New book examines the historical mechanisms behind residential exploitation

February 24, 2010 at 3:31 pm | In housing, neighborhoods, new books, race, reading list, what to read | Leave a Comment

Rutgers University History Professor Beryl Satter, highlights the financial mechanisms of residential segregation in her new book, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America.  The daughter of Mark Satter, a Chicago lawyer who uncovered redlining tactics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Satter highlights the history that is buried in the minds of so many Chicago families, especially hers.  Placing the story of a young African American couple, Albert and Sallie Bolton, at the center of the book, Satter provides personal examples of the hardship endured by African Americans during the Great Migration. The book goes into depth about contract selling, the practice in which landlords sold African Americans overpriced homes, kept the titles until black homeowners paid them off, and charged excessive interest rates to insure they never could. Contract selling cost thousands of migrating blacks their livelihoods and solidified many of the economic disparities in housing and access to credit that social scientists are working to understand today.

New edition of “Human Services as Complex Organizations” released

December 18, 2009 at 4:39 pm | In amenities, job centers, new books, non-profits, poverty, race, social service agencies, welfare offices, what to read | Leave a Comment

Sociologist and social welfare scholar Yeheskel Hasenfeld has recently published a new edition of his seminal volume, Human Services as Complex Organizations. This comprehensive and state-of-the-art collection on human service organizations weaves the latest theoretical and empirical studies in macro theory with contemporary examples from hospitals, schools, social service organizations, mental health centers, and public welfare agencies. Blending theory with application, this outstanding anthology highlights the moral choices and accomplishments made by human service organizations. University of Michigan Professor Emerius Mayer Zald writes, “Hasenfeld has done it again. An excellent collection of essays on many of the most important trends and issues involving human service organizations.” The volume features essays from urbanorgs.org members Celeste Watkins-Hayes, Evelyn Brodkin, Stephen R. Smith, Jodi Sandfort and many others.

Continuing the role model debate

December 16, 2009 at 3:33 pm | In non-profits, race, social organization, youth | Leave a Comment
Tags:

Around the country, African American males are still feeling empowered by President Obama’s election, believing that the Head of State affects change through legislation and by serving as a powerful role model.

But he may also be serving as an inspiration for renewed community engagement and connection through non-profit organizations.

Three of the nation’s largest black fraternities have formed a partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. The fraternities — Omega Psi Phi, Alpha Phi Alpha and Kappa Alpha Psi — recently held a summit in Atlanta, Georgia to decide how to recruit more black men as mentors.

The number of black men volunteering at Big Brothers Big Sisters has increased. About 800 more African-American men have become big brothers since Obama’s election, compared with the same time last year, a group spokeswoman says.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” David Miller, co-founder of the Urban Leadership Institute in Baltimore, Maryland said of the President’s impact on civic engagement among black men.

Black men cite President Obama’s choice not to use his struggles as excuses as inspiration do the same. A year later, his speech calling men to step up still echoes for many as they explore ways to reach the country’s youth. Existing community organizations serve as the conduit through which to get involved.

To read more on CNN about the connection between the increased in mentoring among Black men, President Obama, and developing partnerships between civic organizations, please click here.

Breast cancer as an ethnic variable

October 28, 2009 at 4:27 pm | In breast cancer, health, neighborhoods, race | Leave a Comment

Graph depicting breast cancer mortality in Black- vs. White-majority Chicago neighborhoods
Over time, the number of women dying from breast cancer has decreased. While there is no cure, early detection, mammography, and treatment have made breast cancer survivable. A diagnosis is no longer a death sentence—though that edict may not ring true for all.

Although breast cancer prevalence is higher in Chicago’s White female population, mortality rates of Black women are significantly higher. In light of research on the topic in 2005, WBEZ’s Gabriel Spitzer spoke to survivors and surgeons, experts and advocates, to bring us the series, Twice as Deadly: Chicago’s Race Gap in Breast Cancer Survival.

While some cite genetic predisposition, Steven Whitman’s (Sinai Urban Health Institute) research links the disease to Chicago’s social fabric. Whitman’s research argues that Black women have less access to screening and treatment, the very things that make breast cancer beatable.

African American women seek mammograms at lower rates and are diagnosed in later stages, significantly decreasing their chances for survival. Additionally, facilities providing mammograms in largely-Black neighborhoods are rare. Those in existence are expensive, and their machines are often old or broken.

It’s a domino effect of barriers:

Black women die from breast cancer at high rates…

Because they don’t catch their cancer in the early stages…

Because they don’t get mammograms…

Because they can’t afford the costs of the procedure or transportation to facilities offering free services is inconvenient…

Because they have low incomes.

We are aware how variable economic, social, and geographical barriers impact health, but access and quality should not be rogue variables.

An institutional problem in Boston area police departments?

July 31, 2009 at 10:35 am | In police, prison system, race | Leave a Comment

Just as the controversy over the arrest of black scholar Herny L. Gates at his Cambridge home by a white police officer appeared to be nearing an end, a Boston police officer has written a letter to the Boston Globe comparing Gates (multiple times) to a “jungle monkey”: “If I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance. “  Officer Justin Barrett has been suspended; he insists he is not a racist.   (Barrett’s lawyer explains that his client’s comparison would have been “much less offensive, if [his client had] used a different species of animal.”  [!])  Mayor Menino wants him fired.  Watch the NECN report, via boston.com.  Is this a free speech issue?  Is it evidence of an institutional problem in Boston area police departments?  As the Boston Globe reports, detective Larry Ellison, president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers,  points to multiple incidents, including that of a white officer who posted an article, “Slavery: Best Thing that Ever Happened to Blacks.”  For more on police department culture, see the blog of sociologist and police officer Peter Moskos .

barrett

Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.