With the suicides of six gay teenagers in recent weeks, the voices of the media, President Obama, celebrities, parents and universities around the country have been heard with demonstrations speaking out against LGBTQ bullying and homophobia. The Pride Student Union of FSU made their voice heard without words.
Each September, the foundational document of the United States is celebrated on Constitution Day. This year, chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court Charles Canady warned about the civic apathy that makes its annual celebration necessary.
“I guess it was Ben Franklin who, when asked what kind of government was coming out of the constitutional convention, said, ‘a republic, if you can keep it,’” said Justice Canady in the FSU Law Rotunda. “Although we have, I think, a sturdy foundation, each generation has to maintain a commitment to our institutions and constitutional government, and the rule of law.”
Justice Canady spoke about the importance of an independent judiciary committed to an understanding of the rule of law Thursday, Sept. 16, for an annual Constitution Day event sponsored by The James Madison Institute, an organization headquartered in Tallahassee that conducts research on public policy issues facing Florida, and the FSU Law School Federalist Society.
Just a few hour drive from Rev. Terry Jones’ “Islam is of the devil” sign in Gainesville, a group of students and community members of different faiths and persuasions meet to talk in the cyber lounge at the FSU Stone Building. The group, “Skeptics and Believers,” spends Monday nights confronting fundamental questions about religious teachings.
While the two-hour discussions are based initially on a reading, they move to more general discussions of faith, love, reason and reality.
“I wanted to have a dialogue with mixed perspectives, and talk specifically about the person of Jesus, as well as things having to do with faith and reason, science and religion and different figures that are immediately recognizable, like Dawkins and Nietzsche,” said Brad Kimmins, who organizes the meetings with fourth year philosophy major, Brendan Wynn.
Kimmins, a Christian, and Wynn, a self-proclaimed skeptic,have been organizing “Skeptics and Believers: Wrestling With the Life and Teachings of Jesus” since August.
Deep suspicion of different faiths is not new to the United States, or even Florida. “Skeptics and Believers” avoids such enmity because it allows people to engage with different perspectives and ideas represented by individuals, not large groups.
Many who take part in the discussion know each other by name, and through exposure to their different beliefs, have grown to be both open and sensitive with each other.
“It was very civil the whole time, and there was a lot of humor,” said James Campbell, an FSU engineering student and first time attendee of the meetings.
Other attendees appreciated the accepting environment as well.
“It’s respectful and civil even though you can disagree on very fundamental and sensitive issues, like religion,” said Jay Kumar, a frequent attendee of the meetings. “I don’t recall any instances where somebody was out of line or somebody was made to feel marginalized.”
Kimmins has seen the group grow both in the community and the tolerance it fosters.
“The discussions are getting better, the people are getting to know each other more, and there’s more and more civility coming along,” said Kimmins.
On September 7, Interpol, an Indie rock band from New York, released a self-titled fourth album.
The album begins with “Success,” which is powered by a succession of steady cymbal beats that establishes a mellow crescendo through to the end of the song. Their previously released single, “Lights,” appears at number four, followed by “Barricade,” which stands out as the most powerful song and has a sound similar to their first album, Turn on the Bright Lights.
The album acts as a narrative of one man’s emotional journey from happiness to despair. Repetitive chord progressions, heavy bars and the distinct voice of Paul Banks push along the album’s story.
The piano backdrop during “Always Malaise (The Man I Am)” is a refreshing highlight to the otherwise indistinct composition. It is accompanied by echoes of emotionally resilient song lyrics and a speedy snare beat. “The Undoing,” the final song on the album, evokes loose, free feelings by using Spanish dialogue. This finale leaves the listener with an unfinished, lingering feeling of rueful closure.
In a word, Interpol is adequate. From a technical aspect, it is well constructed. Artistically, it weaves the intended narrative. However, the album is missing a certain individuality that would make it stand out from other albums of its genre. If Interpol has any hope of rebounding from this less than spectacular release, their next album will have to do a better job of engaging its audience and provoking emotion.
The Leon County Civic Center was packed Saturday, September 11 as hungry Tallahassee community members of all ages and restaurant owners ready to feed them gathered in celebration of the 2010 first annual Tallahassee Food Festival. Even the mayor was in attendance, teaching onlookers his favorite fish recipe. Starting at 9am and ending at 5pm, the festival brought together a diverse crowd for samplings and activities.
“We felt like food is something that joins all of the community together. It’s a large scale event, it’s tasting that is affordable [for the whole family],” said Crystal Green from YourSocialButterfly, the producer of the festival.
The price of admission to the festival covered endless free samples for the event-goers, which gave restaurant vendors an opportunity to put their best products forward and get their name out in the community. This comes at a time when the restaurant industry is taking a hit from the recession, facing a new wave of families eating at home rather than out on the town.
Vendors from from Tallahassee and the surrounding area included the New Leaf Market, Uptown Café and Catering, Magnolia Farms, Ms Betty’s, Cravings, Pan-Handlers, 3 Guys Pizza, IHOP, Sidewalk Café and Lounge 71. Beth Tedio from the Uptown Café and Catering was one vendor who was excited about the publicity festival generated.
“This has been a good venue and it’s generated a lot of interest in [our smoked salmon]” said Tedio about the crowds’ interest in the Uptown Café and Catering’s signature dish.
Some vendors came from as far away as Live Oak, including Darlene and Michael McElwee of Magnolia Farms. The married couple runs an organic Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, which is supported by shareholders who buy a portion of the farm’s produce for a preset period.
“We’re trying to expand our CSA run and our raw dairy run and educate people on local food here today,” said Darlene McElwee.
Food samples weren’t the only attraction featured at the festival. Media sponsor Best Buy set up two big screen HD TVs and a tailgating area complete with bleachers and games. Budweiser provided beer samples to those who wanted to catch some college football while enjoying the food the festival had to offer.
On the amateur stage there was the Krispy Kreme Doughnut eating contest, where seven contenders were given one minute to eat a dozen of the bakery’s hot and fresh glazed doughnuts. Another hosted Gulf 104’s “Big Ass Chili Bowl” contest where four chili cooks crafted their best chili in hopes of taking home the first place trophy and bragging rights.
On the celebrity stage, Mayor John Marks and other city officials gave festival goers some of their favorite kitchen tips and recipes.
The event brought more people than some of the vendors expected. 3 Guys Pizza ran out of food twice within the first three hours of the event. Other popular vendors that ran out of food were Cravings and Sidewalk Café.
“It’s a very good turn out…People want to be educated [about food]. Tallahassee has a very strong audience for local food,” said Darlene McElwee.
She noted that long ticket lines that formed as early as noon. If the crowded Civic Center, long lines, and food shortages were any indication of the festival’s success, locals may be seeing a second annual Tallahassee Food Festival next year.
The Tallahassee Food Festival benefited the American Red Cross Capital Area Chapter and was made possible by YourSocialButterfly, an event planning, marketing management & concierge consulting firm.
The Florida Youth Environmental Sustainability Coalition is petitioning the Board of Governors to approve a Student Green Energy Fee option for Florida’s universities. The fee, which will be voted on by each university’s student body, will be less than $1 per credit hour and used to create more energy efficient campuses.
“The state doesn’t have the funds for these projects to happen,” said Dan Cannon, the Florida Organizer for the Southern Energy Network and Energy Action Coalition. “I think a lot of students are realizing that a minimal amount of money can produce a monumental amount of change. And they can really progress their campuses to go green faster.”
The proposal allows each university’s Board of Trustees to implement a fee that would be used on renewable energy technologies or energy efficiencies. Every three years, the student body will vote on a referendum to renew the fee. It also establishes a committee at each university, to determine how the funds should be spent.
“This benefits students,” said Stefan Massola, an FSU student and intern at the Florida Public Interest Research Group. “We are saving money for the university, so they can put more money into other initiatives, while increasing our university’s reputation as being one that promotes sustainability.”
The campaign began in 2007. After failing to move through the Higher Education Appropriations Committee last year, student leadership from eight universities created the Florida YES Coalition to create a powerful campaign presence. However, since the Board of Governors withdrew from a lawsuit against the legislature on March 22, legislation has changed, and now the Board of Governors has the authority to set fees.
“We have to re-tool our entire campaign,” said Stephen Mortellaro, director of Governmental Affairs for SGA at the University of Central Florida. “Before, it was going to be a proposal before the legislature. Now it’s going to be a proposal before the Board of Governors. It’s a completely separate entity.”
Mortellaro is optimistic that the Board of Governors will approve their proposal.
“I don’t see the Board of Governors having any problems charging a new fee,” said Mortellaro. “I don’t know if they’ll be quite as willing to give us a three-year referendum approval …That’s one thing we’re going to be pushing hard, to make sure we still have that, because, you know, that this is our money, we’re the ones saying we want this, and we’d like to have the opportunity to approve it.”
This is the first time Florida students have ever asked to raise tuition. During the February Student Government Association Elections at FSU, the referendum for the fee passed with a 66 percent vote.
“I think that it really does four great things: it empowers students. It decreases energy costs and thus increases academic funding. It has the potential to create green jobs, and it decreases a campus’ environmental footprint,” said Moterello.
The Florida YESS Coalition is taking the campaign back to the universities, where they’re hoping student support will rally interest at the administrative level.
“The Board of Trustees has to make a formal request for this to be heard [by the Board of Governors],” said Moterello. “We’re going to be working very hard on lobbying our own university administration to make sure that this request is heard.”
On April 10, locals of all ages gathered in front of the Tallahassee Police Department and on the nearby street corners to protest former Tallahassee Police Officer Ryan Pender reinstatement as an officer with the TPD that morning. Ryan Pender worked on the sting operation with Rachel Hoffman when she was killed.
Rachel Hoffman was a 23-year-old graduate of FSU when she was caught with 0.9 ounces of marijuana in 2007. She was then used as a confidential informant for a drug bust in May 2008 to avoid drug charges, which resulted in her unforeseen death.
All of the officers involved in the case are all back at work. The city of Tallahassee is denying any fault and is placing all the blame on Rachel Hoffman.
Passersby frequently honked on the group of protestors, acknowledging their support, yet many protestors questioned, why more people didn’t take a stand. The group blared Rachel’s story in a megaphone, informing those in traffic and hoping for more support, while jabbing signs high in the air.
Ryan Pender, a police investigator who participated in the failed operation involving Hoffman, is to return as a patrol officer, no longer an investigator, after his firing in Sept. 2008 for violating departmental policies. He will return for a training period before he will fully get back into his job on patrol with the TPD.
The two men Rachel was supposed to buy 1,500 ecstasy pills, 2 ounces of cocaine, and a handgun from in the sting, shot Rachel and are both serving life sentences in prison. However, none of the police officers who violated safety codes were properly penalized.
Locals agreed that this type of situation can make people unwilling to call the police when they have legitimate problems, particularly students considering most are close to Rachel’s age at the time.
“If we can influence the police department in such a way that they say to themselves, maybe we should reconsider this case, but I think there is some value in just the act of doing. Letting them know it isn’t as if no one noticed,” protestor Patrick Shepherd said.
Pender and his fellow officers violated over 100 protocols and procedures in the sting-operation. Rachel was insufficiently protected and monitored, accompanied by only two other officers and was unfamiliar with the two men they arranged her to conduct the drug deal with.
Protestor Taylor Lee said, “What you have is someone who is supposed to be a legal enforcer actually breaking the law, which ultimately resulted in Rachel’s death. Ryan Pender said that he shouldn’t be held responsible, but they are the ones that set up the operation and didn’t properly monitor it.”
During the arbitration for Pender, an arbitrator announced that Pender’s mistakes should not have caused his termination- and now he is going to be reinstated with back-pay and benefits. Pender’s attorney said that Pender was ready and willing to report back to duty, but the Hoffman family was devastated to hear the news. The Hoffman’s attorney Lance Block felt that this puts the progress towards Rachel’s justice back at the beginning.
“Here, and in this country in general, the police are not held accountable to the standards that they should be,” said protestor Ryler Calavrese.
In the two-day arbitration period deciding whether Pender could go back to work for the TPD, many reports were reviewed, but the 200 page internal investigation report that proved all of the violated department protocols was not included for discussion.
The Hoffman family and attorney Lance Block still intend to file a civil lawsuit case against the city of Tallahassee, but their case is still pending.
Patrick continued, “In this town I think the police are good people and they do a valuable service and they do it bravely, but there needs to be some system of accountability. This situation seems to be the clearest example of this, even as just a microcosm of the whole thing. Just looking at this situation, while seeing there are other things that aren’t as severe, they can happen and can be just as severe.”
Many protestors felt that just coming out to show their opinions would make a statement and would make a difference and benefit the Tallahassee community.
The TPD acknowledged the protestors presence, but stated they must comply what the arbitrators decided concerning Pender.
Some women prefer sex under the influence of alcohol, according to one U.K.-based study released this past September and published in the online British newspaper MailOnline.
The study, conducted by feminine hygiene company Femfresh, surveyed 3,000 women between the ages of 18 and 50. According to researchers, the average women reported 8 different sexual partners and was drunk with at least 5 of them. Four out of 10 have “always” been a bit tipsy when they have slept with a partner for the first time. Additionally, 48.5 percent said they preferred sex while under the influence.
The data isn’t applicable solely to single women. The study also revealed 14 percent of women in a relationship can’t face sleeping with their partner unless they had a couple of glasses of wine beforehand.
Researchers of this study have concluded the results point to a severe lack of confidence in women. But it’s important to point out that researchers haven’t evaluated self-confidence directly; they’re only theorizing a cause from an observed effect.
“Personally, I’m not too sure that they’ve provided any evidence of this by making a link between drinking and sexual behavior in women,” said Dr. Al Lang, professor of psychology and member of the clinical faculty of Florida State University’s Psychology Department. “Alcohol may just be one of any number of means that could be used to cope with this alleged lack of confidence.”
Though definitive conclusions can’t be drawn from the survey, there nonetheless exists an obvious correlation between drinking and unprotected and even dangerous sex, especially among younger women.
According to the American College Health Association National College Health Assessment for Spring 2009, of 953 FSU students surveyed, 19.9 percent of female respondents reported having unprotected sex during the last school year as a result of their own drinking. Furthermore, only 53.1 percent of sexually active students reported using a condom the last time they had vaginal sex. For oral sex, 3.3 percent of students polled reported condom use, and this has health professionals concerned.
“An issue of greater concern for us is students having unprotected oral sex, which puts them at equal risk for STD,” said Melvena Wilson, HIV clinic coordinator and health educator at FSU’s Thagard Student Health Center.
Having such unprotected sex under the influence of alcohol “puts you at risk for things to happen that you don’t want to happen,” Wilson said.
None of the students Wilson has talked to directly admitted drinking and having sex because of a lack of confidence. Regardless, resorting to alcohol as a means to a self-esteem boost is not the answer, she said.
“Deal with your self-esteem first, because it won’t be resolved with sex,” said Wilson. “A lack of self-confidence won’t be cured with alcohol.”
Lack of self-confidence brings up the issue of body image, an issue many young women struggle. Many young women are not confident with their body shape. At the same time, sex puts you in the most physically vulnerable state. If women know that they’ll act totally different under the influence of alcohol, they might seek alcohol as a means to ease that anxiety over sexual performance and approval from their partner.
“Alcohol does something to you,” said Asia Williams, a senior at FSU and volunteer with local organization THE LOC (Total Health Empowerment for Ladies of Color). “It can make you feel calmer, but it does put you in a different state of mind where you’re more vulnerable.”
Williams echoed Wilson’s assertion that the short-term self-esteem buzz that alcohol can give cannot solve a long-term self-confidence issue.
“That feeling that alcohol gives you, that’s temporary,” said Williams. “That’s the thing about alcohol. You may drink that night before, feel completely confident, but you wake up the next morning with the same body.”
If a young woman is dealing with a low self-esteem issue, there are healthier ways to deal with it besides alcohol.
According to Williams, confidence “has to come out (from the) inside, and you have to be the one to bring that out.”
Having open communication with your partner is important in this respect, as Natalie Muniz from Planned Parenthood points out.
“We encourage all women and men to be able to figure out what makes them feel comfortable, preferably without alcohol or use of any other substance, and to try to have open communication with your partner,” said Muniz. “That can also break down some of those comfort barriers and make it so that someone feels more at ease, and if they choose to engage in sexual activity, that can make them feel more comfortable doing so.
Muniz also stresses the importance of self-empowerment in dealing with self-confidence.
“Just learning your own body, knowing your own body, feeling empowered with knowledge about your health and body-that can help people feel more confident as well,” Muniz said.
Finding someone to talk to is another way to deal with a self-confidence issue, suggest Williams. She advises seeking out someone you are comfortable with, who will take you seriously and tell you the truth about your body. Williams observes that young women can tend to be harsh about their body. A nose is too big, a waist too thick, hips too wide. But she sees it a different way.
“There really is no ugly piece of you,” said Asia. “What they see in themselves, other people don’t. Your perception of your body may not be someone else’s. Talking to somebody about your insecurities can help heighten your awareness that that is truly a beautiful part of your body.”
Those in need of confidential HIV or STD testing or simply someone to talk to can contact Thagard Student Health Center at 644-8871. Wilson’s direct line is 644-4333.
At pharmacies and grocery stores around the country, condoms are being held hostage. These stores, some motivated to stop theft, others motivated to keep “inappropriate” items out of the reach of younger customers, are locking up their condoms. In order to purchase a pack of condoms, customers must ask a pharmacist to unlock a case, get an individual box of condoms freed from its plastic prison by a clerk, or ask for condoms kept behind a counter, where they are stored with toxic cigarettes, cold medicines that can be used to make methamphetamines, and lighters.
The CVS on Tennessee St. (the closest pharmacy to FSU) uses the individual plastic prison approach. Customers must bring the case up to a cashier to have the condom box released before purchasing. Regardless of the reasons for purchasing a condom, let’s get two things straight: when used correctly condoms decrease the likelihood of unwanted pregnancy, and they prevent the spread of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. So why are these stores making it so hard for us to protect ourselves?
Locking a condom in a plastic box creates several problems. First, it extends the awkward period of time spent purchasing condoms (because we all know what we’d rather be doing instead of buying the condoms.) Second, it draws unwanted attention to the condom buyer. Third, it increases the stigmas put on premarital sex. All of these problems can lead to a decreased desire to buy, and therefore use, condoms.
Their Corporate Media and Public Relations Department is not very good at relating to the public (or answering phone calls, returning messages, and that type of thing). And although the CVS managers are unable to speak to media, I did find out their condom lockdown has been attributed to theft. Condoms are among the most stolen items at drugstores.
However, is the loss of a few dollar profit every once and a while really more important than having young people’s decision to engage in unprotected sex on your hands?
According to a survey conducted through FSU’s Thagard Student Health Center and the National College Health Association, 17-18 percent of students use condoms consistently for penal-vaginal intercourse. 15 percent never use condoms for penal-vaginal intercourse. Only .3 percent use condoms consistently for oral sex. And 48 percent never use condoms for oral sex.
Chlamydia, herpes and human papillomavirus (HPV) are the STDs most frequently seen at Thagard, and chlamydia and gonorrhea are on the rise in Leon County. 60-80 percent of people have no symptoms for these diseases, and spread them unknowingly. Chlamydia and gonorrhea can also be passed through oral sex, and STDs, like HPV and herpes, can even be passed through skin-to-skin contact. Condom use is essential to stop the spread of STDs in our county, state and country.
Melvena Wilson, HIV Clinic Coordinator and Minority Health Educator at Thagard Student Health Center, encourages students to alleviate risks through condom use, STD testing, and monogamy.
“I recommend they use condoms every time for every sexual act, no matter how long they’ve been with their partner,” said Wilson. “You and your partner should get tested before having sex…and use condoms every time, start to finish…If you’re going to be sexually active, you need to be sexually responsible.”
But what if condoms are difficult to come by? What if being sexually responsible is really hard? In the instantaneous, pleasure-driven, Veruca Salt “I want it now” climate of college, driving to four places to get condoms is just unrealistic. If a person stops at CVS on the way home only to find locked up condoms, they may choose not to use protection instead of driving to another store, making the quickest and easiest decision. That quickest and easiest decision leaves them unprotected.
With these embarrassingly low condom use percentages, and STD rates consequently on the rise, why won’t CVS unlock their condoms?
Their refusal to free the latex may be a result of a lack of community uproar.
Wilson doesn’t seem to think locked up condoms affect condom use in any way. In fact, she thinks people who are too embarrassed to ask for condoms shouldn’t be having sex anyway.
“The embarrassment for asking for condoms will be the same whether you have to ask someone to unlock it or ask someone for it,” she said. “They need to get over the embarrassment of asking for condoms and asking for protection because they are going to be a lot more embarrassed if they have to come in here and ask for an HIV test…If they are old enough and mature enough to have sex, then they’re old enough to ask for condoms.”
Ideally, all sexually active people would be mature and responsible citizens dedicated to protecting themselves and others. But in reality, and on this campus, there are a lot of immature and irresponsible people having sex without protection, and despite their flaws, they deserve easier access to condoms.
Wilson then compared asking for condoms to asking for sinus medication. On one hand, I like this comparison. Condoms are normal and mundane, just like any other health product, and sex outside of marriage must be de-stigmatized in order to protect participants. However, as far as I know, if you don’t treat a sinus infection, you aren’t likely to die. If you don’t use condoms, you run a risk of catching diseases that can cause pain, infertility and death.
People seem to be writing off those embarrassed about buying protection as unworthy of our help. But the bottom line is that condoms are not sinus medication. Condoms are far more important, and need to be more accessible. Thagard, students and the community should be doing more to improve our abysmal condom use rates, even if it means taking a stand against a corporate power.
Thagard does participate and initiate a lot of safe-sex programming and aids in the de-stigmatization of sex. They also offer free male and female condoms, flavored condoms and lubrications in a wide variety of brands. In addition to protection, students can also get HIV and STD tests there, some of which are free. Obviously, the lack of condom use is not due to Thagard Health Center and particularly Melvena Wilson’s lack of effort. They work very hard.
Sophomore Psychology student Jessa Miller praised Thagard for their work in the residence halls, which she has seen working with University Housing as Vice President of Landis Hall. She likes that the safe sex education programming informs new students about the resources available in the health center. However, she thinks there are a few things that could be improved.
“The only thing I think they should do different is move the condoms from the third floor to the first floor.”
Miller did, however, find a problem with CVS’s condom policy.
“I think that it is very ignorant and not socially responsible of them, because as college students or as teenagers in general, a lot of people, especially when you get into younger kids who are having sex, are embarrassed about it,” she said. “It’s something you want to keep private. So if you force them to go behind the desk and ask someone for condoms, they’re a lot less likely to buy them.”
Miller said she would be less likely to purchase condoms if they were locked up, which shows the flaws in CVS’s judgment and Wilson’s ability to brush off their policy as something that doesn’t affect condom use. Not only is CVS losing customers and revenue, but they may also be a small part of FSU’s low percentage of consistent condom users.
“When I decide to engage in sexual relations, it’s my decision and it’s nothing that I want to make obvious to everyone to everyone standing behind me in line or everyone else in the store,” Miller said.
She wouldn’t buy condoms at CVS. Other condom buyers complain about having to wait for someone to unlock their condom case, losing privacy, having store employees give them judgmental looks, or coming at a time when the materials used to unlock condom cases are unavailable.
Alternative ways of buying condoms are becoming popular. Several Yeti writers admitted to only buying condoms from stores with self check-out lines. Many students, especially women, felt this buying strategy protected them from judgment. One student even admitted to buying condoms online. It’s cheap, easy, and carries no risk of embarrassment. Other students grab free condoms from places like Thagard or buy from stores like Walgreen’s that have company policies against locking up condoms.
“Our policy is to keep [condoms] available and unlocked,” said Carol Hively, Walgreen’s corporate spokesperson in a 2008 Creative Loafing article. “Our goal chainwide is for easy access and no hindrances for people wanting to buy condoms.”
It’s great that some students are taking the initiative to obtain condoms in alternative ways, and that a few companies are taking a stand. But what about the stores who aren’t and the students who saw CVS as the one stop they were making to buy condoms?
Right now, they’re unprotected.
Whatever CVS’ motivation to lock up condoms, be it theft or moral objection, they need to get over it. And students need to be more outraged. With condom usage only at 17-18 percent and much lower for oral sex, we should be doing more to help students procure easy access to condoms. If unlocking condoms at CVS gets one person using condoms consistently, it could save countless others by stopping the spread of disease. Safe sex education and free condoms at Thagard are a commendable start, but until the entire community de-stigmatizes sex and frees the condoms, the health of our students won’t be going anywhere.
A national research organization, the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, recently released a report that revealed persisting wealth gaps between racial groups in the United States. The study proved especially daunting for black women, whose estimated net worth is $100. This number is even more shocking when aligned with their white female counterparts’ $41,500.
The Insight Center defines wealth as “the total value of assets minus debts.” Thus, the above figures reflect an individual’s median net worth “when debts exceed assets.”
Nicole Hilson, FSU student and Director of the Women’s Center was shocked at the gap, but approached it logically.
“I was surprised at the gap, but I understand why it’s there,” Hilson said. “Not that it’s okay in any way, shape or form, but I can see how institutions in this society could make that happen.”
According to the Insight Center, present U.S. institutions that make acquiring wealth difficult for the African American woman include: limited access to on-the-job benefits like health insurance, holiday pay, or pensions; the disabling affects of Public Assistance; the reality of habitually falling into lower paying job, and as a result, lower benefits of social insurance—social security, worker’s compensation, and unemployment insurance.
Although a lot of inequalities exist within the workforce itself, Dr. Mason, FSU Professor of Economics notes the significance of unemployment as well.
“African Americans sort of exist in a permanent deep recession,” Mason said. “[Their] unemployment rate usually hovers around 10% or 12%, what’s now the current national rate, and a lot of people are upset about it. Well, that’s the normal state of [black unemployment].”
The current unemployment rate for African American women, as estimated by the Labor Bureau of Statistics, is 11.7%, which is troubling considering that a great percentage of these women are single parents.
Because many single black women, like most unmarried women of other racial groups, hold the title of primary child-care provider, they must inevitably forgo many jobs due to lack of additional help in the home, prices of outside care, and unaccommodating nature of many job companies.
Audrey Torres of FSU’s Black Female Development Center has had personal experience with the poverty of black single mothers.
“My mom is a single mother, her mom was a single mother, and there are a lot of single women here who are in poverty raising children,” Torres said. “Poverty is a continued cycle.”
The Insight Center affirms her statement. According to their study, “black mothers with children under age 18 have a median wealth of zero.”
Raising a child alone is no doubt a strain on an individual’s finances, however, there are also other hindering economic effects that not having a spouse creates for these individuals.
BlackVoices online magazine states that “black women are the least likely group to get married, and if they do marry an African American man, those couples have the highest divorce rate in the country.” This reality produces an unsettling blow to these women’s financial status in comparison to men. As mentioned by the Center for Community Development, divorced women of color only have 26% of the wealth of divorced men of color, 8% of White women, and 5% of divorced White men.
Not only are discriminatory institutions fully intact in the U.S. today, but institutional factors of the past have played a major part in the current economic state for black women as well as black families, as stated in the report. For instance, the implementation of slavery, Jim Crow laws, “laws against interracial marriages, and policies which restricted opportunities for women to own and build assets.”
“Wealth is a way of transferring inequality across time,” Mason said. “If [there was] a large wealth gap 30-40 years ago, but [nothing was done] to adjust that wealth gap, even if you eliminate the wage gap, but [nothing’s done] about the accumulated differences from the past, then that wealth gap will persist for an extremely long period of time.”
Among the solutions included to help black women acquire and maintain wealth, the Insight Center recommends policies that will 1) improve employment opportunities, 2) support self employment, and 3) modify social insurance to provide adequate protection.
In addition to these proposals, Hilson believes that reeducation is also imperative.
“The actual solution would be to educate people about the systems that they’re apart of; the institutions they’ve grown to know and love, and how [society has] placed stereotypes and discriminations inside of their heads from day one,” Hilson said.
Although African American women can definitely use the above tools to better their accumulation of wealth, it will most likely be a very long time before they ever achieve economic equality, and finally close the economic gap.
“I think it’s always going to be a gap, maybe not as wide…[but] there’s always going to be discrimination, always going to be some type of prejudice between the races,” said Torres.
For more information visit www.racialwealthgap.org
