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.

• 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.

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.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.


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

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.

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]

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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."



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.


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

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.
________________________________________________________________________

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

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.


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

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.

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.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.


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

The Education-Income Disparity

Attention D.C.-Area Readers

Economic Policy Institute Forum
Reversing 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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Worth Reading

Incomes of young in 8-year nose dive


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

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 Divide



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

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.

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.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Defending Affirmative Action; Post-Racialism Is Dead

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.

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Tim Wise Defends Affirmative Action

Post-Racialism is Dead

For those of us who actually looked at the data on racial discrimination [PDF], "post-racialism" never made any sense. But for a moment, many people actually seriously considered that we might be a post-racial nation. Now, as charges of racism fly left and right, it is finally clear that we are not there yet. Not only are we not post-racial, but it seems that we need to worry about the re-emergence of the Confederacy. Below are statements by major columnists renouncing post-racialism.

• The one lesson that everyone took away from the latest “national conversation about race” is the same one we’ve taken away from every other “national conversation” in the past couple of years. America has not transcended race. America is not postracial. So we can all say that again. But it must also be said that we’re just at the start of what may be a 30-year struggle. Beer won’t cool the fury of those who can’t accept the reality that America’s racial profile will no longer reflect their own. (Frank Rich, "Small Beer, Big Hangover," New York Times, August 1, 2009)
  


• But today's Palinoidal Republicans have lost most of the professionals, much of Wall Street and an increasing chunk of suburbia. What they can claim is the allegiance of the white South and the almost entirely white, non-urban parts of the Mountain West. Of the 40 Republican members of the Senate, fully half -- 20 -- come from the old Confederacy, the Civil War border states where slavery was legal or Oklahoma, which politically is an extension of Texas without Texas's racial minorities. Ten others come from the Mountain West. The rest of the nation -- that is, of course, most of the nation -- has become an ever-smaller share of Republican ranks.
  
  All parties are home to distinct subcultures with distinct beliefs. What's different about today's GOP is that increasingly, it is home to just one, and a whole sector of the media -- Fox News, talk radio -- makes its money by emphasizing this subculture's sense of separateness, grievance and alarm, and by creating its own set of "facts." Asked in late July whether they believed Barack Obama was born in the United States, 93 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of independents said yes, but just 42 percent of Republicans agreed. Behind those numbers, 93 percent, 90 percent and 87 percent of Northeasterners, Midwesterners and Westerners, respectively, said yes, but just 47 percent of Southerners said they believed the president was born in this country. Obama, the Republican base is saying, personifies an America that is increasingly alien to them. It's multiracial, as they are not. It puts Sonia Sotomayor, who sure doesn't come from their America, on the Supreme Court. Increasingly, the Republicans have descended into white identity politics. (Harold Meyerson, "Lincoln's Prophecy for the GOP," Washington Post, August 20, 2009)
  


• On the contrary, violence and the threat of violence have always been used by those who wanted to bypass democratic procedures and the rule of law. Lynching was the act of those who refused to let the legal system do its work. Guns were used on election days in the Deep South during and after Reconstruction to intimidate black voters and take control of state governments.
  
  Yes, I have raised the racial issue, and it is profoundly troubling that firearms should begin to appear with some frequency at a president's public events only now, when the president is black. Race is not the only thing at stake here, and I have no knowledge of the personal motivations of those carrying the weapons. But our country has a tortured history on these questions, and we need to be honest about it. Those with the guns should know what memories they are stirring.(E. J. Dionne, "Leave the Guns at Home," Washington Post, August 20, 2009)

Worth Reading: On the Drug War and Post-Racialism

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's Time to Legalize Drugs

Excerpts from Peter Moskos and Stanford "Neill" Franklin, The Washington Post, August 17, 2009:

. . .

When it makes sense to deal drugs in public, a neighborhood becomes home to drug violence. For a low-level drug dealer, working the street means more money and fewer economic risks. If police come, and they will, some young kid will be left holding the bag while the dealer walks around the block. But if the dealer sells inside, one raid, by either police or robbers, can put him out of business for good. Only those virtually immune from arrests (much less imprisonment) -- college students, the wealthy and those who never buy or sell from strangers -- can deal indoors.

. . .

Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies -- and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men -- have we and other police officers begun to question the system.

Cities and states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn't work perfectly, but it works well enough. Prescription drugs are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and high-volume incarceration. Regulating drugs would work similarly: not a cure-all, but a vast improvement on the status quo.

Why the Right is Winning Its War Against Obama

Excerpts from Earl Ofari Hutchinson, The Huffington Post, August 15, 2009:

Obama's worst mistake has been to misread the election results. Much is made that he got more white votes than John Kerry or Al Gore, revved up young whites, and totally exorcised race from the campaign. Obama's win supposedly was final proof that America had finally kicked the racial syndrome. This is the stuff of media talk and wishful thinking. Despite a GOP racked by sex and corruption scandals, an anemic presidential opponent, a laughingstock vice presidential candidate, a collapsed economy and an outgoing GOP president with a rating worse than Herbert Hoover's, McCain still crushed Obama by a twelve point spread among white voters.

The route was not just among old, Deep South unreconstructed or latent bigoted white male voters, but in virtually every voter demographic among whites, including a dead heat with Obama among a majority of younger white voters. This doesn't tell the whole story of the sharp racial divide Obama faces. A sizeable percentage of whites were disgusted enough with Bush's policies to stay home on Election Day, but not disgusted enough with him and his policies to vote for Obama. The Henry Louis Gate's affair and the right's town hall rabble rousing have made more whites wary of Obama's policies. Polls after the Gates outburst showed that a majority of whites condemned Obama for backing Gates and even more ominous expressed grave doubts about his policies. A painful reality is that the crushing majority of whites who oppose Obama or disavow his policies for racial, party, or ideological reasons or personal prejudices, are fast forming the backbone of the radical right's counter insurgency against him.

Health Care for All?

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
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________________________________________________________________________

[re-post]

Blacks are more likely to be uninsured than nonblacks. In 2004, 19.7 percent of black Americans did not have health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. It was 15.7 percent for all Americans in 2004. For Americans generally, the percent without health insurance has been rising.

The growing number of uninsured is only one of several critical problems facing the American health care system. The New York Times highlighted another problem in its series of articles on diabetes in January of last year: the American health care system does far too little in terms of preventive care.

Consider treatment for diabetes. Blacks are more likely than nonblacks to be diabetic. Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death among blacks. The New York Times ("In the Treatment of Diabetes, Success Often Does Not Pay" by Ian Urbina, January 11, 2006) illustrated how dysfunctional the American health care system is. Effective diabetes treatment centers were closed down because they did not make money, and they did not make money because they provided good preventative medicine. Urbina writes:

[The diabetes treatment centers] were victims of the byzantine world of American health care, in which the real profit is made not by controlling chronic diseases like diabetes but by treating their many complications.

Insurers, for example, will often refuse to pay $150 for a diabetic to see a podiatrist, who can help prevent foot ailments associated with the disease. Nearly all of them, though, cover amputations, which typically cost more than $30,000.

Patients have trouble securing a reimbursement for a $75 visit to the nutritionist who counsels them on controlling their diabetes. Insurers do not balk, however, at paying $315 for a single session of dialysis, which treats one of the disease's serious complications.

The United States spends a greater proportion of its wealth on health care than any other county, but Americans have rather little to show for it. In international comparisons, American health care ranks highly for treating some specific diseases, but overall the American system tends to fall near or at the bottom of developed Western nations (see the World Health Organization's 2000 ranking).

Beyond the Public-Private Debate: An Examination of Quality, Access and Cost in the Health-Care Systems of Eight Countries (Vancouver, BC: Western Sky Communications, Ltd., 2001) by Cynthia Ramsay, a health economist, produced the following overall rankings after a detailed analysis of eight health care systems:

1. Singapore
2. United Kingdom
3. Switzerland
4. Germany
5. Australia
6. Canada
7. United States
8. South Africa

In December of 2005, the New York Times had another important article on the American health care system. Eduardo Porter (in "Health Care for All, Just a (Big) Step Away," December 18, 2005), explained that, from a purely economic standpoint, the U.S. could fairly easily shift to a universal health care system that would provide health insurance for everyone.

What Porter argued was that the federal government provides about $130 billion to businesses in tax breaks to encourage them to provide health insurance to their employees. If the federal government collected these taxes and added a little more revenue, it could provide health care for all. The 20 percent of blacks without health care would be much better off under this system.

Randolph K. Quaye (African Americans’ Health Care Practices, Perspectives, and Needs (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 2005), 50-51) comes to this conclusion after assessing the American health care system and the needs of black Americans:

Countries that have provided universal health care coverage for all their citizens have realized the massive health care cost savings associated with such a policy. As we in the United States struggle to contain health care costs, it is time to recognize that tax incentives for health care coverage only to big corporations will in the long run not be in the best interests of this country. As has been demonstrated, the loss of manufacturing jobs overseas and the high cost of prescription drugs in the face of a potentially bankrupt Medicaid and Medicare systems will in the end frustrate the aspirations of younger and older Americans. The time to act is now, and act we must.

Health care for all!



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Barbarism Posing as Justice

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.
________________________________________________________________________


Not only does the United States have the highest incarceration rate in the world, it is also the only country in the world that sentences juveniles to life in prison without parole. Because of this inhumane treatment of juveniles, the United States is in violation of international law.

A new report from the Sentencing Project, No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America documents the rise of life sentences in America. It also reveals the too common use of life sentences and life sentences without parole against juveniles.

Blacks are overrepresented among those receiving life sentences. Blacks make up about 12 percent of the U.S. population, but makeup 48.3 percent of individuals serving a life sentence and 56.4 percent of individuals serving a life sentence without parole. Among juveniles serving life sentences, 47.3 percent are black, and 56.1 percent of juveniles serving sentences for life without parole are black.

The Sentencing Project points out that many of the juveniles serving life sentences without parole are quite far from being "the worst of the worst." Nearly 6 in 10 of them were sentenced so harshly for their very first criminal offense. The authors note:

This fact runs contrary to the commonly-held assumption that individuals serving LWOP [life without parole] sentences are chronic, repeat offenders. In addition, in 26% of cases, the juvenile serving an LWOP sentence was not the primary assailant and, in many cases, was present but only minimally involved in the crime. However, because of state law, they were automatically given a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

In many cases, therefore, our society mindlessly and without any reasonable justification discards the civil life of juveniles and disproportionately juveniles who are black.

These findings are among a long list showing that tough-on-crime policies have produced an extremely illogical, inhumane and anti-black criminal justice system.




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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Will the Crack Cocaine Disparity Ever End?

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.
________________________________________________________________________


Maybe we are finally nearing the end of the racially-biased crack-versus-powder-cocaine sentencing disparity. Last week, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security took the first step toward the elimination of the crack-versus-powder disparity. The committee passed the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act which would equalize the penalties for crack and powder. The Senate is expected to take the complimentary step in the near future.

When crack cocaine arrived in America's cities in the 1980s chaos ensued. There was violence as drug gangs fought over drug-dealing territory. There were new drug addicts doing a host of crazy and destructive things.

The new drug and its negative effects produced a general hysteria that affected criminal justice policy. In 1986, a promising young black basketball star, Len Bias, died from a drug overdose. In response, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which meted out extremely harsh punishment for crack possession. Anyone caught with 5 grams of crack--the equivalent of less than two packets of sugar--would be sentenced to five years in prison. In stark contrast, one has to be caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine to receive the same punishment.

The 100-to-1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine also produces a racial disparity in incarceration because blacks are much more likely to be caught in possession of crack than whites. Many thousands of blacks have received long prison sentences while they would have been treated much less harshly had they been in possession of powder cocaine. Of course, powder cocaine is what is used to make crack. Crack is 75 to 90 percent pure cocaine.

For more than a decade, we've known that there is a great deal of mythology around crack. Len Bias overdosed on powder cocaine, not crack. It is true that crack addicts are destructive, but so are other drug addicts. There is violence around crack, but that too is not unusual for illicit drugs. There was a great deal of gang violence during the Prohibition Era when alcohol was illegal. Today, as the Mexican drug gangs battle to control the Mexican-United States drug trade, we see a great deal of violence in Mexico and along the border.

The story about large numbers of severely damaged "crack babies" was also mythology. Of course, crack use by pregnant women is bad for babies, but it is about as harmful as tobacco consumption and less harmful than alcohol consumption. Tobacco and alcohol, however, are more commonly consumed by pregnant women than crack.

We've know all of this for many years, yet we still have the 100-to-1 disparity on the law books. What does it say about our society that we let thousands and thousands of blacks be punished so much more severely than whites for similar crimes. The good news is that it looks like, finally, our elected officials will do the right thing and treat crack and powder cocaine equally.


Worth Reading
Glenn Loury on Henry Louis Gates: "I find laughable, and sad, Professor Gates’s declaration that he now plans to make a documentary film about racial profiling. . . . Where has this eminent scholar of African-American affairs been these last 30 years, during which a historically unprecedented, politically popular, extraordinarily punitive and hugely racially disparate mobilization of resources for the policing, imprisonment and post-release supervision of those caught up in the criminal justice system has unfolded?"

Black Actor Jeffrey Wright Tasered for Wanting to be Served in a Louisiana Restaurant



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.

Does Anyone Read the Nation's Report Card?; Results from the New Haven Police Sergeant's Promotion Test

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
________________________________________________________________________

Does Anyone Read the Nation's Report Card?

The National Center for Education Statistics regularly conducts different versions of the National Assessment of the Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly referred to as the "nation's report card." The long-term trend and the main versions of these tests have shown improving test scores for black students in many years, yet I rarely hear any acknowledgment of black test-score increases in popular discussions. Of course, it is hard to claim that black students are "making excuses" for lower academic achievement and point out that their test scores are improving at the same time.

The National Center for Education Statistics released a report on black and white achievement gaps this month. The report begins, once again, by noting that black scores have improved:

In 2007, mathematics scores for both Black and White public school students in grades 4 and 8 nationwide, as measured by the main NAEP assessments of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), were higher than in any previous assessment, going back to 1990. This was also true for Black and White fourth-graders on the NAEP 2007 Reading Assessment. For grade 8, reading scores for both Black and White students were higher in 2007 than in the first reading assessment year, 1992, as well as the most recent previous assessment year, 2005.

One reason test-score gaps persist is because it is often the case that both black and white students' test scores increase at the same time.

It's important to be attentive to the black-white achievement gap, but the gap is only one achievement measure. It is not the full story. The report breaks down achievement by state for black and white students. In fourth-grade math, the gap is nearly twice as large in Massachusetts as in West Virginia. Does this mean that black students are doing better in West Virginia than in Massachusetts? The answer is no.

The average NAEP score for black students in Massachusetts is the highest of all the states (and tied with black students in New Jersey). The black-white NAEP math gap is smaller in West Virginia because white students in West Virginia have the lowest scores for whites, not because West Virginia black students have high scores. West Virginia black students actually score about average. The black-white gap is large in Massachusetts because whites in Massachusetts also have high scores relative to their group. Too many people fixate on the test-score gap without realizing that many different factors, including lower academic achievement for whites, can reduce the test-score gap. We need to look at the whole picture not just the test-score gap.

Results from the New Haven Police Sergeant's Promotion Test

New Haven recently conducted another civil service promotion test. The New Haven Independent reports, "The success rate was comparable among white males, white females, black males, and black females, according to city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden." However, none of the 10 Hispanics who took the test passed it. After an expert assessed to test to make sure that there was no bias, the results were validated by the city. This validation review was not done for the firefighter test that led to Ricci v. DeStefano. [Read more the story from the New Haven Independent.]



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

On Tests, Merit and Firefighting

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.

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I have a proposal. Let’s do away with long and costly presidential campaigns and the expensive and complicated voting process and just appoint as president the candidate with the highest SAT scores. The many people who supported the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano should agree with this change.

In Ricci, the Supreme Court decided that the City of New Haven, Connecticut, whose mayor is John DeStefano, had discriminated against white firefighters by not promoting them based on the results of a test. The City of New Haven argued that it refused to promote anyone because of flaws in the test. The flaws, the City’s attorneys argued, led to low rates of eligibility for promotion among black and Hispanic firefighters. Since no one was promoted, the City maintained that there was no discrimination. Also, since the test was biased against blacks and Hispanics, New Haven claimed that it would have been sued for racial discrimination if it had promoted firefighters based on the test. Five of the Supreme Court Justices, the majority, were not convinced by the City’s arguments.

Supporters of the Supreme Court’s Ricci decision argue that firefighting is a serious job where lives are on the line, and it is necessary to select the absolute best person for the job. Being president of the United States is also a very serious job. The president is commander-in-chief of the military so the president also clearly makes life and death decisions. Since the presidency is so important, why don’t we have a standardized test where we can objectively see which candidate is most qualified? I propose the SAT.

One thing Ricci-decision fans should note is that the SAT may be biased against Republican candidates. Barack Obama, a Democrat, excelled at Harvard Law School, and taught at the University of Chicago Law School. These achievements suggest to me that he probably has high SAT scores. John McCain, Obama’s Republican rival for the presidency, graduated 894th out of 899 from the Naval Academy. In contrast, Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, also attended the Naval Academy and graduated 59th out of 820. If I had to guess, I would assume that Carter would have better SAT scores than McCain. To my knowledge, the Republican darlings, Sarah Palin and Ronald Reagan did not have distinguished academic careers, but Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa college honor society. Again, my best guess is that Clinton would beat Palin and Reagan in SAT scores. It looks like the SAT selection method would mean fewer Republican presidents going forward.

Is it fair to use a method of selecting the president that might be biased against one political party? Is it fair to use a promotion test that is biased against one or more racial group? I find both of these biases worrisome, but the actual civil rights law, as I understand it (I’m not a lawyer), is that biases of this sort or “disparate impact” is allowable if (1) the selection method relates to skills that are absolutely necessary for the job in question, and (2) if there is no equally good alternative that would produce a more democratic, inclusive or racially diverse result.

It should be obvious that among the many problems with using the SAT to select the president, the SAT does not measure the required job skills of being president. It is not a presidential test. What about the New Haven promotion exam? Does it measure the required skills for being a captain or lieutenant in the New Haven fire department? I would argue that in at least one important way it does not.

All parties in the Ricci case agree that to have a leadership position in the fire department requires leadership skills. While a test of the sort administered in New Haven, might be adequate for assessing firefighting knowledge, it is not likely to be good for assessing leadership skills.

There are two types of leadership skills needed. One is the ability to get along well with, motivate and direct other firefighters. The second is the ability to make good scientific and tactical decisions in a real fire or emergency situation. It is one thing to know the correct answer in a sedate testing situation; it is another thing to be able to think clearly and act decisively in an emergency. Neither of these abilities can be measured with an artificial test. Only real-life interactions can make clear who has and does not have these abilities. I am not aware of any attempt to assess these leadership abilities by the City of New Haven. So, in my view, the New Haven test does not determine who can best do the job.

Aside from leadership skills, how good was the test at assessing the scientific and technical knowledge that can be measured with an exam? I do not know, but the Supreme Court documents suggest that small changes would have made the test fairer to blacks and Hispanics. In other words, it appears that there was an equally good alternative assessment that would have produced a more racially inclusive result. The result would have been equally good because the changes would have left most of the test questions exactly the same.

Some of the minority firefighters claimed that they had difficultly obtaining the test-preparation materials because of cost and because materials were temporarily out-of-stock. This problem can be rectified by making all of the study books available for free to all candidates at the same time. All candidates would then have an equal amount of time to prepare for the test. “Banding”—treating scores such as, for example, 93.5, 93.7 and 93.9 all as 94 and all of the same “rank”--“would have made four black and one Hispanic candidates eligible for then-open lieutenant and captain positions,” according to the majority opinion of the Court. This small change would have led to a much more racially inclusive result. Because no New Haven firefighters were allowed to check the appropriateness of the test for New Haven specifically, there may have been a few questions that were bad for a New Haven test. Procedures should be established for one or more New Haven fire department officials or proxies, if necessary, to make sure that all of the questions are appropriate for New Haven. Implementing these small changes—none of which require major changes to the test—would likely have made more black and Hispanic firefighters eligible for promotion.

An additional change that could have been made was to change the relative importance placed on the written and oral parts of the test. According to the dissenting Justices and a firefighter from Bridgeport, Connecticut, changing the weight of the written portion from 60 percent to 30 percent would produce a less racially disparate result without having any negative effects on public safety. The dissenting Justices reported that the average city assigned a 30 percent weight to the written portion of the test in 1996 (the most recent data available). According to the firefighter from Bridgeport, that city’s fire department became more racially inclusive once it placed more weight on the oral part of the exam. The firefighter also claimed that the oral portion of the exam deals more with real-life scenarios. It is possible that changing the weights assigned to the written and oral parts of the exam would not only produce a smaller racial disparity, it might also improve the overall quality of the assessment.

The larger point here is that standardized tests have to be critically examined. Because a test is being used does not mean that the test provides a fair assessment of required skills. If we were to begin using the SAT to select the president, I would argue that it is not fair and not an assessment of required job skills. In Ricci, also, it seems that there were changes that could have been made to make the test better and fairer.

References
Supreme Court Opinions [PDF]
Brief for Petitioner Frank Ricci et al. [PDF]
Brief for Respondent John DeStefano et al. [PDF]



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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