Thread: Bill Proctor: Black male workers are wrongly being displaced

April 28, 2011

Bill Proctor
My View

Nothing disrobes the honor of government more than when the perception that corruption permeates the system and processes it controls.

The perception changes when a fair and proportionate amount of resources are distributed so that all segments of society may benefit. This includes jobs for black men as hired workers and increased support for multiple area businesses.

City project after city project features nearly 100 percent Hispanic common laborers. Hispanic men have gained the favor of contractors who do government construction projects. This is an orchestrated and unhealthy economic trend that displaces dollars from the black community and disrespects the abundant financial contributions made by the black community to local government and private businesses.

Employment discrimination appears to be enjoying its finest hour at the city's Wahnish Way ditch project behind Bethel AME Church. The Bronough Street pipe project and pond expansion behind Little St. Mary Primitive Baptist Church features the same almost-100 percent Hispanic workforce. Utilizing public dollars to hire private contractors who discriminate against black men as common laborers is wrong.

Not only should our local governments in these economic times focus on hiring local workers but they also should focus on purchasing goods from local businesses.

Hispanics are not volunteer workers at these job sites. If they earn under minimum wage, this is illegal. If they are forced laborers, this violates the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery. If they are illegal workers, this constitutes federal and state legal issues.

There is a crisis facing black men who seek common labor jobs. This is a legal, moral and social crisis facing this community. From the earliest times, black people helped build this community. Blacks were also the majority of soldiers who courageously fought in the Battle at Natural Bridge during the Civil War.

Our community should maintain the resolve to honor the contributions of all sections, especially the black population's financial contribution to local government. Representing 34 percent of Leon County's population, black citizens pay far more property taxes, utility bills and sales taxes and rent in this community than Hispanics.

Hispanics do not have a long history reflecting contributions to the growth and development of Tallahassee. Hispanics do not pay taxes comparable to the volume of public jobs they receive. In fact, they have 90 percent of the common labor jobs while representing only 3 percent of the county's population.

According to Leon County's Disparity Study, there are 18 black prime contractors and zero Hispanic prime contractors. This study also reveals that there are 108 black subcontractors and only nine Hispanic subcontractors for construction projects. Black vendors overall receive less than 2 percent of Leon County's total expenditures for goods and services.

The power to change this racial and economic discrimination rests in the hands of elected officials on the County Commission, School Board and City Commission. No one should mistake indifference and aloofness by policy makers as statesmanship. We need strict accountability on the issue of jobs and racial parity in hiring and contracting, period.

An innovative approach is that the county, city and School Board create a citizens' purchasing board to carve out and monitor procurement policies and practices to hire local laborers and to direct more local purchases of goods and services from a more diverse vendor group. The procurement and purchasing departments of local governments must be more fair, protective and focused upon helping local workers and businesses than ever before.

The county, city and School Board must explore avenues to reverse the crisis of the exclusion of black men from jobs created from taxpayer money. Although they are agencies of the state and not local government, Florida A&M University, Florida State University and Tallahassee Community College should actively engage to reverse the crisis of the black man exclusion from taxpayer-supported construction jobs on their campuses. The dominant workers doing construction work on these campuses are Hispanic. We must have black men working, earning and able to feed their families.

It is clear there exists a vacuum and no one is addressing this displacement occurring before all of our eyes. Black men are not working while the "Browning of America" is subsided by government support and sustained by taxpayers' dollars.

Our community deserves an explanation of how 3 percent of the community receives 90 percent of the working-man jobs. Most of all, why are black men excluded from jobs in their own neighborhoods and beyond? We must not accept government's passive support of a lie that suggests black men are not good enough to do jobs paid for by public dollars.

Additional Facts

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bill Proctor represents District 1 on the Leon County Commission. Contact him at PROCTORB@leoncountyfl.gov.

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/2011 ... -displaced

here it is again teh pro latin america lobby pushing for the displacement of our african american brothers and sisters. This is shameful!

This isn't just about black men either. I know several white males, including myself, that are being turned down on a constant basis for jobs like this.