Democratic and Liberal political analysis and commentary

Iowa tops the nation in the rate at which blacks are incarcerated compared to whites. There are other negative indicators, including lack of scholastic achievement, an increases in gang involvement and level of welfare usage. As one participant in the debate pointed out, blacks who belong to unions can sometimes increase their wages by more than 50%.

State 29 does a great job of pointing out how helpful the Iowa Legislature and the courts have been in providing "opportunities" to blacks over the years. Unfortunately, these initiatives have not amounted to a proportionate amount of success by this group in breaking into leadership positions. I personally think that institutional racism in Iowa is alive and well, but masked by the fact that we have so few black people in Iowa.

The Latino population does not fare much better. They continue to suffer from lack of achievement, low graduation rates, high rates of unplanned pregnancy and gang involvement. Unfortunately, Iowa does not have many professional Latinos. We have our share of illegal immigrants in the state, and our meat packing industry has been the subject of numerous raids.

There are complex problems in both communities which intersect racism, classism, and poverty. The Iowa Legislature is a remarkably altruisic place, and many strides were made in 1965 when we last had a strong Democratic majority in both houses. We're starting to make those gains again, especially with the election of our new Governor Chet Culver last year. The minimum wage finally got bumped significantly in Iowa thanks to his leadership.

This debate was significant in that all the candidates running for office were invited and only the democratic candidates showed up. Republicans have proven time and time again that they're not interested in engaging either one of these groups, and have nothing to offer other than their hateful rhetoric.