Editorial: The facts on race that Des Moines doesn't want to face

The Des Moines area will be overflowing with guests in the next two weeks for the Iowa State Fair and the Solheim Cup. It will be another opportunity to show off our growth, vibrancy and community spirit.

We have much in which to be proud. But there’s a side we don’t want our visitors to see, a story we don’t want to talk about.

The challenge is what a report calls “the tale of two cities”: white and black Des Moines. A yawning racial gap persists in education, employment, finances, business ownership, housing, leadership, health, criminal justice and other areas. For example:

• Iowa had the worst unemployment rate in the nation for African-Americans in 2015 — 14.8 percent — compared with the statewide unemployment rate of 3.9 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• The median income for African-American households in Polk County was less than half of the county as a whole in 2014: $26,725, compared with $59,844.
• A quarter of black Des Moines residents are unbanked, compared with a rate of 4.5 percent statewide.
• African-Americans make up 65 percent of the “cost-burdened” renters (defined as spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing) in Des Moines.
• In 2005, 12.9 percent of black Polk County residents had less than a high school education. In 2014, that had risen to 17.1 percent.

These statistics, and many more, are contained in a grim report called “One Economy: The State of Black Polk County.” The study was completed this spring for The Directors Council, a group of community nonprofit leaders that serve Des Moines neighborhoods. The report, created by State Public Policy Group, included 61 community focus groups and conversations with 244 people.

The comments that researchers gathered reveal frustration, hopelessness and distrust. Many African-Americans complained of redlining in housing and lending. They talk of repeatedly being rejected for jobs, lacking connections to the power brokers and facing higher barriers to opportunity:

“Most of the black people in Des Moines who are successful were not born in Des Moines … That’s attributable to the fact that there’s not a lot of role models who can help with their vision.”

“The employment opportunities opened up for several decades for African-Americans. But now it seems like that door has closed.”

“We have a lot of black plumbers, electricians and landscaping. They don’t bother getting contracts with the city or the state. They give you so much paperwork. … We moved our company (out of state).”

“You have to have grit and determination. For me, not getting the loan could’ve stopped me. But I had to get creative and work around it. … We can’t do things the normal way because that’s not available to us.”

The Directors Council is forming work groups to address the issues raised in the report, and it’s focusing initially on wealth-building and financial literacy. But its leaders know they can’t do it alone. They know where the real force of change exists in Des Moines.

“The corporate community doesn’t talk about these issues,” said Teree Caldwell-Johnson, chairwoman of the council and CEO of Oakridge Neighborhood. “It’s out of sight, out of mind.”

To be fair, both state and local business leaders have raised awareness of the issues, particularly around employment. In February, then-Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that the State Workforce Development Board would establish a subcommittee with a goal of reducing minority joblessness by at least 5 percent within the next five years, or lower the minority unemployment rate to match the statewide rate.

“It is unacceptable that we have such a huge disparity between our average unemployment rate and the rates in our minority communities," Branstad said.

RELATED:Black Iowa: Still Unequal?

But this problem will require more than studies and subcommittees. We must start confronting the challenge more consistently and urgently.

“Businesses recognize we need to do more. We need to be more intentional about what our leadership will look like in the future,” said Mary Bontrager, executive vice president of the Greater Des Moines Partnership.

Last fall, the partnership convened a group of employers to discuss barriers to African-American opportunity. Recommendations included offering training on unconscious bias, revising job criteria to allow candidates with criminal backgrounds, partnering with community groups, reviewing recruiting and interviewing practices and rewriting job applications to eliminate questions about credit history.

Bontrager said companies including Wellmark and Nationwide are offering internships to local high school students as a way to build the local workforce. Next year, the partnership plans to unveil a two-year fellowship program intended, in part, to recruit minorities to local employers. The program will include a professional development curriculum, mentorship and community engagement, as a way to keep the participants here.

The problems facing black Iowans are daunting, but not hopeless. Des Moines is still small enough to tackle any problem.

“One thing you can do in Des Moines is pick up the phone and have a conversation with anyone you want, said Ted Williams, a human resources consultant and board member of The Directors Council. “You can’t do that in San Francisco or New York.”

If Des Moines truly wants to reach its potential as a great city for everyone, it cannot afford to leave behind even a small percentage of its population. It’s not good enough to be recognized as one of the best places to live in the U.S., when the website 24/7 Wall St. also called us the third-worst city for African-Americans.

Our civic and business leaders have shown they can improve the quality of life for local residents. Twenty or 30 years ago, who imagined the booming Des Moines we see today? That wasn’t an accident, but a concerted effort to lay out a vision, bring people together and make critical investments.

Let’s do it again.

In 50 years, little progress for blacks

Iowa’s racial chasm resembles the situation nationally.

The income gap between black and white Americans at every income level is as wide as it was 50 years ago, data show.

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Paul F. Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, challenges the persistent and ugly belief that the white working class is losing ground economically because of policies intended to help African-Americans. His analysis shows that in 2015, middle-income blacks made an average of 55 percent as much as middle-income white households — the same percentage as in 1967.

“A half-century of initiatives intended to combat the effects of centuries of virulent racism appear to have done nothing to ameliorate inequality between white and black America,” Campos writes.