[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: NYTimes.com: Minorities Fall Further Behind Whites in Wealth During Economic Recovery

[Helena Worthen]

The "non-coincidence" can be understood as part of the price of loss of public goods, in this case, public schools. As we have become more accustomed to creeping privatization of public goods, we allow more fee-based or privately funded tactics to preserve amenities -- art classes, sports, field trips, theater clubs, charter schools themselves -- and in this case, the amenity of a clean school wall. The practice of collecting money for the school was so habitual that a fee-based punishment raised no eyebrows, apparently. Setting both girls to scrubbing the walls would have made sense, but that was before we got used to solving public problems with private money. 

Does anyone else see this as an issue of how a solid floor of public goods reduces inequality and how seemingly petty ($100) cracks in that floor can send a family plunging through?
 
Helena Worthen
helenaworthen@gmail.com

On Dec 13, 2014, at 10:41 AM, mike cole wrote:

> Apropos of Paul's you tube movie about Brazilian UN troops shooting
> Haitians and the imperative for people to be engaged as citizen-academics,
> here is the second of two NY times stories that take us back to his earlier
> post on the race/class nexus.
> 
> The first, which I have been unable to retrieve, was about two teenage
> girls who were accused of graffiti drawing on a school wall. Friends. One
> Black on Anglo. The Anglo girl's parents paid a 100$ fine and the incident
> was forgotten. The Black girl's parents did not have the 100$ so their
> daughter was under court ordered restrictions for a summer (as I remember
> the story). Not a coincidence.
> 
> The same non-coincidence is present in the story herewith forwarded.
> 
> mike
> 
>     Minorities Fall Further Behind Whites in Wealth During Economic
> Recovery
> <http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=InCMR7g4BCKC2wiZPkcVUgLoQ92m2RHr&user_id=bd31502e6eb851a9261827fdfbbcdf6d&email_type=eta&task_id=1418494979825751&regi_id=0>
> By
> TANZINA VEGA
> 
> According to a report by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth of
> white households in 2013 was about 13 times that of black households.
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