Race_and_Community

Race and Your Community What constitutes a community' Is it people living in the same area' Is it people of the same religion' Is it people of the same culture, race, or skin color' Or is it people with the same economic or ethnic background' It can be any or all of the above. I live in Atlanta, GA. an ever changing community. Atlanta is known as the city that is to busy to hate, which in principal is true. However, like most other cities we have faced our share on trials and tribulation. Many of which were based on race. I would like to give you an idea of what my community is like as well as the racial challenges that we face. According to Georgia.org (2010) “ The racial breakdown of the population is 65.4 percent White, 58.1 percent White not Hispanic, 30 percent Black or African American, 8 percent Hispanic or Latino, 2.9 percent Asian, 0.5 percent other races, and 1.3 percent two or more races”. I have been fortunate enough to reside in the same house that I grew up in. That has afforded me the opportunity to watch the changes in the community first hand. Let me start by explaining that the City of Atlanta is broken down into several smaller communities. I live in the Adamsville Community. It is majority African Americans and in recent years Mexican Americans have moved into the area. Although we all reside in the Adamsville community we are segregated by choice within the area. As the Hispanic people moved into the area they seemed to stay in close knit groups. They shop at the ethnic grocery stores in the area and attend their own worship services none of which are in our neighborhood. I believe that this segregation exist because of the language barrier that prevents us from communicating with one another. I indentify myself as African American. In the Adamsville community African Americans are in the majority, however, according to statistics for the entire city African Americans are in the minority group. We number about 30 percent of the cities population. MY community is basically the same as most, for instance: The majority of the people in the community are raising families, work for a living, and attend religious services. As people of different racial or ethnic background move into the community they are not treated differently. Although, the issue that I find most often is that if there is a language barrier there is no effort taken to learn to communicate by either party involved. For example, my children attend school with Hispanic children. Several of the Hispanic parents attended the PTA meetings but they do not speak any English so the child would translate back and forth. Recently the school added a Spanish Liaison person that does the Spanish and English translations instead of the children but that does not solve the problem. At the end of the day most African Americans in the community don’t speak Spanish nor do the Hispanic Americans speak English. After researching the matter, I was not able to locate any classes that teach Spanish nor that teaches English in the community, which is very disturbing. There are numerous challenges being faced by minorities in my community at the top of the list is education. According to children cant wait (2010) children in this community are being failed by the school system. Many of the children are falling behind in the elementary schools and are not able to catch up. This lead to the situation where the student is so far behind that they are not able to pass the required test to be promoted to or receive a diploma so that they drop out. According to Atlanta Public Schools (2010)”the graduation rate for the entire system is 67.2 percent”. However the rate of graduation in this community is slightly lower. We face challenges with education that directly affects employment opportunities, health care, housing, income and crime. For instance, all of these issues are interrelated. A person that does not graduate from high school will be passed over when it comes to employment opportunities. They will have to accept jobs paying minimum wage which in many cases do not offer health care benefits. $7.25 per hour will not cover a mortgage and utility bills. So the person may get rent assistance or settle for hosing in a high crime area. According to Atlanta Police (2010) “In the North West Atlanta area where the Adamsville community is located, there has to be a slight in crease in property theft and drug trafficking. However the overall crime rate in the Atlanta area is down. I am employed with one of the leading Hotel chains in the United States; Marriott International. During the fourteen years that I have been employed with the company all of the minority employees, me included have been treated well. The management staff has a wonderful open door policy if there are ever any issues that need to be discussed. All employees are required to complete diversity training once a year. The company has a very strict policy where discrimination of any type is not permitted. The company could offer the diversity training more than once a year as a way to as a way to make sure that all employee are aware of the diverse setting the we work in. According to City of Atlanta (2010) the government in the Atlanta Georgia consists of an African American mayor Kasim Reed and 16 city council members of which 12 are African American, 3 are Caucasian and 1 is Asian. The cities council members do not represent all of the racial and ethnic groups in the community. For example, people of Hispanic or Latino decent are not represented at all in the city council. According to Atlanta Police Department (2010)” the racial break down of the department’s officers is as follows: African American/ Black 57% white: 41% Hispanic: 1% and Asian 1%. Over all the minorities citywide are represented fairly based on earlier statistics. In this great southern city law enforcement still has a long way to go before it can be said that minorities are treated fairly. Even with the majority of the police African American. For example I have been pulled over even though I have done nothing wrong and questioned as to why I was riding through a predominately white neighborhood. I explained to the officer that this is the route that I take home from work to avoid traffic. He ran my license and tag while he was waiting on a response. He asked how I am able to drive the type of car that I was in, insinuating that I must sell drugs. Adrienne Walker, a 4th grade teacher at G.A.Towns elementary school believes that education and health care are the two most important issues facing minority groups in our community today. She believes that both issues can be solved if the education system can be better funded. Outreach programs should be set up to reach the youth that are at risk. With an education students are able to obtain employment with companies that offer benefit packages. Being from an education background she would like to change the method in which funding is distributed through out the school system. The current structure for distribution allows more fund for the large schools which leave many of the schools that service our community receiving the lease amount of funds. Changing the current system would insure that funding is distributed equally. If the current trend continues, as it has over the last decade in 25 to 50 years, people of Hispanic and Latino heritage will outnumber blacks nearly 2 to 1. After the conversation with Mrs. Walker I must agree, that her responses to the questions supported my view about race in our community. I too believe if we can somehow fix the issues with the education system. People will be able to compete in the global market place. Atlanta is a large city and a media strong hold. We have access to the Atlanta Journal and constitution in print and online, local and cable television, as well as the news broadcast station and radio stations that play music or all talk. The crimes that are committed by minorities are sensationalized somewhat to draw in the ratings. The stories are based on fact but the media will present stories in such a way that will draw in the listeners or viewers. There are several ethnic radio stations available throughout the Atlanta area that plays music or talk. As for the local TV news anchors whites and blacks are represented but there are not any Asian anchors and only one Hispanic anchor. This snapshot proves that a community is made up of different races and ethnic groups. There will be trial and tribulations to overcome no matter what community you identify with. As long as we are able to put forth an effort to respect each others culture and traditions we can overcome any obstacles in our path. Conversation is the key that will open the door to race in our communities. References Atlanta Police Department. (2010) Atlanta Police Department. Retrieved from http://www.atlantapd.org City of Atlanta. (2010). City of Atlanta Online. Retrieved from http;//www.atlantaga.gov/ Georgia Department of Economic Development. (2010). GeorgiaUSA. Retrieved from http://www.georgia.org