and 64 were employed in 2003. Compare that to the rates in the same age group for white (76 percent) and Latino (66 percent) males, and the term crisis comes to mind. Throw in the fact that only 57 percent of black women in the same age range are employed, and even the word epidemic seems too mild a description of the current state of poverty in black America. So what’s being done? Who’s speaking out? Where do populations of color fit in terms of the city’s current patterns of growth? Does Mayor Bloomberg have a plan to address poverty in the city? Sometimes, the answers are more important than the questions. Here, briefly, are three possible initial remedies: 1) Renew affirmative action programs across the city. Among other things, what the report by the Community Service Society shows— once again—is that, left to their own preferences, private employers will reinforce existing patterns of discrimination, not break them down. So the choice is simple: the city both demands that, and creates strong incentives for, employers to hire people of color, or the ranks of the unemployed in black America will continue to grow. 2) Invest public money in public works projects. One of FDR’s first acts to overcome the Depression was to create the Civilian Conservation Corps, which put the unemployed from urban areas to work in rural areas. How about a City Conservation Corps, which puts the unemployed to work at home, repairing streets and parks, and building schools, across the city? Paying real wages, of course, would help boost local businesses, and in general create more tax revenue for the city. 3) Stop pushing for two-tiered wage and benefit systems from the city’s public sector unions. The public sector has historically been one of the few avenues of advancement into middle class stability for the city’s populations of color. Politicians and labor officials who sellout the next generation of workers thus need to be held accountable. Obviously, there’s about a zillion other things that need to be done, in terms of education, job training, the shattering of glass ceilings, and so on. But right now, all we’re getting from the Mayor in terms of economic vision is stadiums from downtown Brooklyn to the west side of Manhattan. Such projects promise to create a relatively small number of long-term jobs, mostly at the lower end of the service sector. They also utilize public funds that could be used to subsidize more long-term growth, in high-tech, manufacturing and other areas. Will a rising tide lift all boats? The Community Service Society report’s author Mark Levitan, for one, fears that that problem of black unemployment is "more deeply structural." What this suggests is that the remedies must begin with government action. Rather than building stadiums, perhaps the Mayor should start figuring out how to create level playing fields. —T. Hamm Table of Contents LOCAL Jobs and Traffic: What Ikea Would Bring to Brooklyn by Richard Myers Sunday at Freddy’s: A Neighborhood Pulls Out All the Stops by Brian J. Carreira The RNC and the Melting Pot by Patrick Mulvaney Harlem: Where the City’s Waste Flows Upstream by Jacquelene Acevedo New Skool Journalism: From the County of Kings to the County of Queens EXPRESS "The President is Not a 'Moron'..." by Theodore Hamm Rev. Al’s Scampaign by Norman Kelley Meet the Shia— They could make or break the future of Iraq by Rob Eshelman Army’s V Corps Band Rocks Marines by Sgt. Troy Chatwin Echoes of Chicago ’68? Gearing up for the RNC by Nazgol Ghandnoosh The John Kerry Story: How a War Hero Did, or Did Not, Win the Election by Theodore Hamm SPOTLIGHT in conversation: Creating Peaceful Tomorrows David Potorti with Mridu Chandra ART Artseen: Umberto Boccioni at the Guggenheim by Jim Long Kim Jones at Pierogi by Joan Waltemath Brian Jungen at Triple Candie by Stephie Buhmann Steven Thompson at Kenny Schachter ConTEMPorary by Katie Stone Large Dudes at The Wrong Gallery by William Powhida Marco Breuer at Von Lintel by Farrah Karapetian Jean Lowe Empire Style at McKenzie Fine Art by Stephie Buhmann The Neon Forest is My Home at *sixtyseven by William Powhida Sharon Core at Bellwether by Christopher Howard Cynthia Hartling at N3 Projects by James Kalm Peter Beste at Riviera by Sonya Shrier Mary Hambleton at Littlejohn (also see interview below) by Ben La Rocco in converstion: Mary Hambleton with Ron Janowich Adam Simon at Art Moving by Ben La Rocco John Duff at Knoedler & Company by Tomassio Longhi Triple Alliance: de Chirico, Picabia, Warhol at Sperone Westwater by Robert C. Morgan Outlaw Printmakers and Andrew Kearney by Jill Conner Lee Lozano: Drawn From Life 1961–1971 by Nick Stillman in conversation: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov with Delia Bajo and Brainard Carey Williamsburg Goes to The Whitney Biennial by Ellen Pearlman In Memoriam— Pierogi’s Berry BOOKS in conversation: Ben Greenman with Darin Strauss Hanif Kureishi’s The Body by Hirsh Sawhney Off The Shelves: Flanders, Bushwomen; Meyers, Somerset Maugham; Shapiro, A Burning Interior reviewed by Bookstaff MUSIC Jon Brion’s Unpopular Pop by Robert Y. Rabiee All Cage All the Time by Ellen Pearlman Johnny Greenwood: Bodysong by Todd Simmons THEATER Foreman Gets Political by David Kilpatrick March into Spring Theater by Emily DeVoti excerpt: from Roar by Betty Shamieh DANCE in conversation: Stephen Petronio with Vanessa Manko Still/There by mj thompson Reviews: Hay, Monte, BAX, Tanowitz by Jessica Weiss Dancing on the Rail by Vanessa Manko FILM Waters’s Formative Years: 1964–68 by Nick Stillman English for Beginners by Lisa Rosman Hair Snarl: the Aesthetic Body in the Order of Things by Caroline Koebel Hollywood Out of NYC! The 11th New York Underground Film Festival Millennium Mambo Boogie by Douglas Singleton TRACKS The Many Meanings of Mardi Gras by Andrew G. Wood FICTION This Is It by Will Fleming The Revenants by Colleen Quinn New York, from Testaments by Paul Perilli excerpt: Ingrid Caven A Novel by Jean-Jacques Schuhl POETRY 32 Lbs. of Head (a collective) excerpt: This Window Makes Me Feel by Robert Fitterman Letters; Three Songs for Vija Celmins by Mary Donnelly LAST WORDS 9 To 5-7-5: Office Haikus by Annonie Mouse; photos by Phil Toledano |
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The Rail invites you to a reading with Jason Flores-Williams and Brian Carreira, along with musical guest Steve Strunsky of the Lonesome Prairie Dogs. Thurs., Sept. 22, 8:30 p.m. Vox Pop--Flatbush, Brooklyn www.voxpop.net |
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OFF THE RAIL FALL 2005 at the Central Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library - Grand Army Plaza |
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The Independent Press Association-NY recently honored The Brooklyn Rail with the following awards: |