COMMENTARY: Arlene Holt Baker

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.lasentinel.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=796&Itemid=107

Written by Arlene Hold Baker, on 24-01-2008 11:46

Forty years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood in Memphis before striking sanitation workers and described what the struggle against starvation wages, the struggle for justice and the struggle for equality meant for America’s present and future. He had come to Memphis to support the sanitation workers who were struggling to get a union. King knew an economic struggle for equality was key to the success of the civil rights movement. In 1961, he told the AFL-CIO convention that “when the Negro wins, labor wins.” That is just as true now as then.

Since King’s death, we’ve seen the Civil Rights Act implemented, schools desegregated and a march toward equality. There’s no question that America in 2008 is in a whole different place for racial equality than when King was shot in 1968. Yet we have a long way to go to achieve King’s dream of equality. Today’s generation faces new struggles for social justice and economic equality. And while a less-than-fair economy impacts all working people struggling to make ends meet, people of color are particularly hard hit.

Look at health care. Forty seven million Americans are without health care coverage. That number doesn’t even include the number of Americans underinsured, those who have health insurance but still can’t get the medical help they need.

Among African Americans, the news is worse. African Americans are more than twice as likely to die of diabetes and 25 percent more likely to die of cancer than white Americans. And President Bush’s repeated vetoes of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is even more offensive when we consider this: African Americans are more likely to be covered through public health insurance programs like SCHIP.

Meanwhile, the economy is simply not working. In poll after poll, people cite it as their number one concern—above even the war in Iraq. And it’s no wonder. Household income is down almost one thousand dollars since 2000.

In another example of massive economic inequality among races, according to the Census Bureau, the average African American household income was twenty thousand dollars less than white households. There is a 27 percent gap between African Americans and whites in home ownership. And now the mortgage crisis not only makes it difficult to buy a house, but to keep one too.

FULL article at link.