With bothblack and Hispanic dropout rates now reaching 50 percent in majorcities, the social dynamite is piling up.
Lecturinga conscript conclave of Justice Department bureaucrats, AttorneyGeneral Eric Holder last week called America a “nation of cowards” fornot spending more time talking about race.
Reading his speech,however, one recalls the sage counsel of Pat Moynihan to PresidentNixon in 1970: This whole subject might benefit from a long period of”benign neglect.”
One point Holder did allude to, without specifics, was this: “It is not safe for this nation to assume that the unaddressed socialproblems in the poorest parts of the country can be isolated and willnot ultimately affect the larger society.”
Fair point. And what are some of those social problems? A 70 percent illegitimacy rate in black America, an incarceration andcrime rate seven times that of white America, a 50 percent dropout ratein many urban high schools, African-American graduates reading andcomputing on average at eighth-grade levels.
And about these problems what is the black leadership doing?
UnlikeBill Cosby, the heroic Holder was virtually mute. Rather, he is upsetthat “on Saturdays and Sundays” we don’t go to church or hang outtogether. But why are the free associations of Americans, of whatevercreed or color, any of Eric Holder or Big Brother’s business?
Havinginsulted us, perhaps Holder will start doing his own sworn duty. Forone area where he has a lead role is enforcing the nation’s laws — inparticular, the U.S. immigration laws. For the federal failure toenforce these laws is a contributory cause of one of those “unaddressedsocial problems in the poorest parts of the country.”
Case in point — rampant unemployment among minority youth.
Accordingto the Center for Immigration Studies, among African-Americans 18 to 29with only a high-school degree, unemployment is now 20 percent. Amongblack adults who do not have a high-school diploma, it is 24 percent.Among teenagers under 18, black unemployment is 30 percent.
Amongnative-born Hispanics with only a high-school diploma, the unemploymentrate is 13.6 percent. Among high-school dropouts, 16 percent. AmongHispanic 16- and 17-year-olds, the jobless figure is 40 percent.
Asthese figures were compiled in December, before the last two months ofsweeping layoffs, they surely understate the situation. And with bothblack and Hispanic dropout rates now reaching 50 percent in majorcities, the social dynamite is piling up.
Last month, USAToday reported that the FBI estimates there are now 1 million gangmembers in the United States — up 200,000 from 2005 — and these gangsare responsible for 80 percent of all U.S. crimes. From other studies,young Hispanics are 19 times as likely as white youth to join gangs,while African-Americans are 15 times.
These millions ofteenagers, and unskilled and less-educated young adults with no jobsand little prospect of finding them, are recruiting pools for criminalgangs.
Who is getting the jobs for which these native-bornblack and Hispanic young could quality? Illegal aliens hold literallymillions of them.
Last week, the CIS reported, “An estimated 6to 7 million illegal immigrants are currently holding jobs. Priorresearch indicates they are overwhelmingly employed in lower-skilledand lower-paid jobs.”
Exactly what sort of jobs?
“Illegalsare primarily employed in construction, building cleaning andmaintenance, food preparation, service and processing, transportationand moving occupations and agriculture.”
With the exception ofagriculture, a majority of the workers in these occupations arenative-born Americans. Thus, illegal aliens are taking jobs Americansare not only willing to do, but are doing, and taking 7 million ofthese jobs from young Americans now out of work.
By failing toenforce U.S. immigration laws, the government of the United States isselling America’s working class down the river.
In addition tothe 7 million illegals holding jobs, legal immigrants have another 15million. In 2008, when Americans lost 3.5 million jobs, 144,000immigrants were admitted every month.
Why do we have anopen-borders immigration policy that annually allows in millions, legaland illegal, to compete for jobs, when 10 million Americans are out ofwork and half a million are losing their jobs every month? Thepolitical correctness and moral cowardice of our Lords Temporal, whorefuse to call a time-out on immigration until our own people go backto work, is killing the American dream for millions.
According to the census, as reported in The New York Timeson Saturday, 97 percent of immigrants from Mexico do not speak Englishat home. They are less skilled and less educated than the averageAmerican.
Says demographer William Frey, “The new immigrationmagnets especially in the Southwest are disproportionately attractingyoung Mexican men who are willing to accept low wages.”
Whatfurther proof is needed that mass immigration from the Third World istaking jobs from Americans and driving down their wages when they dofind work?
Here is a problem more serious than whether black and white elites are getting together on weekends to gabble about race.
But, dealing with it, Mr. Holder, will take courage.