A recap of this week’s equity news

 ”Obama made inroads with white voters except in Deep South,” - The Times-Picayune

Before Election Day, there was widespread suspicion that enough white voters would balk at voting for an African-American candidate for president that the polls would be proved wrong.

It didn’t turn out that way.

Barack Obama won a convincing popular and electoral victory Tuesday. According to exit polls, the Illinois senator did better with white voters than the past two Democratic nominees, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Vice President Al Gore, did in the 2004 and 2000 elections.

“Bake Sales Fall Victim to Push for Healthier Foods,” - Washington Post

Tommy Cornelius and the other members of the Piedmont High School boys water polo team never expected to find themselves running through school in their Speedos to promote a bake sale across the street. But times have been tough since the school banned homemade brownies and cupcakes.

The old-fashioned school bake sale, once as American as apple pie, is fast becoming obsolete in California, a result of strict new state nutrition standards for public schools that regulate the types of food that can be sold to students. The guidelines were passed by lawmakers in 2005 and took effect in July 2007. They require that snacks sold during the school day contain no more than 35 percent sugar by weight and derive no more than 35 percent of their calories from fat and no more than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat.

“Working Poor and Young Hit Hard in Downturn,” - New York Times

Harvey Shaw’s plans to move out of his parents’ house, finally, have been derailed. With a high school degree obtained belatedly at 21, he had held a full-time job for 26 months as a detailer at a car dealership here, sprucing up new and used cars.
 
But in early October, Mr. Shaw, now 24, recalled, “I came back from vacation, and they said they were cutting back and replacing me with part-time workers.”

The next chapter of America’s story begins today.

We have seen an historic sea change in this nation–not only in the election of Barack Obama, but in the ascension of hundreds of progressive candidates to our State Houses and Congress. To make real this promise of change, however, we must ensure that our elected officials live up to the ideals that promote equity and opportunity.

In the coming months, the Obama Administration will begin its transition to power and the strengthened Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress will get to work. We ask that they keep these Four Principles for Equity in mind in every decision they make:

1. Sustain the deep levels of democratic participation and civic engagement shown during the 2008 presidential election campaign.
2. Build an economy that expands opportunity for struggling families and revitalizes distressed communities.
3. Make affordable housing available to all, recognizing its historic role as a gateway to opportunity and asset-building.
4. Invest in building strong, healthy communities across America.

All Americans–especially those in low-income communities and communities of color–deserve a chance to participate and prosper. We have a real opportunity today to make the change we seek–but we must all work and push and fight together to make it happen.

What principles do you think should guide the Obama Administration? Weigh in the comments!

You can read the full Achieving Equity and Inclusion in America: Policy Principles for the Obama Administration and New Congress document on the PolicyLink site.

A recap of this week’s equity news.

“8,800 Road Home properties to return to private hands, ” - Times Picayune

Actor Wendell Pierce and trumpeter Terence Blanchard have come back to their old neighborhood, Pontchartrain Park, and are poised to take over one of every nine properties there — so they can build and sell affordable homes,
On Monday, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority will vote on an agreement to transfer 114 abandoned and vacant properties to Pierce and Blanchard’s Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corp. It’s a big moment for the star of HBO’s cop drama “The Wire,” the Grammy-winning musician and some of their childhood buddies and fellow investors, who want to return New Orleans’ first middle-class black subdivision to its pre-Katrina glory.

“Homeless numbers ‘alarming’,” - USA Today

More families with children are becoming homeless as they face mounting economic pressures, including mortgage foreclosures, according to a USA TODAY survey of a dozen of the largest cities in the nation.

Local authorities say the number of families seeking help has risen in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Washington.

“ACORN fights back,” - San Francisco Chronicle

In the midst of the predictable partisan exaggerations, distortions and occasional lies that close election races generate, ACORN has become the focus of an extraordinary amount of attention over our voter-registration program. We submitted nearly 40,000 voter registration applications in San Diego and throughout California, and 1.3 million nationwide. In communities across the country, anxiety about the direction of our country, and more specifically our economy, is driving much of the interest in this year’s presidential election. Voter turnout is expected to be of historic proportions. What is surprising is that these attacks, issued from partisan sources, have become relentless, and wildly exaggerated. We’ve even been accused by some Republicans of causing the global economic crisis.

The truth, plain and simple, is that no illegal votes will be cast as a consequence of ACORN’s voter-registration program. In fact, illegal votes constitute fewer than 1 out of a million votes cast, and no illegal vote has ever been tied to ACORN, in spite of the almost 2 million registrations we submitted in 2004 and 2006. The small percentage of problematic cards that we have submitted to local election boards in 2008 - and that we are required by law to submit, even cards that we can plainly see are invalid - will not result in any illegal voting, contrary to over-the-top partisan claims. The irony in these attacks is that our registration drive and get-out-the-vote program is nonpartisan.

Early voting in the presidential election is showing something stunning: African Americans are voting in huge numbers far beyond their Census population percentage, a new report from the Wall Street Journal shows.

Take Georgia, for instance. So far, about 36 percent of the early voting electorate is African American - yet African Americans make up only 29 percent of the state population and typically only 25 percent of the actual voting electorate. Analysts expect this 35-36 percent representation to continue through Election Night.

These are staggering figures. Turnout of C+7 (Census population percentage plus 7) is almost unheard of. But it’s being repeated in state after state. African Americans represent 13 percent of the Florida population, but 21 percent of early voters (C+8). In North Carolina, African Americans represent 21 percent of the population but 33 percent of early voters (C+12!).

For anyone interested in voting rights and equity in America, this is truly an historic moment.

With today’s announcement that John McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, it is virtually assured that America will swear in its first African-American president or first female vice-president in January. The march of history continues….