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Marchers raise their fists as they make their way through Harlem to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in New York City. PHOTO: DREW ANGERER
THE REPORT
Unequal in America SUSAN MILLIGAN ONE OF THE MOST JARRING and painful numbers in America's history on race relations is threefifths. That, according to the U.S. Constitution written in 1789, was how African-American slaves were counted – as three-fifths of a person – determining population for the purpose of calculating states' representation in Congress. More than two centuries after the Constitution was penned, a century and a half since the 14th Amendment undid the so-called “three fifths compromise,” and 50 years since
the height of the modern civil rights movement, African-Americans still fall short when it comes to equality, according to a sweeping report by the Urban League. To put a number on it, African-Americans are at 72.5 percent – less than three-fourths – when it comes to achieving equality with white Americans, according to the study, which addressed economics, health, education, civic engagement and social justice. Although African-Americans are actually doing better than whites in a few subcategories – and while both races are improving in some areas even as the gap between the
two groups remains wide – the report, The State of Black America, finds that the “Equality Index” for African-American has barely moved (and in some cases, has worsened) since 2005, the first year the Urban League issued the yearly report. Movement has occurred in certain aspects of African-Americans' lives, such as education and health, experts in the field say. But entrenched financial disparities have made it hard for African-Americans to catch up economically, they say. “There are all these rags-toriches stories,” but “wealth is not accumulated in a single generation.
Wealth is accumulated – mostly over several generations,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League. “It’s not a small thing; it's a big thing. It’s the most difficult element of race that's never really talked about.” The Equality Index, for example, showed that on factors related to education, African-Americans were at 78.5 percent equality – an equation determined by assessing various education metrics, such as access to good schools, graduation rates and test scores, and comparing it to a benchmark of what those factors are for white Americans. For health (which looked at illnesses, death rates and access to health care), the number was 79.3 percent. For civic engagement (voting, military service, government employment), blacks are at nearparity, 99.7 percent. Social justice (which includes incarceration rates and equality before the law) was calculated to be 55.9 percent. But economics – what is often used to assess a disenfranchised or struggling group's progress in achieving equal standing in society – is nearly as low, clocking in at 58.2 percent. The number (barely changed from last year) reveals the difficulty African-Americans, as a group, have in climbing the economic ladder in America, experts say. And it shows that even better access to healthcare and education – both of which public policy specialists consider essential to improving one’s economic status – can't erase the disadvantage of having little or no wealth to start with. “All of these narratives about working hard and having financial literacy – when it comes to wealth, they have less efficacy,” said Darrick Hamilton, professor of economics and urban policy at The New School in New York. "Wealth becomes the most dramatic indicator of equality. It’s persistent and dramatic,” said Hamilton, who has
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