Trading Down: The Black Unemployment Epidemic
Almost a year ago, I wrote that African-Americans and Latinos are the “canaries in our economic coal mine.” In early mines, ventilation was poor at best, non-existent at worst. So, miners would take a caged canary into the mine with them. Canaries, being sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide gases, were the miners’ early warning system. Toxic gases would kill the birds before killing the miners. If the canary stopped singing and keeled over, it was time to get out of the mine.
A year ago, the black and brown “canaries in our too-long-deregulated economic mineshaft” were gasping for air. A year later, the canaries are still gasping for air, and too few seem to notice, or ask why.
Posts
