EthnicMajority

(Chicago Sun Times) You’ve heard of the glass ceiling (women) and the bamboo ceiling (Asian Americans). It turns out there’s a blue-collar ceiling for Chicago Latinos.

So says a new study from DePaul University’s New Journalism on Latino Children project and the Latino Policy Forum. They analyzed Hispanic representation in 480 occupations identified by the U.S. Census Bureau and found that both Mexican immigrants and many of their U.S.-born counterparts are overrepresented in low-skilled, low-pay manufacturing, food service, and construction industries.

Considering that Latinos represented three of every five new entrants to the region’s labor force over the past decade and that their dismal high school graduation rates — a mere 59 percent — are colliding with a time when our city is turning toward a knowledge-based economy, this is very bad news.

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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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(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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(CBS Chicago) They’ve been waiting for a long, long time, but on Tuesday, the first of hundreds of African American applicants finally got a fair shot at Chicago firefighters’ jobs.

They’ve been waiting 16 years since filing a lawsuit accusing the fire department of discrimination in its testing for the Fire Department.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports on their stories about “the lost years.”

The firefighter candidates might have lost some strength and agility since they took the written test in 1995 and maybe gained some weight, but what many haven’t lost is their childhood dream.

“I just thought this was something that touched me deeply going back into my childhood; watching all these beautiful greystones in the city die and watching them die at the hands of fires. So I always wanted to be a firefighter,” said Michael Taqee, who took the city’s firefighter test in 1995.

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(People's World) The city's new police chief, Garry McCarthy, sermonized recently that federal gun laws are equivalent to "government-sponsored racism," and they "facilitate" illegal gun trafficking into the urban centers of this country.

McCarthy, Newark, N.J.'s former top cop, said to the predominantly black congregation at St. Sabina Church, "[L]et's see if we can make a connection here. Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What did they all have in common? Anybody getting scared? Government sponsored racism.

"Now I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of the African American history in this country, and tell me if I'm crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers across this country, that are killing our black and brown children," he said.

St. Sabina's priest is Father Pfleger, a well-known anti-violence, anti-racist activist here. Pfleger and McCarthy are both white. McCarthy said he isn't afraid to address the issue of "race."

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(People's World) Demands to address the country's jobs crisis are accelerating with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) joining a growing number of groups calling for federal action. The CBC will be hosting a "For the People Jobs Initiative" in several urban areas stricken by high unemployment.

The first stop will be Chicago and will be hosted by Congressman Danny Davis. The date has not yet been announced.

According to The Root, the tour will take the form of a jobs fair along with town hall meetings to focus attention on the challenges faced by job seekers. 

The Congressional Progressive Caucus along with labor groups is also sponsoring public hearings this summer in an effort to help shape the public debate.

Republicans in Congress turned a deaf ear to jobs legislation even before winning a majority in last fall's election. The tea party majority faction instead is fixated on cutting government spending and preventing corporate tax increases.

With African American unemployment twice the national average, the Black Caucus thinks that immediate steps must be taken. The jobs fair component of their For the People Jobs Initiative is aimed at addressing this concern.

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(ABC Chicago) Will graphic new warning labels on cigarette packs help stem the rising number of Asian-Americans who are picking up the habit?

The Food and Drug Administration just released new cigarette warning labels which feature graphic pictures of the dangers of tobacco use.

In large immigrant communities, like Chinatown, smoking rates are well above the national average. Many smokers began their habit in Asian countries where smoking is more common, and because of language and cultural barriers, they find it difficult to find the support needed to quit.

They are illegal to sell in the United States, but that hasn’t kept Chinese cigarettes emblazoned with the symbol for good fortune from finding a large market in Chicago’s Chinatown. It’s part of the uphill battle faced by anti-smoking groups in that neighborhood.

“Our population is more socially isolated in an ethnic enclave. And so they don’t receive health messages through the mainstream media,” said Meme Wang, Asian Health Coalition.

A recent study commissioned by the Asian Health Coalition found that one in three men in Chinatown smokes, well above rates for Chicago and the nation.

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(Daily Northwestern) The Sun-Times called it a “surprise win.” A Huffington Post writer called it the “biggest upset of the Chicago elections.”

Ameya Pawar, a program assistant at Northwestern’s office of emergency management, made history on Tuesday when he was elected the first Asian-American alderman in Chicago history, defeating favorite Tom O’Donnell.Pawar narrowly avoided a runoff with 50.8 percent of the vote, while O’Donnell trailed with 43.5.

Even though he was the Chicago Tribune’s and Sun-Times’ endorsed candidate, Pawar, 30, didn’t expect to win — he didn’t even prepare an election-night party.

“I saw him later that election night and he genuinely didn’t think he was going to win,” said Tom Jacks, an NU student working towards a master’s degree in public policy and administration, who ran against Pawar.

Talking on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight the day after his win, Pawar said he received a congratulatory call from mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who lives in Pawar’s ward, the day after the elections. Pawar could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.

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(Christian Science Monitor) Some 6,000 African-American applicants for jobs with the Chicago Fire Department can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit over the firefighter hiring test, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The US Supreme Court ruled on Monday that some 6,000 African-American job applicants are entitled to pursue a discrimination lawsuit claiming a Chicago Fire Department hiring test created a disparate impact against minority candidates.

The justices unanimously reversed a federal appeals court decision that had thrown out the group’s class-action lawsuit on grounds that they had filed their challenge after a 300-day deadline had passed.

Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said lawsuits attacking ongoing employment practices that result in disparate impacts against minority groups are not tied to the same 300-day limitations period.

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