BlackAmericaWeb blogger Tonyaa Weathersbee writes that with an unemployment rate of 13.8 percent, blacks in America face a bleak economic landscape. And jobs that once paved the way to the middle class are being replaced by technology.
… Black unemployment is at 13.8 percent — nearly double that of whites. According to The Washington Post, a group of scholars who convened at Howard University recently basically said that the recovery is passing black people by; the black-white wealth disparity is 20 to 1 and fewer blacks own homes.
Some of the scholars said that targeted, large scale efforts, like public jobs programs, are needed to combat persistent black unemployment. Others said that institutional racism remains a problem for most black people when it comes to getting jobs.
Me, I think the problem is a lot more complicated than that. And unless we grasp what much of the real problem is — job-killing technological advances — then it's bound to worsen in a big way.
The Associated Press just completed an investigation that was enlightening as much as it was depressing. What it found was that millions of middle-class jobs — think store sales clerks, meter readers and assembly line workers — are being replaced by technology.
Read Tonyaa Weathersbee's entire piece at BlackAmericaWeb.
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