Iowa Black & Brown Forum

Talk about fired up...

I watched bits of the Democratic debate sponsored by black and brown people last night.

Themes were:

• Free health care insurance -- never mind that health care won't be available
• Minimum wage $9.50 -- never mind that jobs won't be available
• Soak rich folks with taxes -- never mind that taxing innovators will rob the nation of jobs

• Joe Biden said he opposed those who pit blacks and browns against each other (apparently feeling guilty about pitting Anita Hill against Clarence Thomas).


• John Edwards said some CEOs make more money in 10 minutes than those in the audience make in a year.

I got out my calculator.

The median income for black households was just under $32,000 (2005 or 2006).

$32,000 every ten minutes is $1,536,000 per 8-hour work day; $7,680,000 5-day work week; $399,360,000 per year.

The highest paid CEO in the nation was Yahoo's Terry Semel who earned $230.6 million. Most of that ($229,952,000) was in stock gains.

• Edwards also suggested there were more illegal Irish immigrants than Hispanic. If I remember correctly (I could be wrong) he used sixty percent as the number of Irish illegally in this country.

Let's figure.

A - The population of Ireland is 4,109,086.
B - CNN says there are 7 million illegal immigrants in the USA.
C - Therefore, the number of illegal Irish immigrants living in America, 4.2 million, exceeds the entire population of Ireland.

• These people may actually control the White House and Congress in the very near future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/01/democrats-debate-at-the-i_n_74960.html

• And what about the lead question that challenged the inequity that compared black to white incarceration?

According to the Dept of Justice...

1 of 31.80 black males is incarcerated in a federal or state prison (3.15 percent)

1 of 80.39 Hispanic males is incarcerated in a federal or state prison (1.24 percent)

1 of 212.31 white males is incarcerated in a federal or state prison (0.47 percent)

Black males are 6.7 times more likely to be incarcerated in a federal or state prison than white males. (3.15 ÷ 0.47 = 6.7) [source]

Not mentioned is the universality of black and white crime rates. American statistics align with those of other nations in Europe, South America and Africa.

Blacks commit more violent crimes that whites who commit more crimes that East Asians who commit more crimes that Ashkenazi Jews.