Who really wants to close the gap?

By Shannon Gibney
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 1/11/2006

Online at http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/news/Article/
Article.asp?NewsID=65227&sID=4

The second part of this report is available online at
http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/news/Article/
Article.asp?NewsID=65445&sID=4

Some doubt that those behind a study on local disparities of race, class and place are prepared to do what's necessary to address the problems it reveals

First of a two-part story

Can the business community, which many argue is largely responsible for creating the inequalities that low-income people and communities of color face in the Twin Cities region, be entrusted to close what a new report has identified as one of the largest gaps between haves and have-nots anywhere in the country?

That's the question that some community members, stakeholders and organizers are asking in response to the flurry of attention the "Mind the Gap: Reducing the Disparities to Improve Regional Competitiveness in the Twin Cities" report, originally released in October, is receiving.

"The report really didn't tell me anything that I didn’t already know," said Cheryl Wilson, who heads up the Organizing Project of African American Congregations for MICAH (Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing). "Maybe that was the most striking thing about it. I guess what I really wanted to hear more of, with that being a White, conservative group, is 'What were you going to do to make a difference?'

"You can keep writing and writing, and let people know that you know," said Wilson, "but what are you really and truly going to do about it? And I really didn't get that feel from anything here that there was anything being done."

"Mind the Gap" is a joint project of the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution and the Itasca Project, which the report defines as "a collaboration of more than 40 area CEOs, mayors, and university leaders."

The 41-page document discusses three primary "gaps" that affect the Twin Cities region profoundly: gaps of race, class and place. In terms of race, the report presents hard, statistical evidence that "On any number of indicators, people of color in the Twin Cities do not do as well as white residents."

A sampling of racial disparities "Mind the Gap" addresses include:

• "Minorities have low levels of educational attainment. ...Overall, only 41 percent of Native American students and 43 percent of black students graduate from high school within four years, a rate less than half of white students' 87 percent rate.
• "Whites have higher incomes than minorities. ...With lower educational levels limiting access to well-paying jobs, minorities are more likely to earn lower incomes. The metropolitan area's median household income is $54,302. The median household income for white households is even higher at $56,642. The white median household income is more than twice that of Sub-Saharan Africans, who have the lowest median household income in the metro ($26,736). Hmong, Native Americans, and blacks all have median households that are at least $20,000 less than white households."
• "There are health and healthcare disparities among race groups. ...In Minnesota, according to the state's Center for Health Statistics, blacks and American Indians' infant mortality rates exceed those for whites and Asians.

A sampling of the class disparities "Mind the Gap" details:

• "Sharp disparities among income groups exist. Low-income households face challenges that wealthier families do not. Primarily, low-income households have lower educational attainment rates, tend to hold 'dead-end' jobs without built-in advancement, and face higher costs associated with being poor that inhibit the ability to save. These differences hamper income mobility and wealth building opportunities."

Finally, the place disparities the report reveals include:

• "People and jobs are unevenly distributed. The two central cities have markedly different demographic patterns than the rest of the metropolitan area. While some older, inner ring suburbs are beginning to resemble the central cities in some respects, the region still displays a fairly traditional pattern of poorer, more diverse central cities surrounded by wealthier, whiter suburbs. As with residential patterns, job growth patterns in the Twin Cities region are uneven. Some places are getting the lion's share of employment growth, and others seem to specialize in particular industries or occupations.
• "Minneapolis and St. Paul represent a declining share of the metro's population. ...The 2004 Census Bureau population estimates show that the central cities' population has dropped slightly to 650,000 while the suburban population grew to 2.5 million.
• "The central cities have a disproportionate share of the region's poor. Concentrated poverty - neighborhoods where poverty rates are 40 percent or higher - is solely found in Minneapolis and St. Paul. In other words, there are no extremely poor suburban neighborhoods, only extremely poor central city neighborhoods." [emphasis mine]

Minneapolis-based urban planner Antonio Rosell, who heads up the Community Design Group, said that low-income communities and communities of color should take advantage of the wealth of information the report has organized and analyzed, while, at the same time, challenging its presentation and conclusions.

"I commend the writers of the report on many of the things that they were able to address. I have some disagreements about the way the report was framed. We're presented with the information as 'Reducing Disparities to Improve Regional Competitiveness.' You know, the importance of addressing this injustice is how it relates to economics. And I think that that's a shortcoming with the way that we approach policy. It has effects on economics, but it's not an issue of economics, it's an issue of justice," said Rosell.

"If we are to be a just society, a fair society, like we say that we are, there is no excuse [for these disparities]. I think one of the ways in which the policymakers benefit from framing issues in terms of economics is that if we're not maximizing our economics, we're just losing out on some money. We could have more money throughout our region if we begin to address this issue and become more efficient and so on. That's one way of framing the issue.

"And I think we do that because that's easier to countenance than the actual truth of it. And the truth of it is that every day that we deny education to one single child, that is a sin against ourselves and our humanity," Rosell said.

"Every time one more Black child dies because it wasn't even able to be born alive, or because of that twice-as-high rate of infant mortality, is murder. As a society, we are murdering people. That's why we don't frame things in terms of justice, because I think we as a society could not even deal with it.

"So we talk about health disparities in a very kind of neutral way; we call them 'health disparities.' We don't say, 'If you're Black, you're going to get sick, and your children are going to die.' It's a much more abstract way of dealing with things. And so it allows us to escape the responsibility that we bear for every single day that things continue the way that they are.

"We're condemning more children to lives of poverty. We are condemning children to not even being able to live to reach their first birthday. So that is an issue I have with framing the realities that this report brings out in terms of just economic competitiveness," Rosell said.

Next week: While some doubt there's any real intent to alter the gap status quo, the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul are more optimistic.

To view the "Mind the Gap" report, visit
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20051027_mindthegap.htm
or call 202-797-6139.

MICAH will hold an information session to discuss the "Mind the Gap" report, and its impact on local African American communities, on Tuesday, January 31, at the Minnesota Church Center, 122 Franklin Ave. W., Suite 310, in Minneapolis. The event is free and open to the public, and begins at 6:30 pm. For more information, call 612-871-8980, ext. 104, write cheryl@micah.org, or visit www.michah.org.

Shannon Gibney welcomes reader responses to shannongibney@gmail.com.