Where the Research Meets the Road

By Matthew Martin, GIS/Planning Specialist at the Kirwan Institute

Since I began working as a planning and GIS research analyst with the Kirwan Institute back in January, I have been eager to direct my experience and educational background towards issues of social justice. I enjoy the ability to carry out my personal concerns and convictions with utility in my job, and I continually strive to produce work that means something to the world in which we live. But it wasn’t long after I began my current position that I started recognizing the disconnect between my professional aspirations and my personal experiences. My walks and bus rides to and from work each day often contained encounters with homeless folks asking for money, or with young boys seemingly concerned only with emulating the gangster culture they find in much of modern hip-hop. The stories my wife would bring home from the urban hospital in which she works often seemed to confirm the worst stereotypes of the communities whom I spend my days researching. For a while, this created a frustrating paradox in which I longed to make a difference, but ended up feeling as though such effort was futile.

I started going to a local recreation center in my community, because in addition to its convenient location and affordability, I need to get into better shape. But as I became more familiar with the hard-working folks employed there, as well as some of the kids who hang out there regularly, I have been reminded that the face of laziness and solicitation that we often encounter in the public squares does not accurately represent the reality of much of the urban poor. Building relationships with poor folks through my local church has also allowed me to see some of the extreme circumstances experienced by regular people.

What I’m learning then, is that you can’t just be content to read articles or make maps about poverty and race, nor can you be satisfied with giving a dollar and a warm greeting to whoever asks on the sidewalk. I’m finding that although it takes a lot of initiative and costs some comfort, what I really need to do is go to places where I can forge relationships with real people. This provides the helpful benefit of rounding out my personal knowledge of my ‘research subjects’, but the even greater value of learning about people in a much more intangible and intimate way, and learning from people with different cultural and experiential backgrounds than my own. I may not feel cool enough to play basketball with the other boys at the rec center yet, but as with any group of people, over time, trust and friendship can be gained, and that’s where the research meets the road.

Stained-Glass

By Tami Newberry, Summer Intern at Kirwan Institute


How inspiring a sight. A complex mosaic of art. The rainbow split into individual colors masterfully arranged to create a scene. Each color “stained”, not the colorless glass of ordinary windows. And this is what catches our eye, the colors, and the way that the light shines through them. As these works are revered, they are placed high above us in grand buildings. Long beams of color cascade down, they too, being a sign full of awe. A curious hand may even reach up to the falling beams to let the colors weightlessly rest upon it. Children laugh and run with arms open wide through them.

The mosaic is complex in form and structure. It is beautiful because of the array of colors and how they are woven around and amongst each other. Each color is a vital part of the entire. It would no longer be beautiful if it were all a single color. And yet, we call them stained glass. They each are colored by different minerals to give them their own glow. Yet, does any one deny that any given color is less glass-like than another. Less pure, less worthy, less beautiful.

Stained-glass windows are truly beautiful when all of the pieces are radiating with light from above. Each one is a different unique composition in which we seek to see their individuality and uniqueness.

So, I have lofty ambitions. To be able to create an American perspective as grand as the mosaics of stained-glass. To create a composite which is greater than its individual parts. To appreciate each color for how it colors the world. To let each color radiate among the other colors.

Let’s evolve as a nation which has been color-blind only seeing shades of black and white and grey. Our diversity, like that of the colors in a stained-glass window, is an asset.

Let the light shine in.

Image source: http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb294/slumberproject/?action=view&current=Picture031.jpg&evt=user_media_share

A Slice of Suburbia

By Michelle Alexander, Associate professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law with a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute

“What are all those colored kids doing in the swimming pool?” I thought to myself as I struggled to juggle my 2-year old toddler in one arm and a giant bag of towels in the other, while my 4 year-old and 6 year-old dashed toward the pool, shedding clothing en route and shrieking in delight. I paused for a moment and surveyed the scene. More than a third of the kids in the pool were African American, playing happily with their white friends and neighbors, as well as a couple of Asian American and Latino kids. Could our neighborhood really be this racially diverse? Apparently, the answer is yes.

I spent most of my childhood in all-white or nearly all-white neighborhoods. When I became old enough to cast judgment on my parents for their child-rearing decisions, I swore I would never inflict a similar fate on my own children. How could they put a black child in an all-white school? What were they thinking? More than once, I ranted at them in self-righteous indignation, insisting I would never do such a thing to my own children.

Once I became a parent, though, I found myself facing the same difficult choices my parents had agonized over decades earlier. I could live in a racially diverse or all-black neighborhood, but I’d have to worry about the quality of the schools. On the other hand, I could live in a white neighborhood and worry about the quality of my children’s social and cultural experiences. Which would I choose? Good schools or racial diversity? As it turns out, I got lucky.

The neighborhood I live in today did not exist a decade ago. As new suburbs have sprouted up around urban centers, and racial and ethnic minorities have begun to venture outside city limits, an interesting phenomenon has begun to unfold. Neighborhoods and schools in formerly white suburbs are beginning to integrate. The Pew Hispanic Center recently reported that the student population of America’s suburban schools has shot up by 3.4 million in the past decade and a half, and virtually all of the increase (99 percent) has been due to the enrollment of black, Latino, and Asian students. In 2006-07, suburban school districts educated a student population that was more than 40 percent non-white, up from 28 percent in 1993-94.

In my neighborhood, it is a joy to look out my kitchen window and see black and white kids playing together, running through each other’s backyards, and going in and out of each other’s houses freely. During the summer, all the neighborhood kids tend to convene around 5:30 p.m. in someone’s backyard and play together until sundown. They seem utterly unaware of how unique and special their racially integrated experience is.

I wish it were that simple. The picture in our backyard obscures a more complicated reality. As the Pew report indicates, although minority enrollment has shot up in suburban school districts, there has been only a modest increase at the level of the individual suburban school. Our immediate neighborhood happens to be well integrated, but my oldest daughter was the only black girl in her kindergarten class last year. The broader community still has a long, long way to go.

Stuff Your Sorries in a Sack, Mister!

By Charles Patton, Graduate Research Associate at the Kirwan Institute

Recently the U.S. Senate voted unanimously for a resolution acknowledging "the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws."
In response to the resolution, Rep. Stephen I. Cohen (D-Tenn.) said, "there are going to be African Americans who think that [the apology] is not reparations, and it's not action, and there are going to be Caucasians who say, 'Get over it.' . . . I look at it as something that makes people think."

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the resolution's sponsor, said "Slavery and Jim Crow, and their continuing consequences, are not the historical baggage of one state, one region or one company. They are an enduring national shame."

So in response to both Cohen and Harkin, I ask why weren’t any thoughts on the continuing consequences of slavery and Jim Crow included in the resolution? Why didn’t they address specific topics relevant to today’s American citizen that would spark conversation? It appears that this apology has failed to spark productive conversations about race and led to nothing more than the following four comments:
“It’s about time.”
“This apology is meaningless.”
“Why can’t we get over this already?”
“They better not even think about giving reparations.”

I don’t think this is what the Senate was hoping for. To avoid these unproductive conversations, the Senate would have been better served to address the mechanisms through which slavery and Jim Crow have led to a society wrought with racial residential segregation, vast racial disparities in wealth, a prison system filled disproportionately with blacks, etc. These problems are not widely recognized or discussed by our “colorblind” nation that at times fears even publicly acknowledging the color of someone’s skin and truly believes everyone who tries hard has an equal opportunity to become successful. The aforementioned problems cannot be addressed if the majority of society doesn’t even know they exist. The Senate missed out on a great opportunity to begin a productive conversation that could have led to some real change in the racial dynamics of this country.

Overdue Overhaul

By Jillian Olinger, Graduate Research Associate at the Kirwan Institute

On June 17, President Obama laid out a plan for financial reform to protect against future financial meltdowns of the kind we have been experiencing for the past two years. The President criticized the lack of oversight and regulation, as well as the “culture of irresponsibility” that took root at both Wall Street and Main Street. In response, the President’s plan balances both demand-focused proposals, in the form of a centralized Consumer Protection Agency, with supply-focused proposals, in the form of systemic regulations. The plan recognizes that today’s global economy calls for a restructured system of oversight that can keep pace with the speed and scope of 21st century financial systems.

For consumers, the plan would not only create a new federal agency specifically to protect consumer interests related to financial products, but also mandates that financial products are transparent and comprehensible to consumers, without hidden costs. This oversight, coupled with the systemic regulations, ideally will align the products offered by the institutions with consumer needs. As Gail Hillebrand of Consumers Union noted, “Strong fair rules will reward competition to serve the customer, instead of ‘gotcha’ banking.” (ref#1)

For systemic regulations, among other things, the plan calls for Federal Reserve oversight of US institutions considered “too big to fail” to protect against future systemic failures. The plan also would create a new council of regulators to monitor risk across the system, including responsibility for increased oversight on the global financial institutions considered “too big to fail”. In addition, the plan requires that institutions retain a greater proportion of assets, thereby forcing institutions to retain some risk. For example, institutions that package mortgage-backed securities would be required to retain at least 5% of mortgages to encourage more responsible lending. (ref #2)

The proposal addresses both the failures of risk management and responsibility exhibited by the financial industry, and the failure of consumer protection. In an interview on News Hour, Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner pointed out that “In the financial sector, the financial markets require well-designed regulation. We did not have well-designed regulation…So our job is to get those better. And it’s not going to require more of them; it’s just going to require better design, more effectively applied, more broadly applied to contain risk, protect consumers.” (ref #3)

That’s what this plan promises: a responsible, comprehensive system of checks and balances that meet the needs of a 21st c. global financial system. Whether this promise is delivered remains to be seen.

[1] Paul Solman. “How Will Regulatory Reforms Affect Consumers?” The Business Desk with Paul Solman. Online Newshour. June 18, 2009. Available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2009/06/how-will-the-regulatory-reform.html
[2] Carolyn O’Hara. “Five Things to Know About the Financial Regulatory Overhaul.” Online Newshour. June 17, 2009. Available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/business/june09/reghighlights_06-17.html
[3] Transcript. “Geithner Defends Plan for Regulatory Overhaul.” June 18, 2009. Available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june09/geithner_06-18.html