Obama’s Economic Recovery Overlooks Racial Inequity

Rinku Sen, president and executive director of the Applied Research Center, publisher of ColorLines magazine, and contributing author to Mandate for Change, discusses the economic crisis and racial inequality.

As one of the last strongholds of union jobs shrinks, we have to confront a brutal truth about work in the U.S. Across the economy, workers of color are overrepresented in occupations with high unemployment rates: the service sector, construction and transportation. That’s a great deal of the reason why Black workers have been hit especially hard by layoffs and closures. Losing auto industry jobs strikes a massive blow to the ability of workers, especially Black workers, to earn middle-class incomes, to save enough to pass on to their children and to achieve some financial stability.

Click here to read the article.

Does Durban II Matter?

Mandate author, Gerald LeMelle is featured on GRITtv with Laura Flanders in an interview about the Obama administration and the upcoming United Nations Conference Against Racism.

Recently, the Obama Administration announced that it would not participate in the April 2009 United Nations Conference Against Racism – a follow up meeting to the 2001 Conference in Durban, South Africa…Gerald LeMelle, Executive Director of Africa Action, discusses what really happened at the first conference and why the Obama administration’s refusal to attend this time around is troublesome.

Watch the streaming video of the interview here.

It Takes a Nation of Cowards to Prove Eric Holder Right

Mandate author, Rinku Sen examines Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent speech and the persistence of the racial divide in American society in an article for the Seminal.

Attorney General Eric Holder’s speech to Justice Department employees urging the country to suck it up and have those hard conversations about race generated the predictable accusations from the pundit crowd, both conservative and liberal. Why is he still trying to make white people feel guilty?! We just elected his boss! The media reaction largely proves Holder’s point. Rather than actually talking about the causes and consequences of our racial divide, the story has been that this speech has created the latest “controversy” for the Obama administration, starting with the AP article highlighting the “nation of cowards” quote. Apparently, there’s only room for one black man at the highest levels of government taking the nation to task on race, and that man can do it once a year at most.

Read the entire piece here.

Race In America (The Diane Rehm Show)

Mandate author, Rinku Sen appeared on The Diane Rehm Show this past Monday as part of a panel discussion on race in America.

Listen to the entire segment online here.