If doctors tell you that you have a life-threatening problem, and they say it’s something you need to fix, do you ignore that warning?
A few weeks ago, Rochester got yet another damning report from ACT Rochester, with statistics that lay out, once again, the terrible state we’re in. As we noted when the report was released, some of the information wasn’t new. We’ve been told repeatedly that our poverty is among the highest in the nation – and that it’s having a terrible impact on people, on our children’s education, on our economy, on public safety.
What was new in this latest report, titled “Hard Facts: Race and Ethnicity in the Nine-County Greater Rochester Area,” was the information on race. Our poverty and poverty-related statistics are awful, and it’s a blot on this region that we haven’t done much to remedy that. But even worse is the racial disparity: the people most affected are African Americans and Latinos.
Poverty, infant mortality, home ownership, unemployment, student achievement: all are worse for people of color in the Rochester region than they are statewide and nationally. And as Ed Doherty, the report’s principal author, said when I talked to him about these latest data, the racial disparity isn’t accidental. It’s the result of deliberate actions, by individuals, businesses, and, most significantly, government. It’s the result of decade after decade of racism, much of it intentional.
ACT Rochester’s reports aren’t meant to be read and filed away. They’re meant to spur action. They spell out our problems, in the form of regular, updated data, so that we can see our problems clearly and then – if we’re the caring community we say we are – do something about them.
So far, though, the reaction to “Hard Facts” seems to have been silence.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. This community is really good at producing reports, forming committees, working diligently on outlines for action, and then going back to sleep. It’s not that we don’t agree that there are problems. It’s not that we don’t think the problems are serious. It’s not that we aren’t concerned. We are – for the moment. But we don’t have the will to do what we need to do.
And so, over the years, we’ve had numerous efforts to address racism – to bring it into the public consciousness, talk about it, condemn it. Those efforts are continuing. So are the problems that are disproportionately affecting people of color – in the city and throughout the Greater Rochester region.
We certainly know that racism is still thriving. From the slaughter at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston to the marches – hoodless, and blatantly proud and confident – in Oregon and Charlottesville, racism has come out of its dark corners and into the open.
It’s out in the open in Rochester, too, in online comments mocking African Americans, in public comments at forums discussing the admission of city children to schools in the suburbs. And it has come in the form of ugly death threats received by Rochester’s African-American mayor.
Lurking beneath all of that is the less visible but very real structural racism, in which individual racism and its effects are sanctioned and empowered by government, businesses, and institutions.
State “home rule” laws, zoning codes, employment practices, labor contracts, transportation policies, economic development practices, federal and state banking practices, voting laws, school curricula, criminal justice laws and policies: all of have helped keep people of color impoverished.
We could change all of that, if we wanted to. Most of the people who have to bring about that change, though, are not people of color.
These are all problems created by and perpetuated by those of us who are white.
As Ed Doherty told me when the “Hard Facts” report was released, this is a problem of leadership. Among the white leadership in this community, the silence about “Hard Facts” continues.
This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2017.
“These are all problems created by and perpetuated by those of us who are white.”—Mary Anna Towler
REALLY????
Please stop dancing around the issue, What EXACTLLY do white people do?
What EXACTLLY do you recommend?
At the risk of triggering a knee-jerk misunderstanding and reaction, over the past few decades this community has had a significant percentage of NON-white leadership in the mayors office and on the city council and the school board. What about their responsibility for our current state of racial affairs? What initiatives did they undertake to improve race relations which were opposed, sidetracked, or derailed by that white leadership who seems to be the sole party responsible for the current state of our racial affairs?
Was there a 12 year Golden Age of race relations during the Bill Johnson years that somehow experienced a relapse during the succeeding 8 years of white mayors? A relapse that almost 4 years of the Warren administration has been unable to improve? Or is the white leadership the only group expected to offer policies and programs for fighting racism while their non-white counterparts are permitted to simply throw up, their hands and do nothing?
“Hard Facts” provides zero new information; it is simply a re-statement of “facts” from prior studies. The news value from this “report” is zero. Plus, statistics on family structure and marriage are completely absent from “Hard Facts” which really should be renamed “Selective Facts.” If these statistics were included, it would be painfully obvious that family structure, not race, is highly correlated to poverty.
Ed Doherty has made a nice six-figure plus career peddling this nonsense for years. Maybe somebody should ask him why – despite the supposed best efforts of the Rochester Area Community Foundation and numerous other non-profits in a city that has way, way more of these organizations than it “needs” that poverty in Rochester has gotten worse instead of better over the years. Maybe people like Ed Doherty are the problem, not the solution.
I would think that telling someone that they are being oppressed by another and that there is nothing they can do about it is one of the cruelest things someone could do, yet the left wing press and politicians are loaded with these lies.
What has City News done to encourage positive race relations and self reliance?
The world is full of very successful black people, proving that success is within grasp for those that try.
Just out of college as a young liberal I worked as a welfare Examiner for 3 years. I saw the welfare population explode and had a caseload of 120 families. This was at the same time the Rochester economy was booming with 60,000 people working at Kodak alone.
I quickly saw that there was little to no relationship between my caseload and the economy. Very few were looking for work, they were essentially out of the workforce.
I never blamed the recipients, many of whom were very nice people. I blame mostly the Democratic Party for the failed policies that led to what I observed first hand.
The question is, what can we do about racism, right now, today.
Out of curiosity, I wondered whether there might be any APPS for reducing racism. I found that in Australia, an organization called, ” All Together Now” created two free APPS. In Australia, racism is focused mainly on Aborigines and Moslems.
http://alltogethernow.org.au/
One APP is called, “Everyday Racism” for adults. A second APP is “All Together Now” for children 8-10 years old. See, 5min YouTube video, below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xaSxQNYz6…
Perhaps these award wining free APPS can be tried in Rochester, in general, and in schools. Maybe organizations like ACT Rochester and others could check this out.
http://www.SavingSchools.org
Fgf Sorry, but thats just unmitigated, 24K baloney (to be polite). The type of uninformed opinion and less-than-subtle racism that underlaid Reagans welfare queen urban legends, and claims about women having one kid after another just to collect bigger benefits, or that the only reason anyone is on welfare is because theyre too lazy to work. And I have to add that anyone who thinks that theres no correlation between the state of the economy and the number of welfare applicants and recipients is simply kidding themselves.
By the way, before you wave around your credentials about your three years at DSS, let me point out that I put in eight years with a local county DSS as an eligibility examiner, then as a fraud investigator, and finally as a director of a workfare programs (where welfare recipients were required to work on county or municipal projects in exchange for their benefits and to prove they were looking for employment). And in all those years the No. 1 reason I saw why recipients couldnt find a job was not laziness, but a lack of the skill sets needed to get and keep a job.
Robert I don’t know where you worked but what I reported about Monroe County was absolutely correct in the mid eighties. It was widely reported that the welfare caseloads and Rochester employment numbers were both at all time highs.
I didn’t use the word laziness or black by the way, those were your assumptions.
FGF – My apologies. I should have remembered that those complaining about welfare recipients (who arent lazy of course, just “not looking for work” and thus “essentially out of the workforce”) invariably are referring to non-minority recipients. In much the same manner that those who blame, the Democratic Party for the “failed policies” that led to increased welfare rolls aren’t saying that recipients (the non-minority ones that is ) arent deadbeats, but merely that the evil Democrats destroyed the work ethic so that those “not looking for work” and thus “essentially out of the workforce” could live better on welfare then they could by working for a living.
Robert the facts don’t support your argument that welfare participation is solely driven by employment. (And that it is somehow racist to suggest that)
The welfare population has dropped by 75% over the last 20 years following the passage of the Welfare Reform Act proposed by the Republicans and signed into law by Bill Clinton who shifted to the right after losing Congress in 1994. He referred to it as replacing Welfare as we know it (and I knew it first hand)
ADC was replaced by TANF, temporary assistance to families and became time limited. Federal reimbursement funds were withheld after a specified number of years. This caused the motivation for both the recipients and the Counties to transition people into the workforce.
It is basic human nature to respond to incentives and sanctions.
In 2017, in Rochester, any race can be successful. This may not be true in other parts of the nation, or even in rural parts of NYS, but it is in Rochester. If you can act responsibly, are well spoken, and have an open mind willing to try and learn, anything can be accomplished. People must get past the follow the Jones mentality. If you grow up in a poor neighborhood, but see someone more successful on tv, at the store, at school, do anything you can to emulate them. Research what made them successful and reach for it. It is often the chosen path, not the bequeathed path, that leads a person to an unsuccessful life.
This Rochester NY-Monroe County Community, as Civilians can look at poverty and disparate racial treatment and division when it comes to housing, segregated housing communities and uninhabitable living conditions maintained by “slumlords”. Begin to look at civilians who are fractured by retailitory evictions in/out of labdlord/tenant court and devastated by housing transience, the court system is biased and contributes to weight of racism and impartiality, evictions ruins blacks & latinos target population lives and promotes disparities for improvements for a wualutybof life for families and children, when we look at disparate treatments of our minority community what do we see, homelessness, lack of parent engagements in kids/youths education, employable skill trades, literacy and/or lack of fiscal financial literacy, jail and prison and street culture, we see narcotic movements in our most vulnerable and crime ridden urban communities. Racism exists not only subtly but openly in Housing renting or owning, employment, education of suburban schools and ivy league colleges etc. In our own backyard, politics and funding are unequivocally unequally distributed for revitalization of our neighborhoods and its a war for resources to fight to improve graduation rates in the RCSD but our jails and prisons love to receive our black and Latino men, women and children. Racism and oppression exists, many of us whom are black choosen intentionally to look the other way, when their is lack of support, lack of collective interest, lack of belief, because we don’t believe the opposite race will believe in us that racism exist in the Monroe County Region-Rochester NY.
Submitted By Ms. Stefanie Davis
Mary Anna….I can’t believe you actually wrote that zoning laws, banking practices, criminal justice laws all have kept people of color impoverished. And then you state the problems have been perpetuated by those of us who are white. So are you saying banks deny loans solely on color? Or police only arrest blacks? Or blacks aren’t allowed to vote? Why is it you constantly blame others for the stupidity, or lack of responsibility and pride of some of those who CHOSE to be poor. How rich were the majority of immigrants that came over here and made this country great through hard work and discipline? What entitlements were there for them? Take charge of your own destiny is the message you should be delivering! Not the woe is me and its everyone else’s fault I’m poor. Are there any blacks, or latinos that live in Pittsford, Penfield, or Webster? How were all of them able to overcome? Stop inciting racial segregation! Why are so many Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese, so successful? Go to RIT or UofR and interview a few of the students there. It’s how parents raised them. They were taught to work hard and that there dreams were totally in their control. Ask those students, if given a choice, would they spend money on $200 sneakers and tattoos….or on text books. Sometimes I think or entitlement system becomes a crutch for those too lazy to find a way out. Instead, why not have another child I can’t afford. It’s a way of admitting this is the only thing I can accomplish in life. How terrible it is to force a child to be born into poverty. Where is the shame by the mother! I hope in the future, you write an article that is more positive on how people of different races have become successful. Teach others through your paper and stop continuing to divide us!
I have been hesitating jumping into this meat grinder. The best “proof of the truth of white racism ” can be found in the many writers of comments that proceed this. It is clear that several of the writers come from a position of racial bigotry. They may not consider themselves as racist, but their expressions of disdain for the people of poverty as “choosing poverty” or lazy are clearly the language of racists going back to Reconstruction.
Rochester has been been a mostly one way filter where those with any resources get out of the city leaving only the most needy behind. This is not a new story. In 1960 as I graduated from Monroe High School the enrollment from my neighborhood in the South East was “mixed in with a new community at the new East High. This was the beginning of a failed experiment and many families, mine included, left the city to Brighton and those left behind were those who couldn’t or wouldn’t make the move. Eventually a school district with high standards and a recognized success rate of sending many students to east coast private colleges became less and less capable. The families left behind did not have history of higher education and they did not offer their children the stability of working homes. How many of the vaunted 60,000 employed at Kodak were minorities? How many minorities made it into management. I cannot speak about the other large corporations, but Kodak’s history is on public record. I have to believe the same was true at B&L and Rochester Products and oh yes at several of the divisions of Sybron. The only division where I witnessed any diversity was Nalge – disclosure: my father founded it.
Thus the mess of underemployed families with no real skills can be left at the feet of the large corporations and the white flight followed by the flight of anyone with any money to the suburbs.
Paul since your father founded Nalge I’m curious as to their minority employment for the time period I referenced ,the mid eighties
What was the total Rochester employment for Nalge at that time?
How many Blacks were employed?
What was the median wage broken down by race?
I think if you are going to accuse other people and companies of racism you should provide us with this
The blame game is preposterous Ms. Towler!
I am so sick and tired of this baloney in this article.
FACTS;
1. More White people live in poverty than any other ethnicity.
2015 stats are the most recent stats I could fine.
Whites in poverty 17.9 million, Blacks 9.5 million, Hispanics 12.2 million all others 3.7 million. The percentage of Black and Hispanics are 24% and 21% respectively.
Those % numbers are high, however %ages can be misleading.
If you don’t believe that go to the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation website.
Reason for Poverty:
1. EDUCATION – the Rochester graduation rate is deplorable.
2. DESIRE, AMBITION, and RESPONSIBILITY
3. Strong nuclear family
The U.S. has spent over 16 TRILLION dollars on poverty and throwing money at it obviously isn’t the answer. Do we need a safety net YES. The SAFETY NET should NOT be a way of life.
The biggest cause of LOW wages is directly tied to idiotic government policies at all levels, e.g., Federal, State and Local.
When I hear a President say that 2% GDP is the new NORMAL is the most discouraging, not to mention a stupid thing a leader can say for a country like ours. That begs the question what did that 2% mean for WAGES? ANSWER: NO INCREASE – it had nothing to do with race. Those 8 years affected downward pressure on wages as GDP, the growth of the economy was stagnate.
It’s pretty simple, when the SUPPLY of labor decreases the COST/WAGES increase.
The education curriculum needs to focus on Capitalism and value added SKILL SETS not social non-sense which is a noble effort, but does not prepare individuals to be self sustainable.
Have a nice day,
Ms. Towler,
You’re right about everything you wrote, EXCEPT for ONE THING, i.e., “Most of the people who [are likely] to[take the lead in doing what’s necessary in order to] bring about that change, though, are not people of color.” Your statement is counter to that which the long, long, clear, objective, historical record bears witness to. With the exception of very, very few, rare, white individuals — like John Brown — never in the history of this thoroughly rotten, racist, white-supremacist-based nation-state have white folks led ACTIONS to bringing about widespread, permanent, fundamental “change” and/or improvement for Black folks. It’s important for us NOT to be revisionist. We have had no “great, white saviors,” and hopefully have sense enough today to know that it’s NOT gonna happen — just might require “The Fire Next Time.”
https://matadornetwork.com/change/4-ways-a…
Comments like Mitch’s both prove the point of this article and are representative of how the majority of white people in our area think. We white people don’t want racism, both personal and structural, to be the cause of inequality and oppression in our city. If we admit they are, then we implicate ourselves, delegitimize what we have earned (supposedly on our own), and force us to admit the American myth of equality for all has never been fully true people of color. Racism and inequality will not go away because it would force white people, like myself, to let go of collective mythology of hard work and the American dream. For example, wealth in our country comes largely from home ownership. It is fact that the federal and local government used redlining, racial covenants, and exclusionary zoning to benefit whites at the long term expense of blacks. I suggest city newspaper do a series of articles explaining the specifics of how racist federal and local policy largely created the wealth inequality we have today. I would love to see in depth reporting on places like meadowbrook in Brighton, zoning laws in pittsford and penfield that spell out what so many of us already know but are trying so hard to not believe about the foundations of our community. We can’t all move forward if we don’t deal with the injustice of the past and ignore the injustice of the present.
Regarding the 9/5 article titled “How Racist Is Rochester?”, the related questions of “Do We Know?” and “Do We Care?”, as well as the many letters in response to the article, I offer the following thoughts based on my and my wife’s personal experience over the past 1-2 years. We discovered that the only way to get to understand the data of the 2014 Poverty Report and the many other so-called “facts” about racism in our community was to get out of our suburban comfort zone and actually meet and get to know the people of color … our city “neighbors”. We have been profoundly gratified with the discoveries we have made regarding their experiences, current situations, and most importantly, the many new relationships and friendships we have built in a relatively short period of time.
There were three key actions we did to make this possible. First, we began to visit black faith communities in the city for Sunday services. In the dozen or so times we have done this far, we always came away amazed by the welcoming we received as we shared God’s word together. Secondly, through our Parish and its affiliation with RocACTS, we partnered with a black faith community in the city in a program called ‘Sacred Conversations’. Over two sessions and six hours, 10-12 members of each community (one primarily black and one virtually all white) got to know each other and discuss how ‘Jim Crow’ type activities from years past impacted black lives and how it still lives today in other forms. Thirdly, we invested time in a 10-week educational program sponsored by a new organization recently renamed MAMA. We learned about the true story of American black history and were astounded by what we did not know because we either were not taught or were blinded by the unfortunate parallel universes of “black and white” we live in.
Bottomline, we implore all whites to think very seriously about even just doing one of these or to get involved in some way of your own and therefore take a step into getting beyond your preconceived notions and the “facts” as you think you might know them. We can guarantee that you will be surprised and not disappointed in what you learn … and more importantly the new “neighbors” you will meet. Building relationships begins to answer the two important questions in the article of “Do We Know?” and “Do We Care?”.
Personally, I’d like to see the end of the Urban-Suburban programs that truck in black kids from the inner city into our nice suburban schools. I had to deal with those loud, ill tempered kids daily in high school and it needs to stop. Just skip the education step and give them a cell. It’ll cost less in the end and then people that work hard for a living won’t have to worry about their kids education going to shit because of well to do Liberals and their awful programs.
Nice fake account there, “Dwight Wallie”. If I was going to pose as a racist white person, I probably wouldn’t post liberal status updates on my fake facebook account.
https://www.facebook.com/dwight.wallie.1
I find it incredible that you of all people, Mary Anna, would write such a piece of poppycock. You didn’t run a elitist and racist campaign (even AFTER the voters had decided) in 2013 for “your” mayor, Tommy Richards? You didn’t predict, like Chicken Little, that the sky would fall if an “inexperienced” (code for young, Black, “ghetto”) Lovely Warren were to become mayor? You didn’t encourage everyone to vote for a smug, arrogant, out-of-touch old white CEO instead of a young, dynamic, energetic African-American woman? What was the unemployment rate in the city under Tom Richards? 9%. What is it now under Lovely Warren? 4.7%. Look at the NYS Dept. of Labor site, where I found the information, it’s all right there. Wow, your hypocrisy evidently knows no bounds. Do you go read to children in JOSANA? Volunteer at a soup kitchen? No, you sit in your office in the Southeast Quadrant and ignore the rest of the city, venturing out only to go to the R.P.O. or GEVA, where you are as likely to meet a person of color as an Eskimo.
I never knew just how racist Rochester is until I left. I’m biracial and spent my weekdays riding around in a Cadillac in Brockport with my 6 figure family, then spent my weekends on Scio St. You’re all about institutionalized racism and victim blaming and celebrate it. Don’t get me started on how the county controls the city, which it does, then blames it’s worst on city leaders. You suburban assholes think you own the city-you don’t