“Organizations should focus on Black opportunity channels rather than on eradicating racism,” advise John Sibley Butler and Northwestern University sociologist Charles Moskos in their contribution to the new National Research Council report “America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences.” Drawing on the military’s relatively successful record on race, they argue, “The core issue is not White racism but Black opportunity….The Army model, which stresses opportunity, is preferable to the state of affairs at most universities where antiracism is promulgated, but Black presence is limited.”
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Good news about taxes: Illinois has added an earned income tax credit pegged to the federal EITC for low-income workers. According to the Center for Law & Human Services (www.centerforlaw. org), “The Illinois EITC boosts the taxable income threshold. For tax year 2000, a single parent with two children would usually start paying taxes at $6,000 of income. With the Illinois EITC, that same family would not pay state income tax until their income reached $12,450.”
The Bronzeville boom. The Chicago Reporter’s survey (November/December) of 676 mostly residential properties between 35th and 39th streets, Indiana Avenue, and Lake Shore Drive found that the average purchase price rose from $61,087 in 1995 to $154,063 in 1999.
