From"The Christian Science Moniter": Fiscal Cliff 101

'Fiscal cliff' 101: 5 basic questions answered - That seems like a lot of things to happen at once. Where did it all come from? - CSMonitor.com

Welcoming Michigan Initiative: Immigrant Impact

Published in August 2010, the Global Detroit Study provides evidence on the significant impact immigrants have on Michigan’s economy and how we can keep growing our immigrant population. Reviewing the study on the heels of the presidential election, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the popular catchphrase that I heard so much during the campaigns: “We are a nation of immigrants”. In the case of our chugging national economic situation, “we are a nation of immigrants that needs immigrants”—especially in southeast Michigan.

The study’s “Michigan Immigrants Fact Sheet” is a great set of talking points for anyone looking to make the case for immigrants on an economic, rather than altruistic, basis:

• Between ’96 and ’07, Michigan’s foreign-born were more than three times as likely as US-born residents to start new businesses.
• Between ’90 and ’05, Michigan’s foreign-born were six times as likely as US-born residents to start a high-tech firm.
• If all illegal immigrants were removed from Michigan, the state would lose $3.8 billion in economic activity, $1.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 20,339 jobs.
• In ’05, Arab-American employment accounted for $7.7 billion in total earnings in the four counties of the Detroit metropolitan area, generating an estimated $554 million in state tax revenue.
• In Michigan, as of 2009, 86.6% of children with immigrant parents were considered “English proficient”.

But, sadly, despite these well foot-noted, factual figures, I can hear the responses of those who are at least quasi anti-immigrant, “Yeah, they create businesses, and now Dearborn looks like the Middle East. The Mexicans are taking our jobs. Immigrants come here, and now forms have to be written in three languages.” In some cases, the triggers are easy to spot: different dress, different language, different alphabet, and different religion. It’s not enough that a once empty storefront is now an active business or a vacant house is now owned. The business or the house is foreign-owned because the American who owns it looks and speaks…differently. Some will say it’s about losing our national identity, but that’s a red herring. Is an American any less American if his skin color is brown or her birthplace is another country? Remember, “We’re a country of immigrants”—mostly. (American Indians have the market on being original residents).

The end result of this kind of mistrust is a divided community: US-born residents, as I’ve previously written, tend to isolate or move away. Of course, immigrant residents tend to insulate within their immigrant communities. There is some logic to this: Veteran immigrants assist new immigrants to navigate the new country. Veteran immigrants speak the same language. Immigrant communities insure the continuation of cultural traditions from the home country, and, no doubt, there is significantly less judgment. (Ah, yes, those last two items, the preservation of cultural traditions and the fear of judgment, are common ground in both the US-born and immigrant communities).

In an effort to integrate divided communities and create a more welcoming state for immigrants, the Global Detroit Study recommended and is implementing the Welcoming Michigan initiative, a part of the Welcoming America initiative. Piloted in four communities, Sterling Heights, Hamtramck, the Chadsey-Condon neighborhood in southwest Detroit, and Hartford in west Michigan, the idea is pretty simple: conduct outreach events that bring immigrants and US-born together. The events range from roundtable conversations to ethnic festivals to neighborhood clean up events to cooking classes. All events have the same goal: get US-born and foreign-born together, in the same space, so that they can develop new perceptions based on first person interactions, rather than on fear-generated rumors and stereotypes.

While I support this grassroots approach, I’m also skeptical. The attitudes I encounter seem intractable. There is a willingness to believe lies if they support what one already believes and a willingness to dismiss truth if it is contrary to what one already believes. (Case in point: Birthers). Yet, I see no other way of moving our communities forward. Those who are open-minded will be the first to attend the Welcoming Michigan events. For those who have no interest in changing their minds about immigrants, cultural exchanges will not be enticing. Yet, those first participants will, hopefully, recruit others, and those others will recruit others and so on. The process of integrating mindsets is a marathon, not a sprint. 

Though, after 200 years, one would think we could have crawled past the finish line by now.

  

(On a side note: In addition to its focus on cultural exchanges of food, music, and dialogue, the Welcoming Michigan initiative might consider entrepreneurial events in which successful foreign-born entrepreneurs are partnered with would-be US-born entrepreneurs to provide insight and coaching. If a US-born resident is feeling shut out of his own community, one potential way for him to reconnect is through business ownership).

  

Sources:

“Global Detroit Study.” Global Detroit. Global Detroit, 11 Aug. 2010. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.

http://www.globaldetroit.com/resources/publications/

Mathis, Jo. “Plan for Detroit: Immigrants Bring Money.” The Bridge. The Center for Michigan, 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.

http://bridgemi.com/2011/10/plan-for-detroit-immigrants-bring-money/

“Michigan Immigrants Fact Sheet.” Welcoming Michigan. Welcoming Michigan, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.

http://welcomingmichigan.org/sites/default/files/WelcomingMichiganImmigrantFactSheet.pdf

Takers

If the information coming out of the Census Bureau isn’t convincing, the racial voting statistics from the presidential election make the issue unavoidable: If the GOP is going to win the presidency in the future, it needs to attract more minority voters—especially Hispanics. The question is how does a party which benefits from exclusionary principles become inclusive without losing its exclusivity?

The GOP as an exclusive party may be easier to understand if it is contrasted against its main rivalry, the Democratic Party. The Democrats believe in government leveling the playing field, so they support programs that benefit low-income people and minorities. It's the principle of inclusion: If one does well, all do well. I know that can sound a bit Pollyanna-ish, but, for the sake of brevity, I think it works. On the other hand, Republicans believe that the playing field starts out level for everyone--whether white, poor, minority, or rich. Therefore, everyone should succeed solely on their own merits. Republicans see themselves as, in a word, earners. The Democrats are takers or supporters of takers. It’s the exclusionary principle of zero-sum: If others win, it’s at our expense.

Nowhere is this idea better illustrated than in Mitt Romney's own words: 

There are 47%...who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims…who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing…And they will vote for this president no matter what….I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives (Romney).

He is describing the antithesis of the Republican Party: "victims", "entitled", lack of "personal responsibility". Though he never says "low-income" or "poor", there is no doubt that those are the people he is describing: Takers are low-income people who receive government benefits. (Side note: The 47% is more like 50%, and, for the most part, they are low-income working families and seniors who are benefiting from the tax code just as the 1% do (Pugh)).

It's not only the poor who are takers; minorities are takers as well. During election night coverage, Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, elaborated on Romney’s point about the 47%:

It’s a changing country. The demographics are changing. It’s not a traditional America anymore. And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things, and who’s going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it, and he ran on it. And, whereby, 20 years ago, President Obama would’ve been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney, the white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that this economic system is stacked against them, and they want stuff. You’re gonna see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama, overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things, and which candidate between the two is going to give them things (O’Reilly)?

O’Reilly doesn’t exactly make clear what things women, blacks, and Hispanics will want, but he doesn’t have to. Anyone watching the Republican Party knows: abortions, government benefits, and green cards. The words may be harsh, but they are honest and generally believed by Republicans: Minorities are takers.

In another example of this minorities-as-takers thinking, right-wing news outlets have reported with disdain on the United States Department of Agriculture's "Reaching Low-Income Hispanics with Nutrition Assistance" program which is an offshoot of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Started under President George W. Bush, the program is designed to educate legal Mexican immigrants to the United States about food benefits for which they qualify. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is spearheading an effort to overhaul SNAP and says, "An immigration policy should seek to bring people to the United States who will be able to function independently without government subsidies" (May).

Disturbing as it is, the Republican view that 50% of the American populace is made up of low-income people and minorities who suck off the teat of society and contribute nothing back is exactly what makes the party exclusive…and losing. (Never mind that some of those 50% count themselves as Republicans). The party will have to disentangle “the taker” from minorities which means distancing itself from a tool which, in recent years, has worked well: white fear. 

Recently, Chris Hayes, MSNBC host of Up with Chris Hayes claimed that racism is a Republican, not a Democratic, characteristic, and he was proven wrong. Results from the 2008 American National Election Study show that the percentage of racists in both parties is about the same (Sides and Tabarrok). Yet, Hayes’ comment is not without a kernel of truth: “Appealing to white resentment of minorities is an important part of the Republican brand in a way it’s not for Democrats, even if plenty of racists still inhabit the Democratic Party” (Drum “No, Republicans”). Even inside the Republican Party, this bigotry is acknowledged. Journalist and conservative Bernie Goldberg told Bill O'Reilly, "There is a strain of bigotry...running through conservative America" (Drum “Bernie”). 

White fear is no longer useful, though. Mitt Romney took 59% of the white vote to little effect (“Race”). It’s time for the Grand Old Party to highlight its sameness with the Other. Texas’ first Latino senator, Ted Cruz, believes the Republican Party can win over Hispanics by appealing to them as a hard-working, prideful lot who are intimately tied to their religions: “[Hispanics] have conservative values. Hispanics don’t want to be on the dole” (Lizza 55). Generally, the GOP’s traditional social values (anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage) align with those of black and Hispanic ethnic groups. Indeed, if the 2008 California referendum on gay marriage is any indication, this approach could work quite well.

While it would be refreshing to see minorities far more evenly distributed among the parties, the idea of the rise of another “moral majority” (remember the explanations for Bush’s reelection in 2004?) is frightening. Yet, with this last election’s overwhelming support for gay marriage and ousting of Republican men saying ridiculous things about rape, it’s not clear that gays and pro-choicers are scary enough “takers”. But, then, there are always low-income people: Those who would seek to manipulate the tax system just so they can pay for groceries and rent.  

Sources:

 “2008 Time Series Study.” The American National Election Studies (ANES). ANES. ANES, 11 May 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.  http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/2008prepost/2008prepost.htm

Drum, Kevin. “Bernie Goldberg on Conservative Bigotry.” Mother Jones. Mother Jones, 08 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/bernie-goldberg-conservative-bigotry

Drum, Kevin. “No, Republicans Don’t Have a Lock on Racism, but…” Mother Jones. Mother Jones, 22 Aug. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/08/no-republicans-dont-have-lock-racism

Joe. “A Racially Polarized Country: White Men Lose One.” Racism Review. Racism Review, 08 Nov. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2012/11/08/a-racially-polarized-country-white-men-lose-one/

Joe. “White Voters Overwhelmingly for Romney: No Post-Racial America.” Racism Review. Racism Review, 04 Nov. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2012/11/04/white-voters-overwhelmingly-for-romney-no-post-racial-america/

Lizza, Ryan. “The Party Next Time.” The New Yorker. 19 Nov. 2012: 50-57. Print.

May, Caroline. “USDA Partnering with Mexico to Boost Food Stamp Participation.” The Daily Caller. The Daily Caller, 19 Jul 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/19/usda-partnering-with-mexico-to-boost-food-stamp-participation/

O’Reilly, Bill. “It’s Not a Traditional America Anymore.” YouTube. YouTube, 6 Nov. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFJH8mY-UyI

Pugh, Tony. “Romney’s ’47 Percent’—Here’s Who’s Actually Not Paying Federal Taxes and Why.” McClatchy. McClatchy. 18 Sept. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/18/168914/romneys-47-percent-heres-whos.html

“Race and Results.” CNN. CNN, 15 Nov. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president#exit-polls

Roberts, Sam. “Projections Put Whites in Minority in US by 2050.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Dec. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/us/18census.html?_r=0

Romney, Mitt. “Mitt Romney’s ‘47 Percent’ Comments.” YouTube. YouTube. 18 Sept. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2gvY2wqI7M

Sides, John. “Are Racists Only in One Political Party?” The Monkey Cage. The MonkeyCage, 19 Aug. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/08/19/are-racists-only-in-one-political-party/

Tabarrok, Alex. “Racism by Political Party.” Marginal Revolution. Marginal Revolution, 19 Aug. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/08/racism-by-political-party.html

Vick, Karl and Ashley Surdin. “Most of California’s Black Voters Backed Gay Marriage Ban.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 07 Nov. 2008. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603880.html

Shopping for an Identity: Color Options

Last weekend, I went birthday gift shopping for a four year old girl. I had decided that this was the perfect opportunity for me to purchase those cool, pink Legos. Yes, until writing this post, I liked those pink Legos. It was refreshing to add pinks and purples to the existing primary color landscape. I especially liked the set titled “Olivia’s Invention Workshop” which prominently displays a chalkboard with mathematical calculations scribbled on it. It screamed: Smart and feminine in what is still very much a man’s world.

As I re-read my first draft of this post, though, I got stuck on the word “feminine” in the statement above. Everything else I had written in the post was supposed to suggest that pink did not have to be a girl’s color, but, clearly, I had bought into it as such. “Olivia’s Invention Workshop” was feminine because the color of the packaging was pink.

In 2007, a study concluded that adult women seemed to favor pink. It was theorized that this preference might be genetically built in, so our women gatherer ancestors could easily spot colorful fruits (Choi). In 2011, other researchers studied babies and found that girls’ preference for pink and boys’ dislike of it do not begin until about age 2 ½ (Jarrett). Whether nature, nurture, or both, there is no doubt that in 2012 America, a boy swinging a purple bat will be teased. Boys come to know, almost instinctually, that pink is a “girl’s” color because they only ever see it in two places: the Crayola box and girls clothing (Ralph Lauren notwithstanding).

Why can’t we open up the entire color palette to both boys and girls? Why is it that Lego decided whole sets of pink and purple bricks marketed in pink boxes were better than just adding some pink and purple bricks to existing sets? Do we need the so-called girls’ version of a baseball bat? Why can’t baseball bats just have some colorful designs in a variety of colors—where pink and blue co-exist on the same bat? For toy manufacturers, dividing the genders along color lines is more lucrative (Maglaty). After all, the family with a boy and a girl will need a blue bat and a pink bat, instead of one colorful bat. But, as a society, we are limiting our boys’ imaginations when we put everything that is supposed to be interesting to them in black, brown, green, and blue. And, so long as we are separating gender by color, then girls are limited by perception. After all, when you head into a business meeting do you put on the pink suit or the blue one?

Of course, color combinations extend beyond gender. As I perused the Legos, thinking I had it right with the boyish toy in the girlish color, I realized that I’d have to select an ethnicity! At first I only saw the brown-black skin-hair combination. But the birthday girl is not visually African-American. Was it racist to think that I shouldn’t purchase the brown-black option for a girl who appears white?

Ah, but, then I saw the white-blonde skin-hair option and quickly realized that my thoughts about the brown-black option were not racist. It was just that neither of these skin-hair combinations looked like the birthday girl. In truth, I don’t know what the four year old’s ethnicity is, but her mom appeared, possibly, Hispanic.

Probably, at this point, I should have moved on to a different gift idea. But isn’t the purpose of these ethnic options not only to see our own image represented and thus know we belong, but also to see the other images as belonging as well? If that was true, then it would make sense to select one of these two options. But is this too much of a social statement to make at a four-year old’s birthday party? Ugh!

What’s this? I missed one: white-brown! There she was; the four-year old’s image on a box of pink Legos! Mission accomplished…sort of.

In all my analysis over gender and ethnicity, I barely considered price and fit. Was this Lego set worth the cost? Were Legos a good gift for this little girl that I knew almost nothing about? How fun is it, really, to build a Lego room—invention workshop or not? It’s so hard for little, four-year old hands to snap the invention tools into those clips that Lego passes for hands! This mental debate went quickly: I left the Lego aisle and headed for that mostly gender- and ethnicity-neutral safety zone: board games.

Sources:

Choi, Charles Q. “Women Hardwired to Like Pink, Study Suggests.” LiveScience. LiveScience, 20 Aug. 2007. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.  http://www.livescience.com/1820-women-hardwired-pink-study-suggests.html

Jarrett, Christian. “At What Age Do Girls Prefer Pink?” The British Psychological Society Research Digest. BPS Research Digest, 5 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2011/09/at-what-age-do-girls-prefer-pink.html

Maglaty, Jeanne. “When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?” Smithsonian. Smithsonian, 8 Apr. 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/When-Did-Girls-Start-Wearing-Pink.html?c=y&page=2

Fair Play

In my area, when houses go up for sale, there are those neighbors who are pretty honest about wanting whites to move in. And there are those who say skin color doesn’t matter, so long as they keep up the lawn. But, “keeping up the lawn” is just another way of saying, “we’ve seen the blighted, inner-city, and we don’t want that or the people who represent it in our neighborhood”. This is the racism that is so much a part of our suburbanite composition that we don’t notice it for what it is—institutionalized, through decades of zoning codes, codes of ethics, racial covenants, redlining and later, after the Fair Housing Act of 1968, through the cowardice of people in power and the machine of bureaucracy (Hannah-Jones).

These racist attitudes are not unique. Across the country, decades of institutionalized racism have perpetuated the myth of the white bastion. In her article “Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law”, Nikole Hannah-Jones asserts that the Fair Housing Act was supposed to roll back the instruments of institutionalization and “affirmatively further” housing integration, but, as anyone anywhere in the country can see, this did not happen. Cities are geographically divided along racial/ethnic and income lines. And in many white neighborhoods, a battle exists in the hearts and minds of residents who want to keep their neighborhoods white at the expense of insuring equal opportunities for the Other.

In a related article, “Soft on Segregation: How the Feds Failed to Integrate Westchester County”, Hannah-Jones analyzes the case and history of Westchester County, NY where this battle is playing out in the legal system. Sued in 2006 for falsely claiming on their HUD funding applications that they had complied with the Fair Housing Act, the county fought back and lost. According to the provisions of the 2009 settlement, the county is required, over seven years, to build 750 affordable housing units in its “whitest jurisdictions” and to market that housing to blacks and Latinos. So unpopular was this settlement that the County Executive who agreed to it lost his re-election bid to his competitor, Rob Astorino, whose campaign rested primarily on residents’ anger over the settlement. Nearly four years after the settlement, Westchester remains non-compliant with its provisions.

Astorino argued that “the issue is about class, not race. ‘I would love to live in Chappaqua next to the Clintons or Governor Cuomo, but I don’t have the economic means to do it’” (Hannah-Jones, “Soft on Segregation”). While his county remains in violation of the Fair Housing Act, Astorino cannot admit that its housing development strategies are racist. However, his assertion that classism is more defensible than racism is ludicrous. As Hannah-Jones notes, “the connection between race and class can be nearly inextricable, particularly when certain zoning requirements—called ‘exclusionary zoning’ by fair-housing advocates—are present.”

Over the years, the white, homogenous-leaning suburbanites I have spoken with think that success is a matter of perseverance. They think that, were they themselves born into similar circumstances as those in poor, black neighborhoods, they would work hard and climb out of poverty to the position they are in today. They want to continue reaping the benefits of institutionalized racism, but they don’t want to admit that it is what has allowed them to live in the safe and well-tended neighborhoods they don’t want to share with the Other: “More than 20 years of research has implicated residential segregation in virtually every aspect of racial inequality, from higher unemployment rates for African Americans, to poorer health care, to elevated infant mortality rates and, most of all, to inferior schools” (Hannah-Jones, "Living Apart").

Westchester and my own neighborhood, these are the norm, but there is always an exception: Montgomery County, Maryland. In 1974, against much resistance and after years of hurdles, Montgomery initiated its own affirmative housing integration plan. Today, “it remains one of the nation’s richest counties, yet segregation has fallen well below the national average” (Hannah-Jones, “Living Apart”). Why did they do this when no other county would? Joyce Siegel, the county housing commissioner at that time, said, “’We saw the segregation. It was a fairness issue—that one part of the county wasn’t going to have more affordable housing than another. We had to be fair’” (Hannah-Jones, “Living Apart”).

Fair. It’s the rule we learn from the time we’re old enough to grab the other kid’s toy. Don’t cheat. Everybody gets a turn, then we all win.

Sources

Hannah-Jones, Nikole. “Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law.” ProPublica. ProPublica, 29 Oct. 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2012. http://www.propublica.org/article/living-apart-how-the-government-betrayed-a-landmark-civil-rights-law

Hannah-Jones, Nikole. “Soft on Segregation: How the Feds Failed to Integrate Westchester County.” ProPublica. ProPublica, 2 Nov. 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2012. http://www.propublica.org/article/soft-on-segregation-how-the-feds-failed-to-integrate-westchester-county

Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1996. Print.