EthnicMajority

(The Black Man) I am an African American financial advisor. However, African Americans and people of color have been a very small part of my wealth management business—so small, in fact, that the phenomenon spurred me to discover if what I have experienced holds true across the country. I have come into contact with very educated and successful African American businesspeople, but the one consistent factor is that many of them lag behind in their saving and investing experiences.

What is more disturbing is that African American and Hispanic workers are just as likely as American workers to feel confident about their retirement security, even though their savings and preparations lag behind, according to findings of the Minority Retirement Confidence Survey (MRCS). While some differences in retirement preparation can be attributed to differences in income distribution, other findings show that minorities are less prepared  even when comparisons are made among workers with similar levels of household income.

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(Chicago Tribune) A federal lawsuit filed Monday in Chicago accused Comcast Corp. of discriminating against the African-American employees of its South Side facility and its own customers by requiring workers to install defective or bug-infested equipment into residents' homes.

Eleven current and former workers in Comcast Corp.'s South Side facility are seeking class action status claiming that since at least 2005, the media company "has engaged in an ongoing pattern of race discrimination against African American employees" at its South Side location, according to the complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.  

The group includes 10 current employees and one former worker who was fired in 2009. The plaintiffs on average, have worked for Comcast for 15 years, the lawsuit says.

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(New York Times) A group of African-American pastors in New Mexico, along with the Albuquerque chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., said Tuesday that they have filed a complaint with the Justice Department alleging that black faculty and staff members at the University of New Mexico and its hospital are subject to discrimination.

The Title VI complaint, which was also filed with the federal Department of Education, says university administrators have created a racially hostile environment for black faculty members, students and the staff.

Specifically, it asserts that African-Americans have been excluded from positions in the school’s upper administration; that black women at New Mexico were virtually left out of all positions of authority; and that blacks on the faculty faced disparity in salaries compared with fellow minority colleagues.

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(Gawker.com) The National Venture Capital Association has completed its 2011 census. Now we all know the business of doling out money to tech startups is a pasty one—right? we're all clear on this, yes?—but the association this year trumpets "signs of increasing ethnic diversity." So, take a wild guess at the combined percentage of blacks and Latinos among venture capitalists.

Did you guess two percent? If so, congratulations, you win another several decades of continued de facto exclusion and OMG HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A RACIST push back. After surveying 600 VC professionals, NVCA found the industry to be 87 percent white, 9 percent Asian, and 2 percent black or Latino. The low numbers of blacks and Latinos apparently precluded even breaking out separate tallies, even though these are the two largest U.S. ethnic groups after whites, constituting 16 and 12 percent of the overall national population, respectively.

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(BET) A federal appellate court in Chicago agreed Wednesday to hear the case of some 700 African-American financial advisors who have filed a class-action lawsuit against Merrill Lynch claiming the brokerage firm discriminated against them in promotion, compensation, client assignment and resource allocation.

The brokers’ legal crusade began in 2005, and has experienced a number of courtroom setbacks, most recently when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case in October. One of the issues was whether the case could be certified as a class-action suit. On Nov. 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed to begin hearing the case in Chicago, probably early in 2012.

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(Progress Illinois) If the layoffs outlined in the proposed Chicago budget come to fruition, labor leaders say they will greatly impact African American, Latino, and Asian workers who make up 85 percent of the cuts, according to their analysis. This could be devastating for communities already struggling with high unemployment rates.

While the national unemployment rate is 9 percent, African Americans currently battle an unemployment rate of just over 15 percent. The figure is 11.4 percent for Latinos.

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(CNN) Wayne Sutton has been asking venture-capital investors and Silicon Valley executives a question that's not often broached here in the epicenter of the technology industry:

"Why aren't there more black people in tech?"

The vast majority of top executives at the leading Silicon Valley tech firms are white men. Women and Asians have made some inroads, but African-American and Latino tech leaders remain a rarity. About 1% of entrepreneurs who received venture capital in the first half of last year are black, according to a study by research firm CB Insights.

This lack of diversity in Silicon Valley made headlines last month when influential tech blogger Michael Arrington, in an interview for CNN's upcoming documentary "Black in America: The New Promised Land: Silicon Valley," said, "I don't know a single black entrepreneur." Arrington later recanted the statement, saying he was caught off guard by the question, but the sensitive issue sparked a public dispute between the newly minted venture capitalist and CNN's Soledad O'Brien.

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(Washington Post) President Barack Obama acknowledged on Wednesday that black Americans have faced “enormous challenges” with unemployment under his watch, and appealed for their support in pursuing solutions that he can implement without help from Congress.

Appearing at a daylong White House summit of black business, community and political leaders, Obama said the current 15.1 percent unemployment rate among blacks is “way too high,” and that various other problems that plagued black communities before he took office, such as housing and education, have worsened.

“We know tough times,” the president said. “And what we also know, though, is that if we are persistent, if we are unified, and we remain hopeful, then we’ll get through these tough times and better days lie ahead.”

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(Washington Post) President Barack Obama acknowledged on Wednesday that black Americans have faced “enormous challenges” with unemployment under his watch, and appealed for their support in pursuing solutions that he can implement without help from Congress.

Appearing at a daylong White House summit of black business, community and political leaders, Obama said the current 15.1 percent unemployment rate among blacks is “way too high,” and that various other problems that plagued black communities before he took office, such as housing and education, have worsened.

“We know tough times,” the president said. “And what we also know, though, is that if we are persistent, if we are unified, and we remain hopeful, then we’ll get through these tough times and better days lie ahead.”

Full story…

(Washington Post) President Barack Obama acknowledged on Wednesday that black Americans have faced “enormous challenges” with unemployment under his watch, and appealed for their support in pursuing solutions that he can implement without help from Congress.

Appearing at a daylong White House summit of black business, community and political leaders, Obama said the current 15.1 percent unemployment rate among blacks is “way too high,” and that various other problems that plagued black communities before he took office, such as housing and education, have worsened.

“We know tough times,” the president said. “And what we also know, though, is that if we are persistent, if we are unified, and we remain hopeful, then we’ll get through these tough times and better days lie ahead.”

Full story…