Ethnic affairs office a total tax waste

By John Florez
Published: Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005 9:17 p.m. MDT
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"Don't give me a swing when I need a job. Don't give me a sandbox when I need a house." That was a public reprimand the Rev. Ross Monroe, Calvary Baptist Church, gave me when organizing the Central City neighborhood in the 1960s. It came minutes after I opened the first mass meeting at the old Sumner School to talk about the "needs of the community." It was a tough lesson I have never forgotten — you don't need a study when you see people hurting and the solutions are obvious.

Such is the case with the Utah Office of Ethnic Affairs' Strategic Plan released after 10 months in the making. It reveals how out of touch that million-dollar office has become with the plight of minorities.

The plan shows a discomforting disconnect between what the ethnic office proposes to do as opposed to the problems minorities face today, including: a high morbidity and mortality rate i.e., diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, lack of prenatal care and lack of health insurance; poverty; high unemployment, underemployment; discrimination in employment, workers compensation; being victimized by dishonest employers, loan sharks and slumlords; student dropout and underachievement; and a higher rate of incarceration to name a few.

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Most disturbing is that the plan makes no mention of the most critical and divisive issue — the effect of illegal immigration.

The plan is a list of "deliverables" that are written in bureaucratic double talk and that "track" the process, but not results or target dates. Furthermore, the "deliverables" are unrelated to the problems of minorities with the greatest need. For example, one of the most serious problems affecting minorities is poor health, and the most prevalent is diabetes. Yet, the plan's "deliverable" regarding health is to "Assure the participation of 10 key policymakers and 25 community-based organizations from the ethnic communities." Such a "deliverable" does not assure one minority person will get preventive care or treatment for diabetes, but does place an overload on emergency clinics when a diabetic person arrives in critical condition. No mention is made of how Corrections will divert minorities from entering or re-entering prison; rather, the "deliverable" is to inform the minority community of the barriers minorities face in prison and to assure delivery of "ethnic media publications" to correctional facilities.

The "deliverables" appear to be nothing more than a litany of unrelated busy work the Ethnic Office proposes to take with no result, but that it created to justify its existence. It's as though it has now been consumed by the bureaucracies it was charged to change.

The original intent of the governor's executive order 30 years ago was to have minorities advise the governor directly on how effectively state government was serving them and to recommend solutions to assure equal access to state programs, not preferential treatment. In the '60s, minorities fought against discrimination and exploitation, but now it looks as though the ethnic office is exploiting the plight of those they purport to help. And, like many programs that start out helping the less fortunate in a particular group, they seem to end up primarily benefiting the privileged of that group.

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