The Continuing Damage of the Great Recession

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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“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.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Black America's Unrequited Love

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
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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.

Black College Enrollment Takes a Dip

A New Lecture: “Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama” by Dr. Algernon Austin

The simplistic idea that impoverished African Americans have only themselves to blame for their poverty, due to their poor cultural values—a notion advanced by many, including black public figures such as Bill Cosby—is believable only if a blind eye is turned to those inconvenient things social scientists like to call “facts.” Algernon Austin soundly refutes the “culture of poverty” argument by paying careful attention to marco-economic data about long-term poverty trends and sociological case studies about persistent discrimination. In other words, unlike the glib punditry, Austin actually looks at the “facts.”
--Dr. Andrew Hartman, professor and audience member, Illinois State University

Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________


"The share of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high in October 2008," reported the Pew Research Center. This rise was "driven by a recession-era surge in enrollments at community colleges." This rise was also largely confined to white students.

Many white students, faced with the terrible job market of the Great Recession, appear to be heading off to college. Community colleges are receiving the biggest boost in enrollment by white students probably because community colleges are much more affordable than four-year colleges.


We don't see this trend among black or Hispanic students. The figure above shows that black youth have had the largest decline in college enrollment. This is in contrast to the fairly steady rise in black college enrollment since 1967. (See the black-triangle trend line in the figure below.) The downturn this year may be due to the fact that blacks have been hit first and worst by economic crisis.




Whites, on average, have higher incomes, much more wealth, lower foreclosure rates, and lower unemployment rates than blacks. The average cost of community college, at $6,750 per year, may be affordable for many whites, but it may well be beyond to reach of many blacks during this recession. Without a swift and strong economic recovery, we can expect to see black-white educational disparities increase.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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