To what extent will we (Whites) go to in order to avoid being around people of color?

If you read the history books, that was a real problem back in the '50s. Thank goodness we are beyond that.

...aren't we???

"While issues like Iraq are clearly important for all Americans, there are a number of domestic issues that we're all grappling with in this country, including education, healthcare and the economy." - Tavis Smiley

"It was the rise and growth among the slaves of a determination to be free and an active part of American democracy that forced American democracy continually to look into the depths... One cannot think then of democracy in America or in the modern world without reference to the American Negro." - W.E.B. Du Bois, The Gift of Black Folk (1924)

I am a big fan of the type of community organizing done by groups like Acorn and the IAF. The NY Times has an article a few days ago about the community organizing work of the Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago, focusing on its work in the Muslim community as part of a broader interfaith effort.

The mainstream media rarely write about community organizing, but Sam Freedman who wrote this piece is a major exception. And he writes so elegantly about it as he did for his book, Upon This Rock. Check it out.

In the summer issue of Shelterforce. [www.nhi.org/online/issues/150/mockthevote.html]

I have written a piece on the connection between US Attorneygate, ACORN and the GOP voter fraud scam. Karl Rove's strategy has been to make it much more difficult for poor and minority people to register to vote and to vote, particularly in key swing states. Harassing groups like ACORN that register and mobilize the poor, on trumped up charges of "voter fraud," has been a major tactic of Rove, with implications for the 2008 races.

I have helped organize a variety of groups, including New Jersey Tenants Organization (NJTO), New Jersey Citizen Action (NJCA), and Passaic County Legal Aid Society (PCLAS).

I have shared some of these experiences through a bi-weekly radio program on WBAI, coauthored a book (Saving Affordable Housing), and written dozens of articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Nation, American Prospect, Star-Ledger, Social Policy, Herald News, and elsewhere. The thread connecting my activities is an empowerment philosophy that includes linking people, ideas, and organizations and building new leadership.

At PCLAS, which served Paterson, the third largest city in New Jersey and one of the nation's poorest cities, I recruited a top-flight multiracial, multilingual staff of 37, promoted minorities to leadership positions, and built connections with local community groups, churches, schools, and other sectors.

Foreclosures are running 25% higher than they were this time last year.

Why is that, you may ask? You may point out, "I thought the economy is doing well."

The economy is doing well for the top 10% of Americans who happen to own 80% of all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The economy is not doing well for the rapidly disappearing middle class that has watched its mean income decline over the last six years. Americans that could afford a mortgage six years ago, now struggle to scrape the money together for monthly payments.

To make matters worse for middle America, the recent deregulation of the financial industry has led to the epidemic of subprime loans. Remember, subprime loans have been given to many middle class Americans at interests rates that are 2% to 5% higher than the interests rates that the top 10% of Americans pay.

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death," warned Martin Luther King.