One of the important features of history is date sequences. They identify occasions of events, including place, circumstances and people involved. Here are some recent historical landmarks in the purposeful denial of jobs to Blacks in this city and state.
Historic date: April 18, 2008 — Report of Michael Jordan, then director of the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights (DCR), using 20 references to “monitoring,” “compliance with,” and “increased opportunities for MBEs [Minority Business Enterprises].” All untrue.
Historic date: August 28, 2009 — MinneapolisStory blog entry with list of 12 columns, 2005-2009, reporting incidents of noncompliance.
Historic date: June 18, 2010 — Star Tribune editorial headed, “This is one list we’d rather not top,” about the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study and testimony released to the U.S. Congress showing African Americans 3.1 times more likely than Whites to be unemployed in the metro area.
Historic date: November 3, 2010 — Since those elections, both parties have shouted the clarion call for jobs, jobs, jobs. Where are they?
Historic date: October 22, 2010 — “Diversity Study” report to the City, with 17 pages of recommendations, from NERA Economic Consultants. Key statement: “Minneapolis currently does not monitor compliance during performance. Contractor utilization is reviewed at contract closeout. This is too late to correct any deficiencies to ensure M/WBEs are treated fairly on their contracts.”
Historic date: October 27, 2010 (five days later) — on page 2A of USA Today, Living Cities Foundation press conference in Detroit announces $16 million granted to each of five cities, including Minneapolis, for the employment of the unemployed, underemployed and hard to employ. Where is it? Where did it get diverted to?
Historic date: February 24, 2011 — Publication of the letter of Dr. Samuel L. Myers, Jr. rebutting the October 22, 2011 Minneapolis “Diversity Report.” Had Dr. Meyers read my books, columns, and website, where I have thoroughly documented the purposeful job-denying economic rape of the Black community by the public and private sectors since 2002, he would not have written such an abstract letter devoid of street-level reality. (See my most recent columns, November 18 and 25 and December 8 and 15, 2010, and January 5 and 19 and February 9, 2011, archived at www.MinneapolisStory.com.)
Dr. Myers’ real goal seems to be to get the grant given to NERA, the Texas firm that conducted the study. But being in Minneapolis is not enough if you are blind to the facts and deaf to what is said by workers. Dr. Myers writes of documents that don’t exist (either shredded or never existing in the first place).
Dr. Myers seems to place the blame for defective and incomplete information at the doorstep of NERA. The reason the NERA report contains flawed information and statistics, which they admit, is because the data and information they obtained from the DCR was flawed, with made-up numbers, contract payments, payroll information and Social Security numbers that never existed.
Dr. Myers won’t acknowledge the City’s GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. He ignores the City’s refusal to follow its own regulations, and he ignores the former DCR director Michael Jordan’s public comment that major contracts under the legal custody of the DCR could be executed and completed without hiring a single Black person.
When Dr. Myers suggests there might be “discrimination against White male-owned firms via existing race-conscious programs,” he shows just how out of touch with reality he is. He joins other so-called Black leaders more focused on their next funding project than on justice and fairness.
The continued blocked unemployment of Blacks in the Twin Cities is an albatross of shame around the necks of those purposefully denying employment justice and fairness of law in the workplace. The historical timeline above reveals those in power (and those who elected them) not giving a damn. (For greater detail, see today’s blog entry on my MinneapolisStory.com website).
The DCR has moved the discussion in a different direction, away from accurate reporting and following the law. Instead, the department is proposing in its business plan to downsize and remove itself from the active field of investigations by 2014, removing the need to pretend it enforces civil rights law.
There it is, “The Plan,” out in the open, plain and simple.
So no matter how passionately Governor Mark Dayton talks about jobs for African Americans, there can be no concrete or structured plan to guarantee an opportunity in the marketplace for African Americans as long as this well-designed commitment to end civil rights enforcement holds.
More studies are not needed. We already know that any attempt to provide opportunity for meaningful economic inclusion of African Americans in the state of Minnesota is doomed to failure.
Stay tuned.
Ron hosts “Black Focus” on Channel 17, MTN-TV, Sundays, 5-6 pm and co-hosts Blog Talk Radio’s “ON POINT!” Saturdays at 5 pm, providing coverage about Black Minnesota. Order his books at www.BeaconOnTheHill.com. Hear his readings and read his solution papers and “web log” at www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
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