What we don't talk about when we talk about jobs

COMMENTARY | July 05, 2011

The yawning chasm between the black and white employment rates is a problem that spans generations, goes remarkably unnoticed, and condemns millions of black Americans to a life of scraping by, writes Andy Kroll.

By Andy Kroll

Like the country it governs, Washington is a city of extremes. In a car, you can zip in bare moments from northwest District of Columbia, its streets lined with million-dollar homes and palatial embassies, its inhabitants sporting one of the nation's lowest jobless rates, to Anacostia, a mostly forgotten neighborhood in southeastern D.C. with one of the highest unemployment rates anywhere in America. Or, if you happen to be jobless, upset about it, and living in that neighborhood, on a crisp morning in March you could have joined an angry band of protesters marching on the nearby 11th Street Bridge.