7822: Preachable Moment.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Sherrod controversy misses real message

By Jesse Jackson

Shirley Sherrod was pushed out and then invited back, as the administration realized that the right-wing attack on her was unfounded. But even the offer of a job gets it wrong. Shirley Sherrod is a freedom fighter. She’s not looking for a job, she cares about justice.

An edited video clip from a conservative blogger suggested that Sherrod, a former Department of Agriculture official who is black, denied a white farmer aid. The speech, when viewed in full, shows the opposite. Her mistreatment has occasioned another round of commentary about African-Americans and the White House.

But Sherrod would want that discussion to turn to what is happening to poor and working people, particularly people of color.

Americans are suffering through a Great Recession, but African-Americans and Hispanics are living—in terms of employment—in a crisis more like the Great Depression of 1929.

Unemployment is over 9.5 percent generally, but nearly 16 percent for African-Americans and 13 percent for Hispanics. Disparities in Illinois are even greater: In the fall of 2009, white unemployment in Illinois was at 8.9 percent, but a staggering 18.6 percent of African-Americans were unemployed. Long-term unemployment is setting new records, as a lot of the jobs are not coming back.

Get underneath the top lines and the scope of the catastrophe becomes clearer. A new survey by the Pew Research Center begins to tell the tale.

For example, more than 9 percent are unemployed, but the survey shows that during the 30-month economic downturn, more than half of adults in the labor force have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers. African-American workers fared twice as bad as whites.

These realities have devastating effects on black households that have little family wealth or savings to fall back on. Loss of a job or a cut in hours produces increased credit card debt, late mortgage and bill payments and taps retirement savings. Nearly one in five blacks and Hispanics say that they don’t have enough income to meet their basic expenses. Hunger is growing; medical bills can’t be paid.

The effects are particularly brutal on the rising middle class families in black and Hispanic communities, the ones who have worked hard and have been making their way. The University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research published a preliminary report showing that while the median wealth of white households dropped 9 percent in the Great Recession, that of Hispanic households plummeted 52 percent and blacks 30 percent. The Pew analysts suggest that blacks and Hispanics suffered disproportionate job loss, and they were the most exposed to subprime mortgages and home foreclosures.

But again, it isn’t just those who lose their homes feeling the effects. Some 48 percent of all homeowners report that their homes have lost value. One in five homes with a mortgage is “under water”—worth less than what is owed on the mortgage. Here blacks and Hispanics—who had been targeted by subprime mortgage lenders—are in the worst shape, with 35 percent of black homeowners and 41 percent of Hispanic homeowners under water.

It isn’t surprising that the Great Recession would have disproportionate effects on blacks and Hispanics. Lower-income workers suffer more than the wealthy, because they have fewer reserves to call on.

But that means that relief programs have to target the disproportionate effects. Mortgage relief may not reach many in much of the Midwest, where there was no housing boom. But in Nevada, where one of two homes with mortgages is under water, a program that works is essential to economic revival. Similarly, with staggering mass youth unemployment, we need direct jobs programs to put people to work.

As the panic around Sherrod revealed, this administration bends over backward to ensure that it is not seen as favoring African-Americans. But we don’t clean up the Pacific coast when the oil spill is on the Gulf of Mexico.