The Heat: US race issues

The Heat

A disparity between blacks and whites in the United States on such issues as income, social justice and place in society existed long before U.S. president Barack Obama ever took office.

What is also true is the hope and expectation by many who propelled him to office that his election might mark a turning point in race relations.
Candidate Obama, himself, tried to temper those expectations when in a 2008 speech he said “I’ve never been naive enough to believe we can get beyond racial divisions in a single election cycle, or candidacy.” He has governed with the self-proclaimed belief that a rising tide lifts all boats, but as the United States continues to recover from the great recession, African- Americans disproportionately continue to struggle.

Then there’s this: according the organization called Mapping Police Violence, more than 100 unarmed black people were killed by police in 2015. That’s 5 times the rate of unarmed whites.
Such incidents, along with the killing of nine people last June by a white shooter at an historic black church in South Carolina, compelled the U.S. President to speak out:

“For too long, we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice system and leads us to make sure that that system is not infected with bias.”

The following guests joined The Heat:

  • Attorney Barbara Arnwine served for more than 25 years as the Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
  • Joe Madison is a longtime civil rights activist and a radio talk show host with Sirius-XM’s Urban View Channel.
  • Economist, commentator and author Julianne Malveaux has an upcoming book called: “Are We Better Off?”.