Catastrophic unemployment

Bob Herbert writes compellingly of the catastrophic level of unemployment amongst African American men in the US.

"A new study of black male employment trends has come up with the following extremely depressing finding: 'By 2002, one of every four black men in the U.S. was idle all year long. This idleness rate was twice as high as that of white and Hispanic males.'

While some of the men not working undoubtedly were ill or disabled, the 25 percent figure is still staggeringly high. And for some segments of the black male population, the situation is even worse.</p>

Among black male dropouts, for example, 44 percent were idle year-round, as were nearly 42 of every 100 black men aged 55 to 64."

Herbert's conclusion is critical for us all to attend to -- especially those of us who claim that we are Christians:

"The distance from the idleness of the street corner to the warmth of a thriving family is not really that far, especially when a helping hand is offered. But we'll never offer the helping hand if we fail to recognize that there's a problem.

It's time like these where the ">Black-eyed Peas song "Where is the love?" echoes so strongly for me.