by Gene Davis, DDN Staff Writer

A new report from the Colorado Progressive Coalition gives Gov. Bill Ritter and the Colorado legislature a C- for their efforts in the 2009 session to increase racial equality within Colorado.

Over the past two weeks, Americans struggled to make sense of tragic shootings that seemed disconnected at first glance. Anti-Semite James Von Brunn killed Stephen T. Johns, a black security guard at the Holocaust Museum. George Tiller's murder a few days earlier seemed to be about abortion, yet his shooter, Scott Roeder, also had roots in the racial purity movement. Yesterday, it was reported that the murders of Raul Flores and his daughter in Arizona were charged to three people with white supremacist ambitions.

Read the rest of this article at the Huffington Post .

When General Motors filed for bankruptcy on Monday, it left behind a long trail of grievers -- twenty-one thousand of them. The loss of these good, union jobs and the many more that will be shed when related businesses close are devastating families and communities. For black workers, who are highly concentrated in the auto industry, these have long been some of the few reliable jobs that pay living wages, supplying families of color the with the possibility of entering the middle class.

Read the rest of the article at the Huffington Post. 

Seth Wessler, researcher and author of “Race and Recession: How Inequity Rigged the Economy and How to Change the Rules”, was recently a guest on ‘Voices from the edge.’

Applied Research Center Says Solving Structural Inequities will Alleviate Recession

To learn more and download the report, go to www.arc.org/recession

A report released today by the Applied Research Center (ARC), a racial justice think-tank, finds that an inclusive and equitable national economic recovery will require that the country address deep patterns of racial discrimination and disparities. The report, titled “Race & Recession,” found that numerous policies and institutional practices that create racial inequity are among the root causes of the subprime mortgage crisis and economic downturn.  While several economists and analysts have focused on the “what” and “how” questions behind the current recession, an in-depth analysis of income, unemployment, foreclosures, and public benefits brings the largely overlooked “who” into the analysis: Who were predatory loans targeted towards? Which Americans are losing jobs?