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We have “reformed” our welfare system based on the assumption that everyone who wants to obtain a job that can lift themselves and their family out of poverty can obtain one. These are flawed assumptions. In 2007, when we had a moderately strong economy, more than one-in-four people with jobs did not earn enough to keep a family out of poverty.

The current economy is extremely weak. We have an unemployment rate of 9.7 percent. There are over 5 job seekers for every job opening. No matter how hard people try to find work, there simply are not enough jobs. As Timothy M. Smeeding has remarked, today “we have a work-based safety net without any work.”

But this reality has not stopped the engines of “welfare reform.” The New York Times reports that “Rhode Island has the nation’s third-highest unemployment rate, but the welfare rolls here continue to decline because of the time limits and stringent work requirements.” Nationally, “Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of Americans receiving benefits under the main federal-state welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, has increased less than 10 percent, even though unemployment has nearly doubled and the number of people receiving food stamps has grown more than 40 percent, to 39 million.”

The authors of Battered by the Storm report:

The percentage of poor children receiving temporary assistance under the main federal “welfare” program has fallen from 62 percent in 1995 to 22 percent in 2008. TANF benefits in 2008 averaged only 29 percent of the money needed to reach the official poverty line.

We should not be surprised to see further declines in aid to poor families.

Not everyone is suffering however. The Economic Policy Institute reports that the richest 400 families have seen their tax rate decline by 10 percentage points and their income has quadrupled since 1992. These families have a median income of $345 million. In a separate Economic Snapshot, the Institute states:

In 1979, the top 10% of families received 67.0% of all income generated by assets such as stocks, bonds and real estate. By 2006, that share had risen to 81.3%. By contrast, the share of capital income that went to the other 90% of families has fallen from 33.0% in 1979 to 18.7% in 2006. The portion of capital income going to the top 1% of families has gradually increased from 38.0% in 1979, so that by 2006 this small group received more than half – 57.7% -- of all capital income.

So, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer.


--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.


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Copyright © 2005-2010 by Algernon Austin. All Rights Reserved.

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
________________________________________________________________________


Many people are upset with the Census Bureau over the race question. Although 50,000 people told the Census Bureau that they wished to be identified as "Negro" on the 2000 Census, some other blacks are upset that "Negro" is on the 2010 Census.

Many Latinos and non-Latinos think being Latino is a race, but it is not a race according to the Census Bureau definition. Latinos who look "white" are supposed to check "white." Those who look "black" are supposed to check "black." Those who identify as American Indian are supposed to check "American Indian." Latinos, like everyone else, also have the option of checking "white" AND "black" AND "American Indian" or any other racial combination that works for them.

Some Arabs are upset that there is no Arab race and that they will in many cases be compelled to check "white." They are calling for Arabs to write-in "Arab."

And, then there are other folks who are upset that there even is a race question. They say we are all human beings, so why don't we just stop talking and thinking and classifying based on race.

What a mess.

What all of this confusion indicates is that race is not biology in any simple, direct or definitive way. It is not skin color--no matter how many times people say "skin color" to mean race. If it were skin color then Latinos and Arabs would have no problem classifying themselves as white if they were light complexioned. And the many Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who have a darker skin complexion than Barack Obama would classify themselves as black and not as Asian.

Race is sociological, cultural, psychological and political, much more than it is biological. Take the example of Barack Obama. What race is he? Well, it depends to a degree on who is answering the question. The Pew Research Center finds that 53 percent of whites say he is "mixed race" while 55 percent of blacks say he is black. Hispanics are even more likely than whites to say the Obama is mixed race with 61 percent classifying him so. So, the perception of Obama's race varies by sociological, cultural, psychological and political factors while his biology, of course, remains the same.


Obama classifies himself as black, though he clearly could say that he is biracial or mixed race. His decision on his race is due to sociological, cultural, psychological or political factors.

Obama is not unusual. On the same Pew Research Center survey about perceptions of Obama's race only 1 percent of the people surveyed identified racially as mixed, yet 16 percent say that they are, in fact, racially mixed.

There is a difference between one's identity and one's ancestry. Obama's ancestry based on the race of his parents is black and white. But his identity is black. Similarly there are lots of people who have parents, grandparents and great-grandparents with racial identities that differ from their own. From an ancestry standpoint they are mixed, but in their day-to-day lives they may not interact with people based on the racial identities of all of their known ancestors. So, for example, a black person can claim to be racially mixed because of an American Indian grandparent, but still identify only as black on the Census.

Race is a complex and continually changing phenomenon. Because society changes, race changes. Because people can change psychologically over their life-span, individuals' racial identities can change over their lives also. Obama may one day decide that he should identify as biracial and not as black, for example.

U.S.-born Americans are not culturally uniform in their thinking about race. The foreign-born population brings even more radically different thinking about race. The Census Bureau has to reduce this complex issue and all of these conflicting ideas into one single multiple choice question. It can't be done. Since we probably don't want them asking us 20 questions about the meaning of race in our lives, we should probably cut them a little slack.

(For a more detailed discussion of the meaning of race, see my book Achieving Blackness.)



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2010 by Algernon Austin. All Rights Reserved.

"In recent testimony before the Congressional Black Caucus, EPI's Algernon Austin focused on jobless rates in Illinois to illustrate the major difference between unemployment rates for black and white workers. He estimated that even before the recession started, black workers in Chicago were almost four times as likely as white workers to be unemployed." Read more.

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 macro-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.
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Sensational individual acts of racist violence or hatred too often serve to obscure the far more common and pervasive impersonal acts of institutional racial discrimination. We do seem to be experiencing an upsurge of racist violence and hatred by individuals and organized groups. This significant upsurge is worth noting.

Chip Berlet on “Angry Voters, Right-Wing Populism, & Racial Violence”:

We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in US history as illustrated by the Tea Party and Patriot movements. Will religious and progressive activists provide a voice and outlet for populist fear and anger or will these dispossessed voices find a home among the potentially violent elements of the far right?

Mark Potok on “Rage on the Right”:

[Last year] Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And, most remarkably of all, so-called "Patriot" groups — militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose “one-world government” on liberty-loving Americans — came roaring back after years out of the limelight.

Bob Herbert on the recent ugliness:

A group of lowlifes at a Tea Party rally in Columbus, Ohio, last week taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson’s disease. The disgusting behavior was captured on a widely circulated videotape. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town.”

You might be a racist if you have a swastika tattoo:

Mr. Brunjes, 18, said he first gave his friend a lightning-bolt tattoo in May 2008, and then a star, using ink, a needle and thread. About a month and a half later, he said, he gave him a third one on his right upper thigh: a swastika. The two friends did not discuss why.

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.

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 2010 Census is coming! Will you stand up and be counted?

Every missing black person translates to a loss of roughly $13,000 in federal dollars for his community until the next census in 2020. This is a lot of money. On the 2010 Census you only need to answer ten easy questions to earn that money for your community. Will you stand up and be counted?

Blacks have lower income, less wealth and higher poverty rates than whites. On top of all of this the black completion rate of the 2000 Census was lower than the white completion rate. This means that poorer black communities lose out on desperately needed federal dollars.

On the 2000 Census, my predominantly black community had a completion rate of about 65 percent. The predominantly white community nearby had a completion rate of over 80 percent. My community probably lost out on federal funds. (Map the participation rate of your community here.)

If you are not counted by the government, not only does your community lose money, you are more easily ignored and neglected. Political representation in the U.S. House of Representatives is determined by the census counts. Entrepreneurs determine where to locate businesses based on census data. Public policies and social programs are created based on census data. If you are not counted you are more likely to be ignored.

Will you stand up and be counted?

Worth Viewing/Reading

Brookings report: Counting for Dollars:The Role of the Decennial Census in the Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds.

Algernon Austin talks about minority unemployment on PBS Newshour.

NYC Police Department targets black and Latino youth.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2010 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

From AARP:

African Americans age 45+ have been forced to make increasingly difficult decisions to cope with this economic downturn—decisions that could have serious long-term consequences. A third (34%) stopped putting money into a 401(k), IRA or other retirement account, and a quarter (26%) prematurely withdrew funds from their retirement nest eggs to pay for living expenses, including mortgage or rent, health care, education expenses, and for other reasons. More than three in ten (31%) have cut back on their medications, and 28% have carried a higher balance on their credit cards during the past 12 months.

This economic recession has had a devastating impact on the African American community. The survey, found that over the last 12 months, a third (33%) of African Americans 45+ had problems paying rent or mortgage, and 44% had problems paying for essential items, such as food and utilities. Nearly twice as many African Americans 45+ lost a job than the general population (18% vs. 10%), and almost one in four (23%) lost their employer-sponsored health insurance.

Read the full summary.

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 macro-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.
________________________________________________________________________

“We have a work-based safety net without any work.”

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.

. . .

“American business is about maximizing shareholder value. . . . You basically don’t want workers.”

Full story: Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs, New York Times.

Black Women Evicted from Apartments

Here and in swaths of many cities, evictions from rental properties are so common that they are part of the texture of life. New research is showing that eviction is a particular burden on low-income black women, often single mothers, who have an easier time renting apartments than their male counterparts, but are vulnerable to losing them because their wages or public benefits have not kept up with the cost of housing.

And evictions, in turn, can easily throw families into cascades of turmoil and debt.

“Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women,” said Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin whose research on trends in Milwaukee since 2002 provides a rare portrait of gender patterns in inner-city rentals.

Full story: A Sight All Too Familiar in Poor Neighborhoods, New York Times.

Nothing for an Able-Bodied Black Man Down on His Luck

I have to find a place to stay. . . .

Now, before I landed in my current stitch, I checked out every state program I could find. Help for immigrant refugees, help for families, for women, for long-term homeless, for minors – nothing for an able-bodied man down on his luck. And when I say “down on his luck,” I mean it. I’ve been unemployed, with a few short stints of employment, for three-and-a-half years –- so long I don’t qualify for unemployment.

Full story: Young, Black, Male, Single--and Homeless in San Jose, New America Media.


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.

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 conventional wisdom is that because of a rise in interracial relationships, all Americans will be brown in the future. Henry Louis Gates Jr., for example, recently stated, "I’m looking forward to the time when we all look like Polynesians." Current data, however, suggests that the most we might see in the future is the beige-ing--not the browning--of the white population. Additionally, we can expect to see a phenotypic black population into the foreseeable future because while blacks seem somewhat open to interracial relationships, non-blacks prefer whites over blacks. In the American "melting pot," blacks are the least loved group.

While blacks appear to be the most racially tolerant Americans, they are the least tolerated racial group. These are the conclusions suggested by a recent Pew Research Center survey on racial attitudes. Blacks are more likely to accept an interracial marriage by a family member than are whites and Hispanics. But whites and Hispanics view blacks as the least desirable group for interracial marriage.

Given a choice between an Asian or a black person as a relative, whites choose Asians. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of all whites are "fine" with a family member marrying an Asian, but only 64 percent are comfortable with a family member marrying a black person.

Hispanics are more positive toward interracial marriage and toward blacks than whites. The highest rate of acceptance of interracial marriage whites express is 73 percent. The lowest rate of acceptance for Hispanics is 73 percent for a family member marrying a black person. The highest rate of acceptance for Hispanics is 81 percent for a family member marrying a white person. While Hispanics are more accepting of blacks than whites, they still express a greater rate of support for a white person joining the family than a black person.

Interestingly, when one examines blacks' preferences for specific groups, blacks show no favoritism toward any group. Among blacks, the acceptance rate for whites and Asians is 80 percent and 81 percent for Hispanics.

The Pew Research Center data is an attitude survey. It records what people say they would do which may be different from what they actually do. It also asks about a family member and not about the interviewee. A person might accept a family member marrying someone of another race while they think that interracial marriage is unacceptable for themselves.

There is data that provides some insight into people's actual racial preferences for love and marriage. The dating website OkCupid conducted an analysis of response rates to first-contact messages from potential male and female suitors. The analysis took account of compatibility, attractiveness and height. The OkCupid analyst found that white, Hispanic and Asian women on average revealed strong preferences for white men. Black women had the lowest response rates. In the online dating world, white men have a distinct advantage. Blacks are disadvantaged and especially black women.

Interracial marriage data from the 2000 Census paints a picture similar to OkCupid's findings. Asian and Hispanic women have higher rates of intermarriage than white and black women. More than one-in-five married Asian women (22 percent) were married to non-Asian men. Eighteen of the 22 percent of Asian women were married to white men. The overall out-marriage rate for Hispanics was a little lower, 18 percent, with 15 percent of Hispanic women married to white men. Only 4 percent of black women were married to non-blacks, and only 2 percent were married to white men. Asian and Hispanic women are much more likely to marry outside of their race than black women and when they do marry outside of their racial group in the vast majority of cases it is to a white man.

The picture for married men of color differed from that of women. While Asian women were the most likely to be married to someone of another race, among men, Hispanic men were the most likely to marry outside of their group. Fifteen percent of Hispanic men married non-Hispanics with the vast majority (13 out of the 15 percent) marrying white women. Black and Asian men were equally likely to marry outside of their race with an out-marriage rate of 9 percent for both. Six percent of black men married white women and 7 percent of Asian men did the same.

The attitudinal data shows non-blacks less accepting of interracial marriage with blacks compared to other groups. The online dating data shows that blacks and particularly black women are seen as less desirable for romantic relationships. The marriage data shows that black women have very low marriage rates to non-blacks and to white men specifically. If there is a mixed-race future for America, at present, it looks like it will largely exclude blacks.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2010 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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.


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.

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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.


Copyright © 2005-2009 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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.

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]

________________________________________________________________________

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.

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.
________________________________________________________________________

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, 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.

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, 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.

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.