2/01/2010
Black College Enrollment Takes a Dip
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
"The share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008," reported the Pew Research Center. This rise was "driven by a recession-era surge in enrollments at community colleges." This rise was also largely confined to white students.
Many white students, faced with the terrible job market of the Great Recession, appear to be heading off to college. Community colleges are receiving the biggest boost in enrollment by white students probably because community colleges are much more affordable than four-year colleges.
We don't see this trend among black or Hispanic students. The figure above shows that black youth have had the largest decline in college enrollment. This is in contrast to the fairly steady rise in black college enrollment since 1967. (See the black-triangle trend line in the figure below.) The downturn this year may be due to the fact that blacks have been hit first and worst by economic crisis.
Whites, on average, have higher incomes, much more wealth, lower foreclosure rates, and lower unemployment rates than blacks. The average cost of community college, at $6,750 per year, may be affordable for many whites, but it may well be beyond to reach of many blacks during this recession. Without a swift and strong economic recovery, we can expect to see black-white educational disparities increase.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2010 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
"The share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008," reported the Pew Research Center. This rise was "driven by a recession-era surge in enrollments at community colleges." This rise was also largely confined to white students.
Many white students, faced with the terrible job market of the Great Recession, appear to be heading off to college. Community colleges are receiving the biggest boost in enrollment by white students probably because community colleges are much more affordable than four-year colleges.
We don't see this trend among black or Hispanic students. The figure above shows that black youth have had the largest decline in college enrollment. This is in contrast to the fairly steady rise in black college enrollment since 1967. (See the black-triangle trend line in the figure below.) The downturn this year may be due to the fact that blacks have been hit first and worst by economic crisis.
Whites, on average, have higher incomes, much more wealth, lower foreclosure rates, and lower unemployment rates than blacks. The average cost of community college, at $6,750 per year, may be affordable for many whites, but it may well be beyond to reach of many blacks during this recession. Without a swift and strong economic recovery, we can expect to see black-white educational disparities increase.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2010 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
1/26/2010
The Worst and the Most Expensive Health Care
Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________
The number of Americans under age 65 without health insurance coverage rose to 45.7 million in 2008. Although 2009 data is not yet available, there is every reason to assume that the number of Americans without health insurance continued to grow in 2009. And that it will continue to grow in 2010, and in 2011, and so on. It spite of this dreadful trend, it seems that some are determined to do nothing. What's more, they are determined to stop anyone who tries to address the problem.
Among rich nations, the United States, without question, has the worst health care system. We are the only rich nation that this problem of the uninsured. In Australia, everyone has health care. In Japan, everyone has health care. In Switzerland, everyone has health care. In the United States, almost 50 million do without.
Not only do we have a large population that lacks good access to health care, we pay more for it. Other rich countries pay less per capita in health care costs than we do. The Australians and the Swiss pay about half what we pay per capita. The Japanese pay even less. Again, these countries cover their entire population. We don't.
If we do not find a way to reduce the cost of health care and slow its growth, health care will bankrupt the country. By the end of the century, rising Medicare and Medicaid costs are projected to cripple the federal government. A step in the right direction would be to make our health care system more like Australia’s or Switzerland’s or Japan’s which could cut current costs in half.
The final cherry-on-top of our health care dysfunction is that we have some of the worst health outcomes among rich countries. We have the highest infant mortality rate, the highest obesity rate, and, in life expectancy, we are near the bottom. Americans should be screaming for health care reform, not against it.
If reason played a role in American politics, we would have spent part of last year being educated about how other countries manage to provide health care for all, pay less than we do, and deliver high quality health care. (See PBS' Frontline: Sick around the World for what this education effort would look like.) The fact of the matter is that different countries do different things to provide universal health care. We could have reviewed a menu of options and voted for what we liked. That would have been the reasonable thing to do.
Reason, however, does not seem to work in American politics. Now, it seems that the only way the American health care system will ever be reformed is when the millions of uninsured mobilize and organize and demand it from our politicians. Until then, petty politics will ensure that we continue to have the worst and the most expensive health care.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2010 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
1/19/2010
On Crime and Gentrification
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
It is easy to get the impression that America—and black communities in particular—are more violent than ever. We are regularly treated to gruesome crime stories on television news programs, and they often feature black perpetrators. When we are not watching the news, Law and Order, CSI, NCIS and other crime dramas fill our minds with murder and mayhem. When we go to the movies or play video games, the smorgasbord of crime and violence continues.
But contrary to popular perception, American crimes rates—including crime rates in black communities—are at historically low levels. What we see on television and movie screens is a very, very distorted picture of reality. Lori Dorfman of the Berkeley Media Studies Group finds [PDF] that the “news media report crime, especially violent crime, out of proportion to its actual occurrence.” Further, she adds, “the proportion of crime committed by people of color (usually African Americans) is over-reported.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has recently reported that its preliminary estimate for violent crime in 2009 was down 4.4 percent from 2008. The FBI data shows that violent crime rate has declined fairly steadily since 1991. Crime stories sell, so more and more companies—including news networks—are selling crime stories. But the increase in crime stories is not matched by a real increase in crime.
The FBI data is based on reports from participating law enforcement agencies. Not every crime is reported to the police however. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a better source for overall crime trends. This survey too shows a strong downward trend.
Examining NCVS violent crime data from 1973 to 2007, one sees that the peak year for violent crime among blacks was 1981—nearly three decades ago. The black violent crime victimization rate fluctuated from then until 1993. Since 1993, the violent crime rate in black communities has declined by 70 percent! White communities experienced a similar decline—68 percent.
Although on average white communities continue to be safer than black communities, many black communities today are safer than white communities were in the 1970s and 1980s. The violent crime victimization rate for blacks in 2007 was 10.3 per 1,000 persons. In the 1970s, the victimization rate for whites averaged 19.5 per 1,000 persons—nearly twice the 2007 black rate.
I believe that one consequence of the fact many black communities are much safer today than in the past is gentrification. The New York Times recently reported that blacks are no longer the majority in Harlem. Gentrification of black neighborhoods has occurred across the country. I’ve seen it in Brooklyn, in Chicago, in D.C. and have heard of it occurring in many other cities.
Rents and homes in these black neighborhoods have always been less expensive than in similar white neighborhoods. What has changed was that over the 1990s and into the 2000s these neighborhoods have become much safer, as safe as or safer than many white neighborhoods were in the 1970s and 1980s. Relatively safe neighborhoods and lower rents = gentrification.
Of course, the national crime trends can differ significantly from local trends. Further, no violence is trivial, and black communities can and should still be much safer than they are today. With these caveats in mind, we should be able to take a moment and appreciate the positive development of a record low violent crime rate in black America.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
It is easy to get the impression that America—and black communities in particular—are more violent than ever. We are regularly treated to gruesome crime stories on television news programs, and they often feature black perpetrators. When we are not watching the news, Law and Order, CSI, NCIS and other crime dramas fill our minds with murder and mayhem. When we go to the movies or play video games, the smorgasbord of crime and violence continues.
But contrary to popular perception, American crimes rates—including crime rates in black communities—are at historically low levels. What we see on television and movie screens is a very, very distorted picture of reality. Lori Dorfman of the Berkeley Media Studies Group finds [PDF] that the “news media report crime, especially violent crime, out of proportion to its actual occurrence.” Further, she adds, “the proportion of crime committed by people of color (usually African Americans) is over-reported.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has recently reported that its preliminary estimate for violent crime in 2009 was down 4.4 percent from 2008. The FBI data shows that violent crime rate has declined fairly steadily since 1991. Crime stories sell, so more and more companies—including news networks—are selling crime stories. But the increase in crime stories is not matched by a real increase in crime.
The FBI data is based on reports from participating law enforcement agencies. Not every crime is reported to the police however. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a better source for overall crime trends. This survey too shows a strong downward trend.
Examining NCVS violent crime data from 1973 to 2007, one sees that the peak year for violent crime among blacks was 1981—nearly three decades ago. The black violent crime victimization rate fluctuated from then until 1993. Since 1993, the violent crime rate in black communities has declined by 70 percent! White communities experienced a similar decline—68 percent.
Although on average white communities continue to be safer than black communities, many black communities today are safer than white communities were in the 1970s and 1980s. The violent crime victimization rate for blacks in 2007 was 10.3 per 1,000 persons. In the 1970s, the victimization rate for whites averaged 19.5 per 1,000 persons—nearly twice the 2007 black rate.
I believe that one consequence of the fact many black communities are much safer today than in the past is gentrification. The New York Times recently reported that blacks are no longer the majority in Harlem. Gentrification of black neighborhoods has occurred across the country. I’ve seen it in Brooklyn, in Chicago, in D.C. and have heard of it occurring in many other cities.
Rents and homes in these black neighborhoods have always been less expensive than in similar white neighborhoods. What has changed was that over the 1990s and into the 2000s these neighborhoods have become much safer, as safe as or safer than many white neighborhoods were in the 1970s and 1980s. Relatively safe neighborhoods and lower rents = gentrification.
Of course, the national crime trends can differ significantly from local trends. Further, no violence is trivial, and black communities can and should still be much safer than they are today. With these caveats in mind, we should be able to take a moment and appreciate the positive development of a record low violent crime rate in black America.
1/11/2010
Harry Reid Has No Reason to Apologize
Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) simply told the truth, in my view. I don’t see what he has to apologize for.
According to the Washington Post, the book Game Change states that when assessing the strengths of then candidate Barack Obama in 2008, Reid said that he “believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one’. ” There is nothing offensive or even controversial here.
It seems that some people are upset because they have deluded themselves into thinking that America is a post-racial society. Reid’s remarks show an awareness that blackness poses challenges for success with the broad American electorate.
Recent research reported on in Newsweek’s The Gaggle blog, supports Harry Reid. Eugene Caruso of the University of Chicago told Newsweek:
“There’s a long history in Western society of associating lightness with good and darkness with bad. Throughout history, throughout literature, et cetera. And we know now that these associations sometimes apply to the color of a person’s skin, and in addition to associating goodness with white, there’s some recent research in implicit attitudes suggesting that at an unconscious level people have a strong tendency to associate America with white.”Caruso did research which found that research “participants who’d seen a darkened photo [of a candidate] just a few minutes earlier reported that they were less likely to vote for the candidate than those who’d seen the lightened photo.” Thus, based on Caruso’s research, Reid is correct to think that voters would be more favorably disposed to a light-skinned black candidate than a dark-skinned one.
The term “Negro” is old-fashioned, but since Reid is, well, not young, I don’t find anything offensive about his use of it. I’m not sure that the use of idioms and accents associated with blacks should be called a “dialect,” but Reid’s use of word is appropriate according to Dictionary.com. So, I cannot find any fault here either.
I am not aware of any research on people’s attitudes or voting behavior and “Negro dialects.” (This does not mean that there is none, just that I’m not currently aware of any.) But given the existence of anti-black attitudes in American society, it is not much of a stretch to assume that speech characteristics common to blacks would also be subject to negative stigma. This is not a radical idea if one knows that we do not live in a colorblind society. I would bet that Reid is correct on his “Negro dialect” opinion also.
All of this amounts to acknowledgment that black candidates for elected office can have challenges that white candidates do not. The whiter they are in appearance the better. But, of course, most blacks do not look white. George W. Bush and other white candidates might be able to deviate wildly from the Standard American dialect, but black candidates who wish to be elected should stick to Standard American as much as possible, especially when they are appearing before nonblack audiences.
Representative James E. Clyburn (D-SC) said it well when he told the New York Times: “I am one of those who wish to one day live in a color-blind nation. But the fact is that none of us do today.”
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2010 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
12/21/2009
2009: The Year in “Post-Racialism”
In 2009, the United States inaugurated its first black president, Barack Obama. 2009 is also the year of Disney’s first black princess character. While these firsts represent real advances, the country still has a long way to go on the path to racial equality. Below are a few reasons why America did not become post-racial in 2009. This list is idiosyncratic and does not claim to be definitive. It is in no particular order.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
- In 2009, America’s schools were still separate and still unequal.
- For much of 2009, college-educated blacks had an unemployment rate nearly twice that of college-educated whites.
- In 2009, it was revealed that the country had been lax for many years in fighting racial discrimination. Find details here and here.
- In 2009, the Restaurant Opportunities Center published a detailed report showing race and sex discrimination in fine-dining restaurants.
- The Federal Reserve reported in 2009 that blacks started losing wealth before the Great Recession began.
- In 2009, America still had a racially discriminatory 100-to-1 disparity in punishment between crack and powder cocaine.
- The evidence suggests that in 2009, at every education level, whites were more likely to obtain “good jobs”—jobs with high pay and benefits—than blacks. See also this discussion.
- In 2009, the AARP Public Policy Institute reported that the black foreclosure rate was nearly three times the white rate.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
12/14/2009
The Bleak Future for Black Children and Youth
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
The future for black children and youth is worrisome. Even during supposedly "good" economic times too many black children grow up facing severe economic disadvantage. This normally bad situation is being made considerably worse by the recession. If we do not act quickly and effectively we should expect to see significant increases in negative physical, psychological, social and economic outcomes for black children and youth over the next decades.
From 2007 to 2008, the country experienced a historic rise [PDF] in the number of households that did not have consistent and dependable access to sufficient food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) calls these households "food insecure." The number of food insecure households increased by over 4 million nationally to reach 17.1 million. In 2008, 10.7 percent of white households were food insecure, but 25.7 percent of black households were in this condition. Although the official 2009 USDA data is not yet available, it is likely that the number of food insecure households increased by a large amount this year.
Hunger is a problem in itself. But it also matters because of the long-term harm it causes, particularly in children. Children growing up in food insecure households are more likely to be in poor physical and psychological health. They have more behavioral problems and do worse in school. We want black children to do better in school, but academic improvements are not likely to occur when more and more black children are growing up in households facing hunger.
Recent economic research is more specific about what negative educational outcomes we should expect in coming years. University of California, Davis economists, Ann Huff Stevens and Jessamyn Schaller, find that children who have a parent who experiences a job loss are 15 percent more likely to be held back a grade in school. Black children in "good" economic times have a high rate of grade retention. In bad economic times, black workers are hit harder than average from job losses. Therefore, we should expect significant increases in black students being held back in the coming years. Children who are held back in school are also more likely to drop out of school. It is going to be even more difficult to reduce the black high school drop out rate in the wake of the Great Recession.
Black teens had the unfortunate circumstance of being the only major demographic group to see an increase in unemployment from October to November. While the country was pleasantly surprised by a decline in the unemployment rate from 10.2 percent in October to 10 percent in November, the unemployment rate for black teens rose from 41.3 percent to 49.4 percent over the same period. White teens experienced a decline in unemployment from 25.3 percent in October to 23 percent in November.
Unemployment today bodes ill for the future of black teens. The economist Andrew Sum and his colleagues at the Center for Labor Market Studies point out [PDF] that "Less work experience today leads to less work experience tomorrow and lower earnings down the road. Disadvantaged teens who work in high school are more likely to remain in high school than their peers who do not work. . . . National evidence shows that pregnancy rates for teens are lower in metropolitan areas where employment rates for teen girls are higher." If we want black youth to have good economic futures, we need to get them jobs today.
The black unemployment rate has been in the double digits for over a year. Unfortunately, we can expect unusually high black unemployment rates at least until 2014. The black children and youth living through these years are have a rough future ahead of them. They are likely to do much worse that the black children and youth who were lucky enough to live through the Great 1990s when the black employment rate rose to historic heights and black poverty fell to its lowest level on record.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
The future for black children and youth is worrisome. Even during supposedly "good" economic times too many black children grow up facing severe economic disadvantage. This normally bad situation is being made considerably worse by the recession. If we do not act quickly and effectively we should expect to see significant increases in negative physical, psychological, social and economic outcomes for black children and youth over the next decades.
From 2007 to 2008, the country experienced a historic rise [PDF] in the number of households that did not have consistent and dependable access to sufficient food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) calls these households "food insecure." The number of food insecure households increased by over 4 million nationally to reach 17.1 million. In 2008, 10.7 percent of white households were food insecure, but 25.7 percent of black households were in this condition. Although the official 2009 USDA data is not yet available, it is likely that the number of food insecure households increased by a large amount this year.
Hunger is a problem in itself. But it also matters because of the long-term harm it causes, particularly in children. Children growing up in food insecure households are more likely to be in poor physical and psychological health. They have more behavioral problems and do worse in school. We want black children to do better in school, but academic improvements are not likely to occur when more and more black children are growing up in households facing hunger.
Recent economic research is more specific about what negative educational outcomes we should expect in coming years. University of California, Davis economists, Ann Huff Stevens and Jessamyn Schaller, find that children who have a parent who experiences a job loss are 15 percent more likely to be held back a grade in school. Black children in "good" economic times have a high rate of grade retention. In bad economic times, black workers are hit harder than average from job losses. Therefore, we should expect significant increases in black students being held back in the coming years. Children who are held back in school are also more likely to drop out of school. It is going to be even more difficult to reduce the black high school drop out rate in the wake of the Great Recession.
Black teens had the unfortunate circumstance of being the only major demographic group to see an increase in unemployment from October to November. While the country was pleasantly surprised by a decline in the unemployment rate from 10.2 percent in October to 10 percent in November, the unemployment rate for black teens rose from 41.3 percent to 49.4 percent over the same period. White teens experienced a decline in unemployment from 25.3 percent in October to 23 percent in November.
Unemployment today bodes ill for the future of black teens. The economist Andrew Sum and his colleagues at the Center for Labor Market Studies point out [PDF] that "Less work experience today leads to less work experience tomorrow and lower earnings down the road. Disadvantaged teens who work in high school are more likely to remain in high school than their peers who do not work. . . . National evidence shows that pregnancy rates for teens are lower in metropolitan areas where employment rates for teen girls are higher." If we want black youth to have good economic futures, we need to get them jobs today.
The black unemployment rate has been in the double digits for over a year. Unfortunately, we can expect unusually high black unemployment rates at least until 2014. The black children and youth living through these years are have a rough future ahead of them. They are likely to do much worse that the black children and youth who were lucky enough to live through the Great 1990s when the black employment rate rose to historic heights and black poverty fell to its lowest level on record.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
12/06/2009
Will We Ever Get the Health Care System We Deserve?
Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________
[re-post]
Source: Karen Davis et al., Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care, The Commonwealth Fund, May 2007, p. viii. The United States, spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as the United Kingdom, yet a recent report ranked the U.K.’s health system first and the U.S.’s last among six nations. We pay the most to get the least.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care by Karen Davis et al. compares the health care systems in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The researchers compare the countries on the quality of care, access, efficiency, equity, and the promotion of healthy living. The U.S. scored last on access, efficiency, equity, and the promotion of healthy living. On quality of care the U.S. was second to last.
The report states:
The most notable way the U.S. differs from other countries is the absence of universal health insurance coverage. Other nations ensure the accessibility of care through universal health insurance systems and through better ties between patients and the physician practices that serve as their long-term “medical home.” It is not surprising, therefore, that the U.S. substantially underperforms other countries on measures of access to care and equity in health care between populations with above-average and below-average incomes.
With the inclusion of physician survey data in the analysis, it is also apparent that the U.S. is lagging in adoption of information technology and national policies that promote quality improvement. The U.S. can learn from what physicians and patients have to say about practices that can lead to better management of chronic conditions and better coordination of care. Information systems in countries like Germany, New Zealand, and the U.K. enhance the ability of physicians to monitor chronic conditions and medication use. These countries also routinely employ non-physician clinicians such as nurses to assist with managing patients with chronic diseases.
For decades, nations in the developed world have provided high-quality, inexpensive health care to all of their citizens. The U.S. stands alone with an expensive, low-quality health care system than covers fewer and fewer of its citizens each year.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
11/29/2009
Worth Reading: Education, the Recession, Precious
From The Sentencing Project
December 2, 2009
Today is National Call-in Day to Eliminate the Cocaine Disparity: Help Pass Legislation This Year
For the first time, crack cocaine sentencing reform legislation received a favorable vote in Congress when the House Judiciary Committee in July approved the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009, H.R. 3245. To move the bill forward we need a vote on the bill by the entire House of Representatives. Now is the time for advocates to contact their Representative to ask for support and co-sponsorship of H.R. 3245. Call the U.S. Capitol today at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Representative.
[more information]
________________________________________________________________________
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
December 2, 2009
Today is National Call-in Day to Eliminate the Cocaine Disparity: Help Pass Legislation This Year
For the first time, crack cocaine sentencing reform legislation received a favorable vote in Congress when the House Judiciary Committee in July approved the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009, H.R. 3245. To move the bill forward we need a vote on the bill by the entire House of Representatives. Now is the time for advocates to contact their Representative to ask for support and co-sponsorship of H.R. 3245. Call the U.S. Capitol today at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Representative.
[more information]
________________________________________________________________________
More on Blacks Valuing Education
Congratulations to journalist Vivian Po for writing about "More Latinos and African Americans Value Higher Education." Po's piece is based on yet another survey showing more pro-education attitudes among blacks. While many journalists repeat anti-black stereotypes, it's great that Po sticks to the facts.Blacks and the Great Recession
V. Dion Haynes highlights the challenges faced by young black men in "Blacks Hit hard by Economy's Punch." Allison Linn discusses the labor market and formerly incarcerated and homeless black workers in "Black Workers' Crisis May Linger After Upturn." Michael Luo discusses the black-white unemployment gap among those with a college degree.Thumbs Down on Precious
Courtland Milloy says that Precious is "A Film as Lost as the Girl it Glorifies." He is "bewildered by its enthusiastic reception." Juell Stewart sees more redeeming aspects to Precious than Milloy, but she criticizes the film for resuscitating president Ronald Reagan's "welfare queen" stereotype and for being "irresponsible to the African-American community."Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
11/23/2009
Short Takes: Hunger in America; Who Gets the Good Jobs?
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
The United States is one of the richest countries in the world, and yet we have a high and growing rate of people who cannot obtain enough food to eat. In 2008, the United States Department of Agriculture observed a record high rate of households that did not have "dependable access to adequate food." This rise in food insecurity is most likely due to the recession. This means that we should expect the numbers of the hungry in America rise again in the 2009 data and maybe in the 2010 data too since unemployment will likely increase into 2010.
Source: United States Department of Agriculture, 2009
Not surprisingly, the black rate of food insecurity was more than twice the white rate. Although Canada is not as rich a country as the United States, it has a lower rate of food insecurity than the United States.
At every education level, white workers are more likely to obtain good jobs than blacks. In the analysis below, a good job is defined as a job that pays 60 percent of the median household income and provides health and retirement benefits. Whites without a college education are much more likely to obtain good jobs than blacks with comparable levels of education. The disparity shrinks as at higher education levels, but it does not go away.
Source: Economic Policy Institute, 2009
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
Hunger in America
The United States is one of the richest countries in the world, and yet we have a high and growing rate of people who cannot obtain enough food to eat. In 2008, the United States Department of Agriculture observed a record high rate of households that did not have "dependable access to adequate food." This rise in food insecurity is most likely due to the recession. This means that we should expect the numbers of the hungry in America rise again in the 2009 data and maybe in the 2010 data too since unemployment will likely increase into 2010.
Source: United States Department of Agriculture, 2009Not surprisingly, the black rate of food insecurity was more than twice the white rate. Although Canada is not as rich a country as the United States, it has a lower rate of food insecurity than the United States.
Who Gets the Good Jobs?
At every education level, white workers are more likely to obtain good jobs than blacks. In the analysis below, a good job is defined as a job that pays 60 percent of the median household income and provides health and retirement benefits. Whites without a college education are much more likely to obtain good jobs than blacks with comparable levels of education. The disparity shrinks as at higher education levels, but it does not go away.
Source: Economic Policy Institute, 2009Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
11/16/2009
Diversity in Black America
Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________
Black America continues to become more diverse--just like the country as a whole. According to my estimates from Census Bureau data, in 2008, about 3.5 million people with black identities (including people with more than one racial identity) in the United States were foreign-born. In 2000, there were only 2.6 million foreign-born blacks. This means that the foreign-born black population increased 33 percent from 2000 to 2008, while the U.S.-born black population increased only 9.5 percent.
Although the foreign-born black population is growing rapidly, it is still a relatively small portion of the black population nationally. It may surprise many to learn that in 2008, only 8.7 percent of blacks were foreign-born.
There are a number of reasons why people may assume that the foreign-born share of the black population is larger than it is. One reason is because the black foreign-born population is not uniformly distributed across the country. Nationally it was 8.7 percent of the black population in 2008, but in New York state, for example, it was 27.7 percent of the black population. In the metropolitan New York city area, it was 32.4 percent. In New York City proper, it was likely an even higher percentage. People from parts of the country where there are large numbers of foreign-born blacks will likely be shocked at the small percentage of foreign-born blacks overall.
A second issue is that people may not distinguish the foreign-born from the foreign-identified. There are blacks who were born in the United States but who have a parent or grandparent who were foreign-born and who identify with the parent's or grandparent's country-of-origin. The percent of blacks with a foreign identity is presumably larger than the share of blacks who are foreign-born.
Another aspect of black diversity is the growth of the black multiracial population. In 2008, 2.6 million blacks identified as having more than one race. In 2000, 1.9 million blacks had more than one racial identity. This population has therefore increased 41 percent.
(It is important to be aware that not everyone who has parents with different racial identities, identifies as multiracial. Barack Obama, for example, identifies as black although he could identify as multiracial.)
Researchers often ignore the multiracial population in data analyses. But the population is becoming too large to ignore.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
11/11/2009
Why Blacks Value Education More Than Whites, Part II
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
As illustrated previously, if a black person wishes to earn the same amount as a white person, the odds are that the black person needs to be better educated than the white person. This relationship also holds for simply finding a job. If a black person wishes to have the same odds of finding work as a white person, the black person needs to be better educated than the white person.
Above is the third quarter (July-September) unemployment rates for this year. At all education levels, the black unemployment rate is higher than the white rate. Blacks with high school diplomas or GEDs have an unemployment rate similar to whites who dropped out of high school. Blacks with a bachelor's degree or higher have an unemployment rate that is similar to whites with high school diplomas or GEDs.
If a black person wishes to have the same odds of finding work and working for similar earnings as a white person, the black person needs to be better educated than the white person. When one considers this, it is simply economically rational for blacks to value education more than whites. Blacks need education more than whites for economic success.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
As illustrated previously, if a black person wishes to earn the same amount as a white person, the odds are that the black person needs to be better educated than the white person. This relationship also holds for simply finding a job. If a black person wishes to have the same odds of finding work as a white person, the black person needs to be better educated than the white person.
Above is the third quarter (July-September) unemployment rates for this year. At all education levels, the black unemployment rate is higher than the white rate. Blacks with high school diplomas or GEDs have an unemployment rate similar to whites who dropped out of high school. Blacks with a bachelor's degree or higher have an unemployment rate that is similar to whites with high school diplomas or GEDs. If a black person wishes to have the same odds of finding work and working for similar earnings as a white person, the black person needs to be better educated than the white person. When one considers this, it is simply economically rational for blacks to value education more than whites. Blacks need education more than whites for economic success.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
10/31/2009
The Education-Income Disparity
Attention D.C.-Area Readers
Economic Policy Institute ForumReversing the Decline in Good Jobs
Thursday, November 12, 2009
9:00 am to 12:30 am
New research by the Economic Policy Institute documents a three-decades long decline in jobs that pay decent wages and provide benefits. In addition to this steady loss of good paying jobs, reports of wage theft, unsafe workplaces and other labor law violations are rampant. While these are problems for all American workers, not surprisingly, some groups are being hurt more than others. There is significant variation by gender, race and ethnicity in access to the shrinking number of good, safe jobs.
Please join the Economic Policy Institute for presentations on the decline in the quality of American jobs and on policy reforms needed to put America back on a path to creating good jobs.
[RSVP below.]
Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Coffee and continental breakfast will be provided.
Presenters:
Gustavo Andrade, CASA de Maryland, Inc.
Gail C. Arnall, Offender Aid and Restoration
Algernon Austin, Economic Policy Institute
Judy Conti, National Employment Law Project
Philip Mattera, Good Jobs First
Catherine Singley, National Council of La Raza
Location:
Economic Policy Institute, 1333 H Street NW, Suite 300 East Tower, Washington DC
(Near McPherson Square Metro (Orange/Blue lines) and Metro Center (Red line))
Space is limited, please RSVP here to attend this event.
________________________________________________________________________
Anyone who seriously looks at the data will see that blacks value education more than whites. The question then is why.
My hypothesis is that it simply makes economic sense. Blacks need to be better educated than whites to do as well financially. As the figure below shows, in 2008, the median income for white males with an associate's degree was $52,193. The median for black males with a bachelor's degree was $51,570, slightly lower than the amount for white males with an associate's degree.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009
The pattern is even more dramatic for black males with master's degrees. Their median income is $67,479, $4,193 less than the median for white males with a bachelor's degree. For a black male to earn about the same as a given white male, more often than not, he has to be better educated than the white male.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2009
The pattern is weaker among women, but it is still the case that white women earn more than black women at a given education level. The median income for white women with a bachelor's degrees is $50,102. It is $46,209 for black women, $3,893 less than the white median. It is also worth noting that at every education level, women earn less than men.
To have an equal likelihood of being employed, blacks have to be better educated than whites. If employed, to have an equal likelihood of earning as much as a given white person, blacks have to be better educated than that white person. In other words, economic success is more dependent on a high level of education for blacks than for whites, therefore it makes sense for blacks to value education more than whites.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
10/25/2009
Blacks Still Value Education More Than Whites
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
There it is again. I was reading a new Pew Social Trends survey [PDF] on the graying of the work force, and once again researchers have found evidence that blacks value education more than whites. The researchers state, "Blacks (83%) and Hispanics (85%) also are more likely than whites (69%) to say a college degree is a necessity" to get ahead in life.
As I've written before, and contrary to the popular perception, blacks value education more than whites. In a piece written for the Daily Voice last year, I wrote:
Some would say that statements of values do not matter what matters is action. Well, the behavior of blacks supports my position also. In the Black-White Test-Score Gap, Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips find that "when we compare blacks and whites with the same twelfth grade test scores, blacks are more likely than whites to complete college." They add in a footnote, "Similar results can be found in samples dating back to the early 1960s, so they are not attributable to affirmative action." Whites with similar academic abilities as blacks obtain less education than blacks do.
Jencks and Phillips note that socioeconomic disadvantage from birth onward are factors in the, on average, lower educational attainment and achievement of blacks. When Patrick Mason (in "Intergenerational Mobility and Interracial Inequality: The Return to Family Values," Industrial Relations 46: 1: 71) statistically compares blacks and whites of equivalent class backgrounds, he finds that black women obtain 3 percent more years of education than white men and black men obtain 6 percent more. This finding means that if one could magically give whites the socioeconomic profile of blacks, at least initially, we would predict that whites would, on average, be less educated than are blacks today.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
There it is again. I was reading a new Pew Social Trends survey [PDF] on the graying of the work force, and once again researchers have found evidence that blacks value education more than whites. The researchers state, "Blacks (83%) and Hispanics (85%) also are more likely than whites (69%) to say a college degree is a necessity" to get ahead in life.
As I've written before, and contrary to the popular perception, blacks value education more than whites. In a piece written for the Daily Voice last year, I wrote:
the Monitoring the Future survey found that 74 percent of black high school seniors believed that getting good grades was of "great" or "very great importance," but only 41 percent of white seniors felt as strongly. Half of black seniors reported that knowing a lot about intellectual matters was of "great" or "very great importance," but only one-fifth of white seniors felt the same.As I also mentioned in that piece, the problem facing blacks is social and economic disadvantage--at least from birth--which makes it difficult for them to transform their values into achievement.
Other and more recent surveys have had similar results. A 2006 survey by Public Agenda found that black students were more likely than white students to believe that "increasing math and science education would improve high school." The Higher Education Research Institute's 2006 survey of college freshmen found that the majority-black students at historically black colleges were more likely to aspire to obtain a Ph.D. than college freshmen generally.
Different organizations asking different questions of different black students at different times have all come to the same conclusion: black students value education.
Some would say that statements of values do not matter what matters is action. Well, the behavior of blacks supports my position also. In the Black-White Test-Score Gap, Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips find that "when we compare blacks and whites with the same twelfth grade test scores, blacks are more likely than whites to complete college." They add in a footnote, "Similar results can be found in samples dating back to the early 1960s, so they are not attributable to affirmative action." Whites with similar academic abilities as blacks obtain less education than blacks do.
Jencks and Phillips note that socioeconomic disadvantage from birth onward are factors in the, on average, lower educational attainment and achievement of blacks. When Patrick Mason (in "Intergenerational Mobility and Interracial Inequality: The Return to Family Values," Industrial Relations 46: 1: 71) statistically compares blacks and whites of equivalent class backgrounds, he finds that black women obtain 3 percent more years of education than white men and black men obtain 6 percent more. This finding means that if one could magically give whites the socioeconomic profile of blacks, at least initially, we would predict that whites would, on average, be less educated than are blacks today.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
10/19/2009
We Desperately Need More Job Creation
While the national unemployment rate is still below 10 percent, black men have experienced double-digit unemployment rates for most of 2008 and for all of 2009, so far. In September, the official unemployment rate for black men was 17.9 percent. Black women were not too far behind with an unemployment rate of 13.2 percent.
The unemployment rate is expected to continue to rise into 2010. This means that we can expect hundreds of thousands more blacks to join the ranks of the jobless. A recent survey by New America Media [PDF] found that a third of blacks who now have full-time work are worried about losing their jobs. Another recent survey by the Economic Policy Institute, my organization, found that two-thirds of blacks think that the lack of jobs is the most important economic problem facing the country.
Blacks are right to be worried. The most optimistic estimate is that we should expect to see high rates of unemployment until 2014. It could easily be longer if we have a “jobless recovery” as we did after the last recession.
This does not have to be our future. We know how to create jobs. We know how to ease people’s economic hardship. What we are lacking is the political will.
My organization has presented a plan to Congress [PDF] to create more jobs. It calls for the federal government to do five things. First, we need to extend unemployment insurance again and bolster the safety net by making sure that everyone who needs food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families can receive it. These programs put dollars in the hands of the neediest households. These households then quickly spend these dollars and the dollars go to work in the economy. This circulation of dollars creates jobs while helping the neediest.
The second part of the plan is to provide more aid to states. As the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been creating jobs, states facing deficits have been slashing jobs and reducing worker hours. More aid to states could reduce the job cuts at the state-level. It is also important for state agencies to be fully staffed because during a recession is when the public has the greatest need for state services.
The third component of the plan is for the government to create public service jobs as it did during the Great Recession. Many poor, urban communities have streets, parks and schools that need cleaning, maintenance and repair. The government could create a corps to do this or some similar work.
The fourth part of the plan is to provide a tax credit to businesses for job creation. This tax credit would reduce the cost of hiring new workers and therefore increase hiring.
The final part of the plan is to increase spending on infrastructure, especially on school construction. All of these proposals are very effective at creating or saving jobs, and jobs are desperately needed, especially among blacks.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been important in helping to ease the damage cause by the recession. Unfortunately, it was created before anyone had a sense of how bad this recession would turn out to be. The ARRA was designed to create or save 3.5 million jobs, but we are currently short 10.7 million jobs. Three and a half million jobs helps, but it is not enough.
If we allow the economic suffering to persist for the next five years or more, we should expect worse outcomes for black youth. Children who grow up in poverty have worse educational and economic outcomes. We should expect stagnating or declining test scores and increases in youth crime and teen pregnancy. Each additional year of high black unemployment will lead to an additional increase in the poverty rate for black children.
We need jobs!
The unemployment rate is expected to continue to rise into 2010. This means that we can expect hundreds of thousands more blacks to join the ranks of the jobless. A recent survey by New America Media [PDF] found that a third of blacks who now have full-time work are worried about losing their jobs. Another recent survey by the Economic Policy Institute, my organization, found that two-thirds of blacks think that the lack of jobs is the most important economic problem facing the country.
Blacks are right to be worried. The most optimistic estimate is that we should expect to see high rates of unemployment until 2014. It could easily be longer if we have a “jobless recovery” as we did after the last recession.
This does not have to be our future. We know how to create jobs. We know how to ease people’s economic hardship. What we are lacking is the political will.
My organization has presented a plan to Congress [PDF] to create more jobs. It calls for the federal government to do five things. First, we need to extend unemployment insurance again and bolster the safety net by making sure that everyone who needs food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families can receive it. These programs put dollars in the hands of the neediest households. These households then quickly spend these dollars and the dollars go to work in the economy. This circulation of dollars creates jobs while helping the neediest.
The second part of the plan is to provide more aid to states. As the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been creating jobs, states facing deficits have been slashing jobs and reducing worker hours. More aid to states could reduce the job cuts at the state-level. It is also important for state agencies to be fully staffed because during a recession is when the public has the greatest need for state services.
The third component of the plan is for the government to create public service jobs as it did during the Great Recession. Many poor, urban communities have streets, parks and schools that need cleaning, maintenance and repair. The government could create a corps to do this or some similar work.
The fourth part of the plan is to provide a tax credit to businesses for job creation. This tax credit would reduce the cost of hiring new workers and therefore increase hiring.
The final part of the plan is to increase spending on infrastructure, especially on school construction. All of these proposals are very effective at creating or saving jobs, and jobs are desperately needed, especially among blacks.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been important in helping to ease the damage cause by the recession. Unfortunately, it was created before anyone had a sense of how bad this recession would turn out to be. The ARRA was designed to create or save 3.5 million jobs, but we are currently short 10.7 million jobs. Three and a half million jobs helps, but it is not enough.
If we allow the economic suffering to persist for the next five years or more, we should expect worse outcomes for black youth. Children who grow up in poverty have worse educational and economic outcomes. We should expect stagnating or declining test scores and increases in youth crime and teen pregnancy. Each additional year of high black unemployment will lead to an additional increase in the poverty rate for black children.
We need jobs!
10/12/2009
Where Are the Jobs?
Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________
There should be many loud voices screaming for more federal job creation efforts. We are down 10.7 million jobs when considers both the number of jobs lost over the recession and the continued growth in the labor force due to new entrants over the 21 months of the recession. The most optimistic assessment I have seen is that by 2014 we will manage to return to "normal" levels of unemployment. We are going to suffer from high unemployment for many years to come unless we get serious about creating more jobs now and making sure that we do not have a "jobless recovery." Of course, high unemployment for America means high unemployment times 2 for black America. Below are a few voices from people who understand the depth of the crisis.
Wanted: Leadership on Jobs
By every meaningful measure, the weak job market deteriorated further in September. Federal stimulus spending has prevented an even worse decline. But that is cold comfort for the tens of millions of working men and women for whom conditions are bleak and getting bleaker, and for the millions more who are destined to lose their jobs — or to have their hours and compensation cut — in the months and years to come.New York Times Editorial Board
Yes, You Can -- If You Can Without Obama
At a job training center that serves a largely black population in the District, a photograph of President Obama hangs on a wall with signs that say, "Yes, I can," and "Yes, you can." But when it comes to Obama actually addressing the devastating rise in unemployment among African Americans, those words might as well read: Sure I could, but no, I won't.Courtland Milloy, Washington Post
Does Obama Get It?
The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging.Bob Herbert, New York Times
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
10/04/2009
Are Green Jobs "Good Jobs" for African Americans?
This short presentation [PDF] was given at the Annual Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. It shows that there are very few good jobs in the American labor market and the share of white and black workers in good jobs has been declining over time. The decline of good jobs is driven by the decline of typically male, unionized, manufacturing jobs. Thus, black men have seen much greater declines in "good jobs" than black women.
Advocates are looking to green jobs to begin to reverse these trends. The good news is that most green jobs are projected to be good jobs. Black workers will be able to capture a fair share of these green jobs.
Advocates are looking to green jobs to begin to reverse these trends. The good news is that most green jobs are projected to be good jobs. Black workers will be able to capture a fair share of these green jobs.
9/28/2009
Surveying the Damage from the Great Recession
"For men, who have been hit hard by this recession, and for minority men in particular, the official unemployment numbers underestimate the severity of their unemployment situation."
Read the full report.
Read the full report.
9/20/2009
It's Not 2000 Anymore
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
The year 2000 was the economic high point for black America. The black median household income was its highest on record; the black poverty rate reached its lowest point on record. The latest data [income (Table H-6), poverty (Table 2), report (PDF)] from the Census Bureau shows the beginning of what is likely to be a significant multi-year decline in the economic fortunes of blacks.
In 2000, the median black household income was $37,093 (2008 dollars). By 2007, the median had fallen $1,873 dollars or 5 percent to $35,219. From 2007 to 2008, the median black household income fell another $1001 dollars to $34,218. Overall, the median black household was down 8 percent from 2000 in 2008.
In 2000, the black poverty rate was 22.5 percent. By 2004, it was up to 24.5 percent. Luckily, from 2007 to 2008, the black poverty rate only increased 0.2 percentage points to 24.7 percent. Most likely, it will go higher in the near future.
2008 was a bad year, but 2009 has been far worse. Sadly, unemployment is likely to increase into 2010. So, 2010 will be a bad year also.
Pray for a strong recovery starting in 2010.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
The year 2000 was the economic high point for black America. The black median household income was its highest on record; the black poverty rate reached its lowest point on record. The latest data [income (Table H-6), poverty (Table 2), report (PDF)] from the Census Bureau shows the beginning of what is likely to be a significant multi-year decline in the economic fortunes of blacks.
In 2000, the median black household income was $37,093 (2008 dollars). By 2007, the median had fallen $1,873 dollars or 5 percent to $35,219. From 2007 to 2008, the median black household income fell another $1001 dollars to $34,218. Overall, the median black household was down 8 percent from 2000 in 2008.
In 2000, the black poverty rate was 22.5 percent. By 2004, it was up to 24.5 percent. Luckily, from 2007 to 2008, the black poverty rate only increased 0.2 percentage points to 24.7 percent. Most likely, it will go higher in the near future.
2008 was a bad year, but 2009 has been far worse. Sadly, unemployment is likely to increase into 2010. So, 2010 will be a bad year also.
Pray for a strong recovery starting in 2010.
Worth Reading
Incomes of young in 8-year nose diveShare this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
9/13/2009
Three Lessons about Black Poverty
Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________
The new poverty numbers released by the Census Bureau today shows the black poverty rate inching upward. The good news is that in 2008 the black poverty rate increased only a statistically-insignificant two-tenths of a percentage point to 24.7 percent. The worst of the recession, however, has been in 2009. The bad news is that next year's poverty increase will certainly be larger. If we have only weak job creation after the official end of the recession--a "jobless recovery"--then the black poverty rate could increase for additional years.
In recent years, there has been a lot of hot air about black poverty. This is a good moment to clarify what causes blacks to have such a high poverty rate and what can be done about it.
The first important point to emphasize is the crucial link of poverty to a lack of jobs. When blacks lose jobs, as they do during recessions, the black poverty rate increases. The reverse is also true. When there is strong job growth in the country, the black poverty rate declines.
Over the 1990s, there was strong job growth and the black poverty rate dropped 9.4 percentage points from 31.9 percent in 1990 to 22.5 percent in 2000. The black poverty rate in 2000 was the lowest black poverty rate on record. The 1990s decline was the biggest drop in black poverty since the 1960s. It was amazing to see the black poverty rate cut by almost a third in a mere 10 years.
The number one priority in fighting black poverty must be the creation of jobs with good wages. It is unfortunate that no one made a big deal about the 1990s decline in black poverty. The decline in black poverty over the 1990s meant that there were over 3 million fewer poor blacks in 2000.
Looking beyond the recession, the question to ask is "Will we see strong job creation or a 'jobless recovery' that causes black poverty to rise or remain high?"
The second lesson is that the United States has such a high poverty rate because we choose to. Similar to the situation with health insurance, all other rich nations do a better job at fighting poverty than we do. In 2000, the child poverty rate in the United States was 1.5 times the rate in Canada, 3 times the rate in France and 9 times the rate in Denmark. All of these countries have a stronger commitment to reducing poverty through progressive taxation. We could do better, but we don't.
If we had a stronger commitment to fighting poverty we would see better outcomes for black children. A recent study [PDF] by the Pew Economic Mobility Project showed that a large number of middle-class black children grew up to be worse off economically than their parents. An important reason for this downward mobility was because middle-class black children are much more likely to grow up in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty than middle-class white children. Other research also shows that childhood poverty increases the likelihood that children will have negative economic outcomes as adults.
Children who grow up in an impoverished home or in a poor neighborhood are more likely to be poor as adults. If we wish to reduce poverty in the long-term, we have to be committed to reducing poverty today.
The third lesson is that racial discrimination is still an obstacle to black economic success. Audit or paired-tester studies where black and white job applicants present basically the same qualifications in the same way to employers consistently find that the white applicant is much more likely to be offered the job. Among blacks with jobs, researchers consistently find wage disparities. For example, a recent study from the Urban Institute found that black workers earn 12 percent less than similar white workers in similar jobs.
There are three necessary ingredients to reducing black poverty: (1) strong job growth that reaches black communities, (2) a national commitment to lowering the poverty rate, and (3) a renewed commitment to fighting discrimination in the labor market. Without these three ingredients, we will continue to see a large black-white poverty gap into the future.
Worth Reading
The Recession’s Racial DivideShare this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
9/01/2009
Do Poor Blacks Live in a Police State?
A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, IllinoisStateUniversity
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
Like Henry Louis Gates Jr., all black men in America, are likely to have at least one negative experience with the criminal justice system. For poor black men in America's cities, however, these negative experiences are not rare events, but can occur monthly, weekly or even daily.
Alice Goffman, a sociologist who spent six years studying the men in a poor, black, Philadelphia neighborhood, documented the intense policing that she saw in her first year and a half of research.
One reason for the intense policing of this neighborhood is probably a high crime rate. But what Goffman illustrates in her article is that our criminal justice policies ultimately encourage crime and incarceration among poor, black men.
Criminologists have shown that work and family ties keep men from returning to criminal activity. The criminal justice policies that black, male ex-offenders are subject to often disrupt their relationship to work and to family thereby increasing the men's likelihood of returning to criminal activity.
Many people criticize young black men for not having ties to children they father. These people should, therefore, be upset that the police work to sever these ties from the day of the birth of the child. Goffman reports that one young black man, Alex, was arrested on the hospital delivery room floor after the birth of his son. Goffman states, "After Alex was arrested, other young men expressed hesitation to go to the hospital when their babies were born" (p. 345). On the day, Alex was arrested, the police also took into custody two other men on the delivery room floor.
Some might say that Alex simply should not have committed the crime that led to his arrest. What exactly led to Alex's arrest in the hospital? He violated his parole by drinking alcohol. Alex is 22 years old. Lots of 22 year olds of all races and classes drink alcohol, but our criminal justice system disproportionately imprisons poor, young, black men for this "crime."
The citizens of Pennsylvania spent roughly $30,000 [PDF] in tax dollars to punish Alex with a year in prison for drinking alcohol. Imprisoning someone like Alex in this situation strains his relationship to his girlfriend, child and extended family which means that upon release from prison he is more likely to commit an actual crime as opposed to the "crime" of drinking alcohol when one is 22 years old. In essence, the state of Pennsylvania has spent $30,000 in the hopes of making Alex into a hardened, career criminal who will neglect his son.
Another person Goffman knew was Mike, a 24 years old who was also parole. Mike managed to find work at a Taco Bell. She writes,
It is very difficult for young, black, men with a criminal record to find work. For the "crime" of sleeping at his girlfriend's house, Mike loses his job at Taco Bell and will probably have a more difficult time finding legal work in the future. If Mike cannot find legal work in the future he is more likely to resort to criminal activity to make a living. To encourage Mike to become a hardened, career criminal the citizens of Pennsylvania spent about $30,000.
Goffman reports that nearly 40 percent of the young men in the neighborhood had been issued warrants for their arrest for these technical violations of their probation or parole. Technical violations include drinking and missing a curfew. Given that most young adults drink alcohol and stay out late, requiring young adult paroles to desist from this behavior is to design a system that guarantees a high rate of failure. The Pew Center on the States reported that in 2005 in California statewide nearly 40 percent [PDF] of paroles were returned to prison for technical violations. Incarcerating individuals for technical violations is an extremely expensive policy that definitely increases the incarceration rate and probably increases the crime rate in the long run.
Poor, young, black men are also disproportionately sent back to prison essentially for being poor. Goffman tells of Anthony "who was 22 years old and homeless" and who "had a bench warrant out for his arrest because he had not paid $173 in court fees" (p. 344). Anthony cannot afford to find a place to live, but our legal system expects him to find $173 to pay for court fees. Poor ex-offenders may find themselves in this situation, but middle-class and rich ex-offenders will not. For many of the nonpoor, $173 is a trivial amount. For the poor, it is not. The poor will therefore be overrepresented among those re-incarcerated for the failure to pay fees.
Many of the young, black men Goffman studied were involved in drug dealing. They were also all struggling financially to some degree. Anthony was not the only homeless one. Contrary to the stories told in rap music and to what is shown in music videos, most real-life street-level drug dealers are poor. They are not spending "Benjamins" like Diddy or Fifty Cent. For example, Goffman tells of Mike who was too embarrassed to attend Parent's Day at his son's school. Mike fell behind on his son's Catholic school fees because he was not making enough money from dealing drugs to afford it.
In the neighborhood with such intense policing, everyone knows that one need not be guilty of a crime to be arrested. One of the young men Goffman knew, Reggie, left a gun in his home that was found during a police search. Although it was Reggie's gun, Reggie's mother was arrested. The police "told her she would be charged for the gun unless she told them where to find Reggie" (p. 350). Reggie and his mother lived at Reggie's grandfather's home. The grandfather kicked Reggie out of his house knowing that if the police kept returning to his house "they going to find some reason to book my Black ass" (p. 350). Another Goffman informant states that "whoever they [the police] looking for , even if it's not you, nine times out of ten they'll probably book you" (p. 344).
Poor, young, black men live in a different world from the world of Henry Louis Gates Jr. These men regularly have negative interactions with the police. Once they get on wrong path, our criminal justice system encourages them to stay on the wrong path. Instead of working to foster strong relationships to work and family, the criminal justice system blithely disrupts these fragile relationships. Instead of recognizing that a homeless young man simply does not have $173, the state spends $30,000 to punish the young man for being poor. Without question, America has the worst criminal justice system that money can buy.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, IllinoisStateUniversity
Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________
Like Henry Louis Gates Jr., all black men in America, are likely to have at least one negative experience with the criminal justice system. For poor black men in America's cities, however, these negative experiences are not rare events, but can occur monthly, weekly or even daily.
Alice Goffman, a sociologist who spent six years studying the men in a poor, black, Philadelphia neighborhood, documented the intense policing that she saw in her first year and a half of research.
I watched the police stop pedestrians or people in cars, search them, run their names to see if any warrants came up, ask them to come in for questioning, or make an arrest at least once a day, with five exceptions. I watched the police break down doors, search houses, and question, arrest, or chase suspects through houses 52 times. Police helicopters circled overhead and beamed search lights onto local streets nine times. I noted blocks taped off an traffic redirected as police searched for evidence or "secured a crime scene" 17 times. I watched the police punch, choke, kick, stomp on, or beat young men with night sticks 14 times during this first year and a half. ("On the Run: Wanted Men in a Philadelphia Ghetto," American Sociological Review 74, June: 343.)Over a year and a half, only five days passed with Goffman not seeing some sort of police action.
One reason for the intense policing of this neighborhood is probably a high crime rate. But what Goffman illustrates in her article is that our criminal justice policies ultimately encourage crime and incarceration among poor, black men.
Criminologists have shown that work and family ties keep men from returning to criminal activity. The criminal justice policies that black, male ex-offenders are subject to often disrupt their relationship to work and to family thereby increasing the men's likelihood of returning to criminal activity.
Many people criticize young black men for not having ties to children they father. These people should, therefore, be upset that the police work to sever these ties from the day of the birth of the child. Goffman reports that one young black man, Alex, was arrested on the hospital delivery room floor after the birth of his son. Goffman states, "After Alex was arrested, other young men expressed hesitation to go to the hospital when their babies were born" (p. 345). On the day, Alex was arrested, the police also took into custody two other men on the delivery room floor.
Some might say that Alex simply should not have committed the crime that led to his arrest. What exactly led to Alex's arrest in the hospital? He violated his parole by drinking alcohol. Alex is 22 years old. Lots of 22 year olds of all races and classes drink alcohol, but our criminal justice system disproportionately imprisons poor, young, black men for this "crime."
The citizens of Pennsylvania spent roughly $30,000 [PDF] in tax dollars to punish Alex with a year in prison for drinking alcohol. Imprisoning someone like Alex in this situation strains his relationship to his girlfriend, child and extended family which means that upon release from prison he is more likely to commit an actual crime as opposed to the "crime" of drinking alcohol when one is 22 years old. In essence, the state of Pennsylvania has spent $30,000 in the hopes of making Alex into a hardened, career criminal who will neglect his son.
Another person Goffman knew was Mike, a 24 years old who was also parole. Mike managed to find work at a Taco Bell. She writes,
Mike refused to return to the halfway house in time for curfew one night, saying he could not spend another night cooped up with a bunch of men like he was still in jail. He slept at his girlfriend's house, and in the morning found that he had been issued a violation and would likely be sent back to prison . . . . Two parole officers arrested him the next day as he was leaving the Taco Bell. (p. 345-346)Here we see the zero tolerance of the parole system preventing a young man from working a legal job.
It is very difficult for young, black, men with a criminal record to find work. For the "crime" of sleeping at his girlfriend's house, Mike loses his job at Taco Bell and will probably have a more difficult time finding legal work in the future. If Mike cannot find legal work in the future he is more likely to resort to criminal activity to make a living. To encourage Mike to become a hardened, career criminal the citizens of Pennsylvania spent about $30,000.
Goffman reports that nearly 40 percent of the young men in the neighborhood had been issued warrants for their arrest for these technical violations of their probation or parole. Technical violations include drinking and missing a curfew. Given that most young adults drink alcohol and stay out late, requiring young adult paroles to desist from this behavior is to design a system that guarantees a high rate of failure. The Pew Center on the States reported that in 2005 in California statewide nearly 40 percent [PDF] of paroles were returned to prison for technical violations. Incarcerating individuals for technical violations is an extremely expensive policy that definitely increases the incarceration rate and probably increases the crime rate in the long run.
Poor, young, black men are also disproportionately sent back to prison essentially for being poor. Goffman tells of Anthony "who was 22 years old and homeless" and who "had a bench warrant out for his arrest because he had not paid $173 in court fees" (p. 344). Anthony cannot afford to find a place to live, but our legal system expects him to find $173 to pay for court fees. Poor ex-offenders may find themselves in this situation, but middle-class and rich ex-offenders will not. For many of the nonpoor, $173 is a trivial amount. For the poor, it is not. The poor will therefore be overrepresented among those re-incarcerated for the failure to pay fees.
Many of the young, black men Goffman studied were involved in drug dealing. They were also all struggling financially to some degree. Anthony was not the only homeless one. Contrary to the stories told in rap music and to what is shown in music videos, most real-life street-level drug dealers are poor. They are not spending "Benjamins" like Diddy or Fifty Cent. For example, Goffman tells of Mike who was too embarrassed to attend Parent's Day at his son's school. Mike fell behind on his son's Catholic school fees because he was not making enough money from dealing drugs to afford it.
In the neighborhood with such intense policing, everyone knows that one need not be guilty of a crime to be arrested. One of the young men Goffman knew, Reggie, left a gun in his home that was found during a police search. Although it was Reggie's gun, Reggie's mother was arrested. The police "told her she would be charged for the gun unless she told them where to find Reggie" (p. 350). Reggie and his mother lived at Reggie's grandfather's home. The grandfather kicked Reggie out of his house knowing that if the police kept returning to his house "they going to find some reason to book my Black ass" (p. 350). Another Goffman informant states that "whoever they [the police] looking for , even if it's not you, nine times out of ten they'll probably book you" (p. 344).
Poor, young, black men live in a different world from the world of Henry Louis Gates Jr. These men regularly have negative interactions with the police. Once they get on wrong path, our criminal justice system encourages them to stay on the wrong path. Instead of working to foster strong relationships to work and family, the criminal justice system blithely disrupts these fragile relationships. Instead of recognizing that a homeless young man simply does not have $173, the state spends $30,000 to punish the young man for being poor. Without question, America has the worst criminal justice system that money can buy.
Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.
--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
