Recently, the New Pittsburgh Courier reported that as of Aug. 31, 53 people had become victims of homicides in Allegheny County. Out of that number, 44 were identified as African-American or Black.
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As the number of Black homicide victims continues to rise, one can’t help but wonder what, if any, relationship exists between the proliferation of murder and mayhem within the Black community and the expanding and disproportionate rate of Black unemployment.
How many of the Black and otherwise victims of homicide were unemployed? What about the known and/or possible suspected perpetrators? How many murders were the outgrowths of attempted or successful robberies, burglaries perpetrated by desperate, hopeless, unemployed and disillusioned people?
What about the drug deals gone bad? Hustlers, addicts and recreational users in dynamic and potentially deadly conflict concerning drugs, money, turf and profit margin? How many of those folks were gainfully employed?
What about the growing number of multiple murder-suicides involving families, where in the majority of cases the father/husband/boyfriend murders his spouse and children? Perhaps the end results of psychotic irrationality fueled by the sense of alienation and emasculation resulting from job loss and inability to provide for ones family? Although we live in a country in which many households feature women as sole or mutual income earners, social culture continues to place enormous pressure on men as economic providers.
Meanwhile, national, statewide and local unemployment is approximately nine percent. Many Americans have just simply stopped looking for work, having been unemployed for so long. Their unemployment benefits have long ago expired and the meager welfare subsidies they receive in the form of food stamps, medical and (possibly) cash, may not last for too much longer.
Prolonged unemployment and joblessness is an insidious social virus that eats at the heart and soul of those so affected. It creates and reinforces self-doubt, anger and internalized oppression. Compounded with structural, systemic and institutional White supremacy, the consequences can be fatal for numerous Black individuals, families and communities.
Black unemployment, in general, is somewhere between 17 percent and 18 percent, approximately double the national average. However, unemployment among African-American/Black youth is over 40 percent. Those numbers hold firm for the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County too.
I would like to first of all, thank Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and his office for maintaining some level of funding for Pittsburgh youth during this so far deadly and hot summer. Two hundred and fifty summer jobs for youth are certainly better than none.
That being said: I can’t begin to express my degree of shock, disappointment and outrage at reading in the New Pittsburgh Courier that 2011 summer youth employment was cut by 83 percent!
What type of messages are we sending to the youth of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County regarding priorities of public policy? Scholars and academics have long ago confirmed anecdotal and “street wise” research on the link between joblessness and violence. Why do we continue to ignore such research and its implications for impacting the quality of life?
Are we going to continue to allow our youth to be negatively influenced and mesmerized by the false promises of the underground drug-based ‘hustler’ economy? Drug-dealing, burglary and robbery: are these the most realistic options available for youth employment this summer?
Besides hope and prayer, there probably isn’t very much we can do to salvage the dire situation of the 2011 summer. However, we can plan for the summer of 2012 and initiate proactive leadership concerning this issue. We need to develop a Black United Fund so we can independently fund jobs for Black youth and others neglected this summer. We need to work hard to restore the funding and number of previous jobs available (1,500). We need to draw lessons from this experience and look forward to the summer of 2012.
Justice in our Lifetime.
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