The Congressional Black Caucus

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BEATTY. Thank you to my colleague, the gentlewoman from Illinois, and to my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Congressional Black Caucus this evening for holding this Special Order hour focusing on the economy and job opportunities in our community. I know tonight that we will speak to America and to the folks in this Chamber talking about the issues that revolve around the economy and jobs and how it affects African Americans.

I want to join my colleagues tonight and talk about those things that get in the way when we talk about our education system, when we talk about the young African Americans going to prison, and when we talk about the cost of higher education, Mr. Speaker. But I also want to say thank you, thank you to the HBC universities for educating African Americans. I want to say thank you to those African Americans who are in positions to help spur the economy, and having an African American in the White House. That is because along the way there has been hope and opportunity.

So before I talk about those things that get in the way, I want to make sure that we send the message to a 12-year-old boy in my district, to a freshman in college, to individuals like my young nephew and my nieces and my grandchildren, that there will be hope and opportunity because there are Members in this Chamber and members in the Congressional Black Caucus who will come and stand up and build that hope and opportunity to make a difference because we will come with resolve.

But tonight, I want to share that, while much has changed for African Americans since the 1963 March on Washington, one thing has not changed. The unemployment rate among Blacks is about double that among Whites, as it has been for almost the past six decades.

Mr. Speaker, the current unemployment rate for African Americans is 9.6 percent. This is nearly twice the 4.7 percent unemployment rate for White Americans.

Although the national unemployment rate has continued to decline since 2008, a significant race gap still remains. African Americans are almost three times more likely to live in poverty than White Americans.

African Americans, like all Americans, want economic mobility, access to high wages, the ability to support themselves and their families in a middle class lifestyle, while earning wages to allow for the accumulation of wealth.

To move forward in creating economic opportunities in the African American community, we must remain focused, focused as the members of the Congressional Black Caucus are, on how we can bridge the divides in our society, and how we can bring our Nation closer together.

It is well established in the fact that students of color face harsher punishments in schools than their White peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color in detention, suspension, and even being expelled.

African American students are arrested far more often than their White classmates. Black and Hispanic students, Mr. Speaker, represent more than 70 percent of those in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today.

Disparities are found not only in how we punish behavior in our schools, but also how we fund education. This is true in K-12, and it is also true with higher education.

While we know that a college degree is a path to a middle class life, African Americans are less likely to obtain education beyond high school than White students, and they are less likely to earn a degree.

And for those African American college students who are able to make it to graduation, after graduating they graduate with more student debt than White students. Continued Federal and State cuts to tuition assistance, grant programs, and work study opportunities continue to threaten African American access to a better education.

We must confront these injustices head on. We have an obligation to find real solutions to these problems that have plagued our communities for generations. We must promote policies that increase the pace of job creation, expand opportunities for the long-term unemployed to reenter the workforce. We must provide incentives for businesses to hire and make investments in revitalizing schools, infrastructures, and our neighborhoods.

Like we did 50 years ago as we were in Selma, we must continue to do that again today. We must continue to stand arm in arm so we can bring an end to the disparities that hold our hard-working families back from achieving the middle class dream and the dreams of all Americans that we all should be equal, Mr. Speaker.

And again, to my colleagues, thank you for holding this Special Order hour. Thank you for working with the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and all of our colleagues so we could move forward and not have the disparities that you have heard about tonight.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source