This Is The Mixed-Race Cheerios Ad All The Idiots Are Complaining About

"A new commercial for Cheerios featuring a mixed-race family has become a target for idiots on the internet.
The anodyne spot features a Caucasian mother, an African-American father and their biracial daughter, but contains no overt messaging, politically correct or otherwise (except that Cheerios are good for you)."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/multi-racial-cheerios-ad-2013-5#ixzz2UswPEZUa

Wisconsin Leads in Incarcerating Black Men

"the 2010 U.S. Census showing Wisconsin having the highest black male incarceration rate in the nation. In Milwaukee County over half of African American men in their 30s have served time in state prison." [Read more, PDF]

Joblessness Shortens Lifespan of Least Educated White Women, Research Says

"Researchers have known for some time that life expectancy is declining for the country’s least educated white women, but they have not been able to explain why. A new study has found that the two factors most strongly associated with higher death rates were smoking and not having a job." [Read more]

This research raises the question about the impact of the high rate of joblessness among blacks on their mortality.

Missing Black Voters

"
Unaccounted in the Census Bureau estimates are the 5.8 million adults who are ineligible to vote due to a current or previous felony conviction. All but two states (Maine and Vermont) take away the right to vote for a period of time after a felony conviction. In 48 states, prisoners are ineligible to vote, in 35 of these states persons also cannot vote on probation and/or parole, and in 12 states citizens may lose their voting rights even after they have completed their sentence.

"Racial disparities in the criminal justice system translate into much higher rates of disenfranchisement for African Americans relative to other groups. Factoring these uncounted lost voters in to the black population produces a turnout figure up to 72 percent of the eligible adult population. The high disenfranchisement rate of black males in particular helps to explain as well the nearly nine point gender gap in black voting, considerably higher than for other groups." [Read more]

Illustrating Our Failed Drug Policy

"Street drug prices in the below figure fell by roughly a factor of five between 1980 and 2008. Meanwhile the number of drug offenders locked up in our jails and prisons went from fewer than 42,000 in 1980 to a peak of 562,000 in 2007." The goal of our drug policy is to increase prices because of incarceration. [Read more]

The Ghetto Is Public Policy

"The wealth gap is not a mistake. It is the logical outcome of policy and democratic will." [Read more]

College diploma gap widens between rich and poor

"Looking at children born in the early 1960s, the researchers found that only 5 percent of children from families in the lowest-income quartile completed college, while 36 percent of those from families in the highest-income quartile did.

"For children born around 1980, the college completion rate among low-income students rose to 9 percent, but among high- income students it jumped to more than half (54 percent). In other words, over two decades, the college income gap widened to 45 percentage points from 31 percentage points." [Read more]

Racist Tweets Mapped

"Ever wonder where those racist, homophobic tweets that stain social media actually come from?
"Now you can find out.
"And for the open-minded, the news is not so good.
"The “Geography of Hate,” an interactive map created by geography scholars and researchers at California’s Humboldt State University, shows that most bigoted Twitter traffic occurs in the eastern half of the country."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/survey-plots-hateful-tweets-map-u-s-article-1.1343700#ixzz2TN9qiJoz

The Case for Raising the Minimum Wage

"A minimum wage of $7.25 is not enough to live on. Full-time minimum-wage workers today earn about $15,000 a year. In 1968, they earned about $20,000 per year in today's dollars. While certainly not enough for a life of luxury, it is enough for a family of three to stay above the poverty line – which can't be said for today's minimum-wage workers." [Read more]

Blacks Voted at a Higher Rate than Whites in 2012 Election

"About two in three eligible blacks (66.2 percent) voted in the 2012 presidential election, higher than the 64.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites who did so, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today. This marks the first time that blacks have voted at a higher rate than whites since the Census Bureau started publishing statistics on voting by the eligible citizen population in 1996." [Read more]

How Social Networks Drive Black Unemployment

"Favoritism is almost universal in today’s job market. In interviews with hundreds of people on this topic, I found that all but a handful used the help of family and friends to find 70 percent of the jobs they held over their lifetimes; they all used personal networks and insider information if it was available to them.

"In this context of widespread networking, the idea that there is a job “market” based solely on skills, qualifications and merit is false. Whenever possible, Americans seeking jobs try to avoid market competition: they look for unequal rather than equal opportunity. In fact, the last thing job seekers want to face is equal opportunity; they want an advantage. They want to find ways to cut in line and get ahead." [Read more]

Black Woman Pretends to be White, Gets Job Offers

"The next day, my phone line and Bianca’s email address were packed with potential employers calling for an interview. I was stunned. More shocking was that some employers, mostly Caucasian-sounding women, were calling Bianca more than once, desperate to get an interview with her. All along, my real Monster.com account was open and active; but, despite having the same background as Bianca, I received no phone calls." [Read more]

An Unfair Barrier to Employment

"Sixty-five million Americans have criminal records that might cause them to be denied jobs, even for arrests or minor convictions that occurred in the distant past. Last year, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reaffirmed a longstanding ruling that it was illegal to screen out employees unless the offense was directly related to the job." [Read more]