Note from the editor.

To look at the mainstream media, you would think the recession came and went this year with little visible impact other than more laid-off hipsters in cafes or ex-dotcommers heading to graduate school. After awhile, economists and newspaper columnists were not only declaring a recovery; but wondering whether a real "recession," in the strict macroeconomic sense, had taken place at all.

But the hard times are very real for more than 2 million people who lost their lobs since the beginning of 2001. In fact, more jobs were lost since March than were lost between 1989 and 1992, during the last recession. Unemployment among African Americans and Latinos has increased at almost twice the rate of whites since September.

This issue's special report examines race in the recession, looking at the ways that disparities in job and educational access, discrimination, and the systematic shredding of welfare as a safety net have perpetuated cycles of dead-end jobs and poverty; Combined with the shortage of affordable housing and the incarceration industry, people of color now represent the majority of those living homeless in the U.S. The report also highlights tough grassroots fighting by welfare activists to restore food stamp benefits for immigrants and to challenge new demands for harsher time limits and work requirements as welfare reauthorization nears.

It's significant to remember that 10 years ago, racial injustice and economic inequality simmered unaddressed when Los Angeles imploded into three days of urban chaos unparalleled in America's history of race riots.

As much as that city and this nation would like to forget about racism and poverty, we cant afford to forget.