Is Entrepreneurship for Everyone?

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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[On the Need for Comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform.]
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I recently came across yet another call for black entrepreneurship as a means to black economic development. I think this is a big mistake. I see this idea on par with recommending that people buy lottery tickets to achieve wealth.

Now, I do think that having a successful business is a supreme way to build wealth and income. I also believe that there should be more successful black businesses.

So, why am I not big on entrepreneurship?

The simple reason is that most businesses fail. There is a high reward to having a successful business because it is a high-risk venture. If it were easy to have a successful business everyone would have done it already.

Some people have a brilliant idea and those people should start a business. Some people have a great passion to own their own business and they should probably do it. Some have the wealth so that if they lose their investment they can easily continue with their lives. These folks can do it if they have sufficient interest. But even when you tally up the numbers of people in these three categories, you still end up with a small minority.

There are many pitfalls in the way of business success. According to Patricia Schaefer, starting a business just to make money is one of the top wrong reasons to start a businesses. Schaefer sees the singular-focus on getting rich as one of the leading reasons businesses fail.

Starting a business is like becoming a professional athlete or a skilled musician. It’s not for everybody. Some people—a small number—have what is necessary and most people don’t.

A better solution for most people is to find the best job they can, save and invest wisely. People should also support government policies that lead to a broadly shared prosperity. There are investments that the government can make to improve people’s job and educational opportunities. There are investments that would make America a stronger country economically. These policies are as important as any personal action one can take.

There is somewhat of a compromise position. Michael E. Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited, points to franchising as an easier path to business success. How does a small-businessperson compete with gigantic businesses like McDonalds, Toyota and Starbucks? She doesn’t have to. She can open a McDonalds or a Toyota dealership or a Starbucks. Now, this path is not easy either, but it can be easier than starting from scratch.

Entrepreneurship for the right people is a great idea. For the wrong people, it can lead to disaster. In many ways homeownership is different from entrepreneurship. Homeownership, for one, is a policy for a wide range of people; entrepreneurship is not. But even a wise general policy like homeownership, when engaged under the wrong terms, can lead to disaster. See what the subprime housing crisis is costing black America. If we can’t tell every black person to go out and purchase a home, we have to realize that we also cannot tell the masses of black people to go out and start a business.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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“Smart on Crime” Options

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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[On the Need for Comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform.]
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Have you ever missed an appointment? Maybe you forgot; maybe you overslept; maybe you were stuck in traffic; maybe there was an emergency of some sort? Well, if you were on parole, missing an appointment with a parole officer could lead you back to prison.

Does this make sense?

Should people be incarcerated for the “crime” of missing an appointment? Should we be paying $25,000 or more a year in prison costs on people who missed appointments? Should we be building new prisons to accommodate inmates who missed appointments? Is this a wise use of our tax dollars?

My presentation here is likely too simplistic, but it does point to a real issue in our dysfunctional criminal justice system. Many people released from prison are re-incarcerated for technical violations which include missing an appointment.

One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008, a report from the Pew Center on the States, observes:

While some violators are re-incarcerated for new crimes, a significant number wind up back in prison for so-called “technical” violations—transgressions such as a failed drug test or missed appointment with a supervisory agent. California locks up massive numbers of violators, scrambling to accommodate them in a sprawling, 171,444-inmate system so crowded that a three-judge panel may order a population reduction. A 2005 study showed that more than two-thirds of parolees in the Golden State were returned to prison within three years of release; of those, 39 percent were due to technical violations. (p. 18)

There are alternatives to re-incarceration for technical violations.

These include a mix of day reporting centers, electronic monitoring systems, and community service. This strategy makes offenders pay for their missteps but keeps prison beds free for more violent and chronic lawbreakers. And, it makes it more likely the violators will be able to pay victim restitution, child support and taxes. (p. 19)

These alternatives are more proportionate to the offense, and they are a lot less costly to society as a whole and to the ex-offender. Most states, however, do not take this sensible route, but instead rely on re-incarceration.

Much of the attention One in 100 received focused on America’s incredibly high incarceration rate. But the report also contained several “smart on crime” recommendations for making our criminal justice system more effective, less expensive and more humane. The report advocated the use of what I’m calling “smart sentencing,” “smart parole and probation,” and “smart release” policies.

“Smart” Sentencing and Diversion Policies

• Drug courts that break the cycle of crime and addiction with frequent drug tests, a continuum of treatment services and increasing penalties for violations.


• Targeted penalty changes that steer selected low-risk offenders to community corrections programs or modify mandatory minimums.


• Comprehensive sentencing guidelines that allow states to decide as a matter of policy which types of offenders should go to prison and which are appropriate for community corrections.

“Smart” Parole and Probation Policies

• Intermediate sanctions such as day reporting centers for offenders who break the rules of their release, to ensure that each violation receives a swift, certain and proportionate response.


• Short-term residential facilities for persistent rule violators with substance abuse problems.


• Performance incentives that shorten terms of supervision for offenders who comply with their conditions and fulfill obligations such as victim restitution and child support.

“Smart” Release Policies

• Risk reduction credits that allow slightly earlier release for inmates who complete treatment and education programs designed to reduce recidivism.


• Risk-based release instruments that use analysis of actual recidivism patterns to help releasing authorities decide who should remain behind bars and who is ready for release.


• Sufficient program availability in prisons and the community so release isn’t delayed because inmates cannot complete requirements.
(p. 20)

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The Real “Cultural Malignancy” in 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.

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[On the Need for Comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform.]
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Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen should be commended for his concern about the high incarceration rate of black men. But his understanding and diagnosis of the problem is off base. He repeats the mantras of the leading black public intellectuals and claims that “a kind of cultural malignancy has taken root in parts of the African American underclass.”

Let’s look at the actual violent crime data by race from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.


What one sees here is that violent crime in black America is way down from where it was in the 1970s and 1980s. If one were to presume a simple and direct relationship between bad cultural values and crime—I don’t, but the pundits do—then one should be arguing that black America has much better cultural values today than in past decades. Also, one should note that the black violent crime rate is lower now than the white violent crime rate was in the 1970s. Did anyone declare that a “cultural malignancy” had taken root in white America during the 1970s? For anyone bothering to look at the data, there is no basis on which to claim that a “cultural malignancy has taken root” in black America.

Where people routinely “get it wrong” is by presuming that the incarceration rate is a simple reflection of the crime rate—it isn’t. America’s so-called tough on crime policies and war on drugs have dramatically increased the incarceration rate. We saw above that there has been no huge upward trend in violent crime since the 1970s. Below we can see the overall violent crime and property crime trends. Both show declines since the 1970s.



Now, look at the incarceration rate trend below.


It just keeps going up. So, although the crime rate for black males has decreased, the incarceration rate keeps increasing. If there is a “cultural malignancy” in American society it is our criminal justice system which has an insatiable appetite for black bodies. When, when, when will our so-called leaders bother to actually look at the data and speak out about this? When!?!


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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Remembering the Poor People’s Campaign

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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[On the Need for Comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform.]
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When Martin Luther King Jr. died, he did not think that the civil rights struggle was over. He and his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was about to embark on a new, major phase of activism called the Poor People’s Campaign. During this time of year when we celebrate King’s birthday and think about black history, no one talks about the Poor People’s Campaign; but we should.

People forget the Poor People’s Campaign for a good reason. If King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was the highpoint of the civil rights movement, the Poor People’s Campaign was the low. The consensus is that the Campaign was largely a failure.

While there were many factors behind the Poor People’s Campaign’s lack of success, an important one was that the Campaign was simply way ahead of its time. The Campaign was based on the insight by SCLC that blacks could not be full, equal participants in American society while burdened by high rates of poverty. SCLC when further and argued that no Americans—of any race—could realize their full potential while living in poverty. The Campaign was committed to all poor people and to multiculturalism decades before “multiculturalism” entered the popular lexicon.

Poor whites involved in the Campaign issued demands for “adequate medical and dental care for all Americans.” Forty years later, our elected officials are finally realizing that this is a good and feasible idea. We haven’t realized these demands yet, but at least we are talking about it seriously.

The number one goal of the Poor People’s Campaign was full employment. In a full-employment economy everyone who wants a job has one. For anyone concerned about reducing black poverty, full employment is a silver bullet. From 1959 to 1970, the black poverty rate declined from 55 percent to 33 percent. Over the 1970s and 1980s, there were no sustained reductions in black poverty. Between 1990 and 2000, the black poverty rate declined from 32 percent to 23 percent.

Why did we see big declines in black poverty over the 1960s and 1990s, but not over the 1970s and 1980s? The answer is full employment. When the nation is at full employment many poor blacks are able to find jobs and obtain wages that allow them to lift themselves out of poverty. Employers who might usually prefer not to hire blacks are so in need of workers that they put aside their prejudices to keep their businesses thriving. Nothing in American history has been as effective at reducing black poverty as full employment. Nothing.

Full employment is probably even more effective at reducing black poverty than the statistics above convey. The unemployment rate for blacks is typically more than twice that of whites, so when all whites have jobs, many blacks are still looking for work. If America ever achieves full employment for blacks, the black poverty rate would drop dramatically. The black-white poverty gap would also be substantially reduced.

In making a demand for “a meaningful job at a living wage for every employable citizen,” the SCLC showed that it understood the fundamental facts of poverty: people without work or who work at poverty wages are poor.

As we face the likelihood of the second recession of the decade and the likelihood of increased black poverty, we need to remember SCLC’s poverty fundamentals: full employment at good wages fights poverty. Our elected officials have to power to tell the Federal Reserve to make full employment a national goal. But as SCLC knew, only a movement of the people can make sure that our elected officials do so.

Reference
Robert T. Chase, “Class Resurrection: The Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 and Resurrection City,” Essays in History 40, 1998.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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Downward Mobility among the Black Middle Class?

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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[On the Need for Comprehensive Criminal Justice Reform.]
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“High numbers of black children have fallen from the middle to the bottom of the income distribution,” concludes a study by Julia B. Isaacs done for the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project. This is quite a startling finding.

In absolute terms, the black real median family income has increased since the 1970s. This increase has been driven largely by increases in the percent of black women working and by increases in women’s earnings. This picture is basically the same for blacks and whites.

When one examines where children from different class backgrounds end up then the story for blacks and whites is remarkably different. If one looks at the children of white families that were in the middle fifth of the U.S. income distribution 40 years ago, 68 percent of those white children now have a real family income higher than their parents. For blacks, only 31 percent have a higher family income. In other words, a majority of the children of the black middle class are doing worse economically than their parents, but a majority of the children of the white middle class are doing better.

“A startling 45 percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle income end up falling to the bottom income quintile, while only 16 percent of white children born to parents in the middle make this descent,” Isaacs reports.

Although blacks who grew up in the poorest fifth were most likely to end up in the poorest fifth as adults, among blacks it was the poorest group that showed the greatest improvement relative to their parents. Seventy-three percent of them earned more than their parents.

Are These Findings Correct?
There aren’t many longitudinal studies with which to examine these issues. But Isaacs reports that another dataset has similar findings. Thus, this downward mobility finding appears to be true, but it would be nice to have other datasets to examine.

No one has a very good explanation of what could be going on here. Black families who were in the middle fifth of the U.S. income distribution in the late 1960s were likely quite well-off for blacks in the pre-Civil Rights era. Note these families are not in the middle fifth of the black income distribution, but the middle fifth for all U.S. families. If these families became so wealthy during Jim Crow then maybe the end of Jim Crow led then to experience rapid downward mobility. This is admittedly a wild guess.

Anyone with knowledge of a family with parents who were fairly wealthy in the late 1960s whose children ended up relatively poor, please e-mail me that story at contact@thorainstitute.com. What happened? What were the occupations of the parents and children? This is a real mystery.

If the finding of the downward mobility of the black middle class is correct then it seems that the American economy exerts a strong downward pressure on black family income. The downward pressure seems to increase as black incomes increase so that the children of the black middle class have less upward mobility that the children of the black poor.

This research is yet another piece of evidence that the pundits who have been beating up on the black poor are getting it very wrong. The poor from the 1960s were upwardly mobile to a fair degree. It is the black middle class of the 1960s who did not perform up to expectations.


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Who Supports Racial Integration?

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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[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
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Blacks still show the strongest support for a racially integrated America. Whites and Hispanics are much more ambivalent about integration. Sixty-two percent of blacks would like to see more residential integration according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Fifty percent of Hispanics and 40 percent of whites felt the same.

When asked whether it is more important “to have students go to racially mixed schools even if many of the students don't live nearby, or to have students go to local community schools even if it means most students are of the same race” blacks again show the strongest commitment to racial integration. Fifty-six percent of blacks chose racially integrated schools. Forty-four percent and 23 percent of Hispanics and whites respectively felt the same.

Sixty-five percent of whites favored local schools. The choice by whites for local schools and predominantly-white schools appear to be a big factor in why America’s schools and neighborhoods remain highly segregated. Until whites develop a strong commitment to integrated schools, we will likely continue to see high rate of neighborhood segregation.

Libertarianism and Segregation
Data from the General Social Survey suggests that libertarian values could provide support for segregationist policies. Respondents were asked to choose between two laws:

• A. One law says that a homeowner can decide for himself whom to sell his house to, even if he prefers not to sell to African- Americans; and
• B. The second law says that a homeowner cannot refuse to sell to someone because of their race or color.

The first law received a surprising amount of support.

After pooling data from 1994, 1996 and 2004 to increase the sample size, one finds that 34.6 percent of whites felt that an owner should be able to discriminate against black homebuyers. 19.2 percent of blacks felt the same. However, only 15.5 percent of whites (1994 and 1996 data) agreed that “White people have a right to keep African-Americans out of their neighborhoods if they want to, and African-Americans should respect that right.” So, segregationist policies may receive more support when they are couched in libertarian language.

Most Americans generically support integration. For many whites this support does not appear to be very strong. Support for integration declines when it is put up against libertarian values or local schools. Black Americans continue to be more strongly committed to integration. But integration, like the tango, takes two, and only one group seems to really want to dance.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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What Future for Black Racial Identity?

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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The Pew Research Center report Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class raised many issues but did little to get to the root of them. One of the most intriguing was the finding that 37 percent of blacks say that blacks cannot be thought of as a single race because of the diversity of population. This finding could cut against many common and long-held assumptions about race and collective identity among blacks. The question raises many possible startling interpretations, but ultimately the wording is too ambiguous to be certain what the respondents who agreed were agreeing to.

I argue in Achieving Blackness that people define race in a variety of ways including culturally. Slaveholders in the eighteenth century knew about race, but nothing about DNA. Culture was an important part of their understanding of racial difference. The “Asiatic” racial category used by the Nation of Islam is a good example of an early twentieth century cultural definition. Cultural definitions of race were more common in earlier historical periods, but they have never gone out of existence.

When blacks agree that “Blacks today can no longer be thought of as a single race because the black community is so diverse” it is not completely clear what they are endorsing. If we knew what their definition of race is and what they meant by “diverse,” this response would be much more meaningful. If blacks are agreeing because they are seeing more Northeast African immigrants, who can often be distinguished by physical appearance from multigenerational black Americans, that would be a distinction within a biological conception of race. If the diversity referred to a perceived values diversity among multigenerational black Americans then that would be a cultural definition of race.

If we assume that the distinction is based on cultural values then that would suggest a weakening of the sense of collective identity and linked fate among blacks. Collective identity and linked fate have historically been strong among blacks.

On related but different issue, Juan Williams accused blacks of engaging in “self-defeating black politics” because, in November last year, they supported Hillary Clinton more than Barack Obama. I am still trying to figure out how supporting a white woman is “self-defeating black politics,” but I guess this made sense to somebody. Now black voters are overwhelmingly in support of Obama.

Will Williams declare that the era of “self-defeating black politics” is over because blacks are voting for a black man? We'll see?

Blacks’ support for Obama is likely due in part—in part—to feelings of collective identity and a sense of linked fate. If this is the case then, again, we need more information to understand what is going on with black collective identity. Is it weakening generally or are blacks just distancing themselves from blacks who they see as having bad values. Is blacks' collective racial identity becoming more selective or just weaker? Further research is necessary.

On another related but different issue, the media needs to stop trying to foster black-Hispanic conflict. As I mentioned above, just a few months ago most blacks were for Hillary Clinton. If large numbers of Hispanics are for Clinton, it is mainly because they like Clinton. These folks in the media see race everywhere except when the issue of institutional racial discrimination is raised. Then we are told we live in a color-blind society, and that we need to give up our “self-defeating black politics.”


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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What Public Opinion Is and Isn’t

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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A few years ago, I overheard a man telling his friend that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the planning of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. This idea has been discredited, but how did this man come to this conclusion? None of the terrorists involved in executing the attack were from Iraq? This idea is counterintuitive to the facts of the attack. Many Americans believed this to be true because government officials stated or insinuated that Hussein planned 9/11. The point here is that authoritative figures who have easy access to the media can shape public opinion.

Last year, the Pew Research Center released a report showing increased pessimism among blacks and increased negative views among blacks toward the black poor. Many of the pundits have assumed that the negative views of the black poor and the pessimism about black America validate their claims of a cultural crisis, but they fail to consider that the black public may be simply repeating ideas that black pundits have been spreading for more than a decade. There is a little bit of evidence in the Pew Survey suggesting that this might be the case.

When asked a factual question about black America, most blacks answered incorrectly. The survey asked respondents if the living standards of blacks were worse or better off relative to whites today compared with ten years ago. By median income, blacks are about at about the same level that they were ten years ago. The correct answer therefore is no change but only 9 percent of blacks said no change.

This is a difficult question for anyone to answer correctly without looking at Census data. How would one know the median income of millions of Americans? It is therefore incorrect for the pundits to treat these responses as facts about the state of black America. They are public opinion. Opinion and facts are different animals.

About 40 percent of blacks believed that blacks were worse off relative to whites, about forty percent believed that blacks were better off. Whites and Hispanics were about equally likely to answer this question incorrectly, but blacks were the most likely to say that blacks were worse off.

Why are blacks most pessimistic about black America? If blacks paid more attention to the cultural crisis claims about blacks that have been circulating for more than a decade then one would expect blacks to be more pessimistic than other groups. Blacks’ responses on the survey seem to support this view.

There are other possibilities. Over the 1990s, rap music became more violent and more obsessed with alcohol and marijuana. Black America experienced less violence over the 1990s and black youth have relatively low rates of substance abuse, but if people fail to appreciate that rap music and videos are fictional then they might see blacks as declining culturally. This view could lead to increased pessimism.

The year 2000 was the heyday for black incomes. The black median income reached its highest point relative to whites and the black poverty rate reached its lowest point on record. The fact that things have been getting worse relative to 2000 could lead to pessimism.

All of these things could be occurring simultaneously. Or other factors may be the real causes. I will be exploring some other factors in my presentation “Understanding the Strange Class War in Black America” at the How Class Works 2008 conference later this year. After the conference, I will report some of my findings here. I encourage other researchers to try to understand the “strange class war in black America” too.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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George Bush vs. Juan Williams on Black Students

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
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[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
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[The public opinion piece was pre-empted by the State of the Union.]

Five years ago, we rose above partisan differences to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, preserving local control, raising standards, and holding those schools accountable for results. And because we acted, students are performing better in reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap. -President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address 2007

Six years ago, we came together to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, and today no one can deny its results. Last year, fourth and eighth graders achieved the highest math scores on record. Reading scores are on the rise. African American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs. -President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address 2008

Getting It Wrong debunks many popular myths about the state of black America. One myth is that black students do not value education. The fact of the matter is that black students’ standardized test scores have increased since the 1970s, and, as President George Bush noted in last night’s State of the Union address, black fourth and eighth graders posted impressive increases in standardized test scores recently. (See math trends.)

I have discussed the fact that black students are earning larger shares of all college degrees. The evidence that black students value education and are improving on all measures is overwhelming.

The only people who do not seem to know about black students’ improvements are the leading black public intellectuals. Here is a quote from Juan Williams’ Enough:

. . . it is such a shock, a century later, to find Bill Cosby talking to black people, not whites, when he put the challenge on the table: “What the hell good is Brown if nobody wants it?”
There is no doubt that he is talking about black children who don’t go to school or drop out of school; he is talking about a culture that openly demeans any black student who achieves academic excellence as inauthentic and acting white; he is talking about black parents who accept excuses instead of demanding top grades from their children. (p. 89)

Cosby and Williams get it very wrong here.

First of all, Cosby assumes that we have achieved the goals of Brown. We haven’t. America’s schools are still separate and unequal. They have been becoming more segregated since the 1990s. Cosby wasted a great opportunity to point this out. Instead, he used his speech on the anniversary of Brown to beat up on black students and the black poor. As they say, with friends like these who needs enemies?

Williams’ book was supposed to be the factual basis for Cosby’s Brown anniversary tirade. But Williams too did not spend nearly enough time trying to understand the facts. He mainly repeats popular misinformation. George Bush knows more about black students than he does. To paraphrase, Cosby, come on Williams!, you can do better than that.

Bush is right about black student achievement but he is wrong about No Child Left Behind. Black student achievement improved more rapidly before NCLB than after it. We will have to see if the next round of National Assessment of Educational Progress tests changes the picture at all.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2008 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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What a Recession Means for Blacks

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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In addition to being the Director of the Thora Institute LLC, Algernon Austin is now the Director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy of the Economic Policy Institute. A post on black public opinion is coming soon. In the meantime, please read Austin's EPI work "What a Recession Means for Blacks."

More on the Rich Getting Richer

[The article publishing schedule has been disrupted by the move to Washington D.C. New articles will continue to be posted but on an irregular schedule in January. By February, the regular schedule will return.]

David Cay Johnston on How the Rich Get Richer

Economic Inequality: Still Growing

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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Updated CBO data reveal unprecedented increase in inequality
by Jared Bernstein

"The increase in income inequality (both pre- and post-tax) as measured by the change in the shares of income going to different income classes, was greater from 2003 to 2005 than over any other two-year period covered by the CBO data. Over these years, an amazing $400 billion in pre-tax dollars was shifted from the bottom 95% of households to those in the top 5% (all income data in this report are inflation adjusted and in 2005 dollars)."

A Sick System

The Thora Institute is in the process of moving to D.C.

New Address: 1380 E. Capitol Street NE, Washington D.C., 20003.

Please direct all paper correspondence, purchase requests, etc. to this address.

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[A Draft of an op-ed submitted to the New Haven Register.]

Prenatal health care is declining in Connecticut. According to data from the Department of Public Health, the percent of white mothers who failed to receive adequate prenatal care increased from 10 percent to 16 percent between 2000 and 2004 (the date of the most recent data available). The situation was worse for blacks. More than a quarter of black mothers failed to receive adequate prenatal care in 2004, up 8 percentage points from 2000. Hispanic mothers were in a somewhat similar condition to black mothers. More than a quarter of Latina mothers did not receive adequate prenatal care in 2004, up 5 percentage points from 2000.

I take the decline in prenatal care in Connecticut as yet another sign that our health care system is not well. A number of recent reports illustrate this fact. I was alerted to the decline in adequate prenatal care by the Connecticut NAACP’s “A Health Status Report on African Americans in Connecticut” issued this year.

The NAACP report also examined the growing cost of preventable hospitalizations. People without routine medical care tend to end up being rushed by ambulance to emergency rooms when their health care needs are critical. In many cases, these hospitalizations could have been prevented had the patient received routine health care.

In 2000, the cost of preventable hospitalizations was $611 million. By 2004, it had increased 46 percent to $893 million. It is estimated that it will exceed $1.1 billion in 2008. Again, our health care system is not well.

The national picture is quite similar. Large numbers of Americans are unable to obtain needed health care because of the cost. A survey conducted this year by the Rockefeller Foundation found that 17 percent of whites, 20 percent of blacks and 26 percent of Hispanics were unable to see a doctor because of the cost. Eight percent of whites and blacks and 13 percent of Hispanics were unable to take a child to the doctor because of the cost. Twenty percent of all Americans have had to dip into their savings or retirement accounts to pay for medical expenses. Unless our health care system receives a complete overhaul, it seems likely that these numbers will increase.

Many people with health insurance are filled with health care worries. About 40 percent of Americans with health care are worried that they will lose coverage in the near future. The number jumps to almost 60 percent for Hispanics. About half of all people with health care are worried that they might not be able to afford a major hospital stay. Again, for Latinos with health care, it is nearly 60 percent.

What are our options for dealing with an ailing health care system? It seems that if we were to adopt the health care system of just about any other Western developed nation, we would be better off. A recent report by the Commonwealth Fund compares the health care system of the United States with that of Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The U.S. had the lowest overall ranking.

Although the U.S. ranked last, it actually has the highest health care spending per capita. The United Kingdom achieved its top spot by spending less than half of what we do per capita.

Of course, the U.S. will not adopt the health care policy of any other country whole cloth; and we should not. But I have problems with any politician who acts as if there are not important lessons that the U.S. can learn from countries like the United Kingdom that have provided quality health care to all of its citizens at a relatively low cost. Any politician who cavalierly dismisses the practices of Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom as “socialized medicine” simply cannot be thinking about the millions of Americans without health care or even those with health care who are worried that they will not be able to afford it next year.

Not many issues in politics are life and death issues. This one is. Do we have politicians capable enough to take on the challenge of substantive health care reform? Let’s hope so.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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A Small Step Forward in Criminal Justice Reform

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
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United States Sentencing Commission Approves Crack Reform for Federal Prisoners

The day after the Supreme Court affirmed a judge's decision to sentence below the guideline range based on the unfairness of the crack cocaine sentencing disparity, the United States Sentencing Commission today voted to make retroactive its recent guideline amendment on crack cocaine offenses. The USSC's decision, effective March 3, now makes an estimated 19,500 persons in prison eligible for a sentence reduction averaging more than two years. Releases are subject to judicial review and will be staggered over 30 years.

The Sentencing Project applauds the USSC for responding at this heightened time of public awareness about excessive penalties and disparate treatment within the justice system.

"The Commission's decision marks an important moment not only for the 19,500 people retroactivity will impact, but for the justice system as a whole," stated Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. "Today's action, combined with the Court's decision yesterday, restores a measure of rationality to federal sentencing while also addressing the unconscionable racial disparities that the war on drugs has produced."

The Sentencing Project estimates that once the sentencing change is fully implemented, there will be a reduction of up to $1 billion in prison costs. Because African Americans comprise more than 80% of those incarcerated for crack cocaine offenses, the sentencing reform will also help reduce racial disparity in federal prisons.
--Statement by the The Sentencing Project

Now we just have to make certain that there are legal jobs available for these ex-offenders. Politicians find money for wars and prisons, but they never seem to have the money for job-creation in poor black communities.

Just One Small Step, Many Bigger Ones are Needed

Excerpts from Adam Liptak, "Whittling Away, but Leaving a Gap," New York Times, December 17, 2007

The United States justice system remains, by international standards at least, exceptionally punitive. And nothing that happened last week will change that.

Unless Congress acts, many thousands of defendants will continue to face vastly different sentences for possessing and selling different types of the same thing.

Paul G. Cassell, an authority on sentencing who was until recently a federal trial judge, said the focus on the sentencing guidelines was in some ways a distraction.

"The mandatory minimums are so draconian," he said. "I'm a believer in a good guidelines system. And I would much rather trade a much tougher guidelines system and get rid of mandatory minimums."

The mandatory minimum sentence for crimes involving five grams of crack--a little more than a sugar packet--remains five years. For powder, the five-year mandatory sentence does not kick in until 500 grams, or more than a pound.

Fifty grams of crack equals a guaranteed 10 years. It takes five kilograms of powder to mandate the same sentence. Five kilos is a lot of cocaine.

Mere possession of a relatively small quantity of crack means a five-year sentence. Possessing five grams of powder cocaine usually results in probation, said Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group.

Indeed, the maximum sentence for simple possession of any drug but crack, including powder cocaine and heroin, is one year.

Eighty-five percent of people convicted of crack offenses are black.

In summary, the drug most associated with blacks receives the harshest punishment. Somebody ask Juan Williams why is that.

From Black Directions vol. 2, no. 5

Comparing Constructive and Destructive Crime Prevention
High-Quality Pre-Kindergarten vs. Incarceration

On all measures, high-quality pre-kindergarten is a better crime prevention policy than incarceration. Civil rights activists must force elected officials to support constructive crime prevention.

[click on image below for a better view]See “What’s Wrong with Incarceration” in this issue of Black Directions for a discussion of these points.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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Tough Questions for the Black-Cultural-Crisis Pundits

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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[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
________________________________________________________________________

[Below is a statement submitted to Blacknews.com.]

Pundits have been claiming that black America is in a cultural crisis for decades. As the evidence for these claims weakens, the volume has risen. Instead of correcting the pundits’ factual errors and challenging their flawed reasoning, the media have handed the pundits the microphone and stepped out of the way. Below are just five of the questions journalists have failed to ask.

1. A Poverty Question for Mr. Pundit
Census Bureau data indicates that the strong economy of the 1990s led to a nearly 30 percent decline in the black poverty rate. This decline was the biggest since the 1960s. Some see this as evidence that when blacks have the opportunity to leave poverty, they take it. Why, immediately after this historic decline in black poverty, have you been claiming that bad values prevent black poverty from declining?

2. A Crime Question for Mr. Pundit
The Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that the violent crime rate for blacks declined by 67 percent between 1994 and 2004. During the 1960s, violent crime increased. Why do you claim that blacks today have bad values relative to the 1960s when in the 1960s there was a large increase in violent crime and recently there has been a large decline?

3. An Education Question for Mr. Pundit
Several surveys show that black students value education as least as much as white students do. One can look at the National Education Longitudinal Study, the education questions in the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation, and Public Agenda’s Reality Check 2006 survey to name a few. The long-term trends tests of the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that black standardized test scores have increased significantly since the 1970s. The Digest of Education statistics shows that the number of blacks receiving bachelor’s degrees have increased by more than 50 percent since 1995.

In spite of (1) attitudinal surveys, (2) test-score trends, and (3) college completion trends showing that black students do value education, you and other pundits continue to condemn black students. What specifically do you see as the flaws in each of the three types of research showing that black students do, in fact, value education?

4. Another Education Question for Mr. Pundit
Current educational research points to a combination of socioeconomic disadvantage and inferior quality education as being responsible for the black-white test-score gap. Regardless of race, students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to do worse in school than students of higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Blacks on average are of lower socioeconomic status than whites.

Black students face the additional disadvantage of attending schools of lower quality than white students. Educational researchers have recently been documenting the lower teacher quality in black schools relative to white schools, for example.

What specifically do you see as the flaws in the research showing that socioeconomic disadvantage and inferior schooling are primarily responsible for the test-score gap?

5. A Rap Question for Mr. Pundit
The majority of rap consumers are not black. Rap scholars state that gangsta rap receives most of its support from young white men. Do you think that gangsta rap reveals the values of the current generation of young white men? Do you think gangsta rap reveals the values of the current generation of young black men?

These are just a small sample of the questions the black-cultural-crisis pundits are not being asked. Is there any journalist out there willing to do the research and fact checking to ask the tough questions?


Sociologist Algernon Austin Offers His Assistance

“In less than 15 minutes, I can show any journalist that the black-cultural-crisis claims are false,” states Dr. Algernon Austin author of “Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals Are Failing Black America.” “I am willing to spend a few minutes with any journalist interested in learning the truth about black America, to the extent that my schedule allows,” he adds. Dr. Austin states that a few minutes examining mainly U.S. government data websites will show that the cultural crisis claims are based on faulty assumptions, bad data analysis and racial stereotypes. Dr. Austin can be reached by e-mail via contact@thorainstitute.com.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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Almost a Social Panacea: High-Quality Pre-K

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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[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
________________________________________________________________________

Although high-achieving lower-income schoolchildren can be counted in the millions, there should be many more. Specifically, we find that only 28 percent of top-quartile achievers in first grade come from families in America’s lower economic half, while 72 percent come from the top economic half. This finding suggests that disparities at the high end of achievement begin before children enter elementary school, a conclusion consistent with an emerging body of research on the effects that inferior early-childhood education has on school readiness of lower-income children.

Evidence suggests that lower-income children have inadequate access to the high-quality preschool programs that can significantly increase academic ability, cognitive development, social adjustment, and professional achievement.

Joshus S. Wyner, John M. Bridgeland and John J. DiIulio, Jr., Achievement Trap: How America is Failing Millions of High-Achieving Students from Lower-Income Families, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, 2007.

Barnett and Belfield point out that preschool programs raise academic skills on average, but do not appear to have notably different effects for different groups of children, and so do not strongly enhance social mobility. In such areas as crime, welfare, and teen parenting, however, preschool seems more able to break links between parental behaviors and child outcomes.

Increased investment in preschool, conclude Barnett and Belfield, could raise social mobility. Program expansions targeted to disadvantaged children would help them move up the ladder, as would a more universal set of policies from which disadvantaged children gained disproportionately. Increasing the educational effectiveness of early childhood programs would provide for greater gains in social mobility than increasing participation rates alone.

Summary, W. Steven Barnett and Clive R. Belfield, “Early Childhood Development and Social Mobility,” The Future of Children, vol. 16, no. 2, Fall 2006, pp. 73-98.


High-quality pre-kindergarten is the closest thing to a social panacea there is. Not only does it lead to high educational outcomes, it reduces the likelihood of criminal behavior, teen pregnancy and increases the likelihood of college graduation. It does not, however, end anti-black discrimination in the labor market and elsewhere. We need social activism for that problem.

Head Start should not be confused with high-quality pre-kindergarten. Head Start is not high-quality. It is low quality. The Department of Health and Human Services which administers Head Start has admitted as much. The good news is that our elected officials have done the right thing and are increasing the teacher qualifications for Head Start.

Past research has shown that while Head Start is not high quality pre-kindergarten, the Head Start that black students receive is of particularly low quality. In the article cited above, Barnett and Belfield, show that black students receive fewer educational gains from Head Start than do white students (p. 84).

This issue with Head Start is really just a special case of the larger issue of teacher quality. Black students at all levels attend schools with lower teacher quality than white students. People concerned about black America need to continue to push to see that the quality of black education improves from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

In the 1950s and 1960s, black leaders targeted the inferior education that black students receive as a major civil rights issue. Current research still identifies blacks as receiving inferior education and still points to this inferior education as a major factor in black students’ lower educational outcomes. The current generation of black leaders, however, rather than condemn the fact that blacks still receive an inferior education increasingly spend their time condemning black students based on false racial stereotypes.

It’s time for some new black leaders.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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Is Rap Music Dying?

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
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N.W.A's first album, N.W.A. and the Posse, was a party-oriented jam record that largely went ignored upon its 1987 release. . . . Late in 1988, N.W.A delivered Straight Outta Compton, a vicious hardcore record that became an underground hit with virtually no support from radio, the press, or MTV. N.W.A became notorious for their hardcore lyrics . . .

. . . Efil4zaggin was teeming with dense, funky soundscapes and ridiculously violent and misogynist lyrics. Naturally, the lyrics provoked outrage from many critics and conservative watchdogs, but that only increased the group's predominately male, white suburban audience.

(From "N.W.A." by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com)

According to Neil Strauss (The Vibe History of Hip Hop, p. 258), Dr. Dre of N.W.A. made a brilliant marketing move early in the history of the group. Dre decided that N.W.A. could not compete with the political rap of Public Enemy and other groups. Rather than attempt to be a lesser version of Public Enemy, N.W.A. decided to become the anti-Public Enemy. This strategic move to gangsta rap brought tremendous success to N.W.A. and its individual members.

Gangsta rap appeals to America’s appetite for sex and violence. It is probably also effective because it plays on longstanding stereotypes of blacks as hyper-sexual, violent and criminal. From a business perspective, gangsta-ism is a masterful marketing strategy.

Sexism can be profitable too. As Russell Simmons stated in Essence ("What They're Saying"), “We live in a very sexist society. Popular culture exaggerates everything, including this kind of sexism, for profit. That’s the nature of capitalist society and entertainment.”

Whether gangsta-ism and other characteristics of rap are good for black people generally or for American society as a whole is another question. Americans are increasingly saying that rap is not a good thing. Whether this will change the character of rap or affect the amount of rap Americans purchase is yet another question.

As early as 1993, in the National Black Politics Study, a majority of blacks agreed that “rap music is a destructive force in the black community.” More recently, the Black Youth Project Survey found that a majority of black, white and Hispanic youth think that there is too much sex and violence in rap.

Another recent survey on black attitudes by the Pew Research Center, also shows strong disapproval of rap. A majority of whites and blacks agree that “rap is having a bad influence” on society. These findings will likely provide encouragement to the prominent critics of rap.

The fact that so many blacks are critical of rap shows that we cannot jump to the conclusion that rap represents black values. The relationship of the music to the values of the people making is also more complicated than some critics will admit. For example, one record executive states (in "What They're Saying"), “I have a 7-year-old daughter, and she can’t listen to my music. She can’t listen to it in the car, not in the room, and she can’t watch videos.”

Last year, rap sales declined sharply. Will this trend continue? Will rap change? Only time will tell.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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Whites & Rap Remix

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
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[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
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Black Directions v2n6 reviews the social-scientific literature on the effect of rap music on white racial attitudes. Additionally, the Thora Institute conducts its own statistical analysis of white rap fans. Below are some quotable quotes I came across doing some of the background reading for the issue.

SAMPLES REMIX
WHITES/RAP/WHITES’ RAP/WHITES & RAP

“today’s acceptance of hip-hop as mainstream popular culture has radically altered the racial landscape. And in that nebulous space where hip-hop and popular culture meet, we see specific shifts in the ways Americans are processing race. These shifts help explain the dawning of a new reality of race in America.”1

Chris, 21, white rap fan in Denver: “I think everyone should just be equal, but the blacks are trying to be better than everyone else. They don’t have it bad in this country. They just say gimme gimme gimme.”
William Upski Wimsatt: “Chris isn’t unusual. Many white rap fans feel this way.”2

“But the white audience doesn’t just consume rap, it shapes rap also. Rappers and record labels aren’t stupid. They know who’s listening and the music gets tailored to the audience.”3

“The white rap audience is as diverse as the music itself. . . . They want to experience blackness, dramatic and direct . . . but not too direct, thank you very much.”4

“it’s often indistinguishable where hip-hop ends and prison and/or street culture begins. Parents, regardless of race, should be concerned about the various messages transmitted to youth under the rubric of hip-hop.
“However, white youth are not simply consuming pop culture messages wholesale, anymore than Black kids are.”5

“most White hip-hop activists see a radical analysis of race at the forefront of their engagement with other social and political issues. Such an analysis is paramount in what distinguishes them as white hip-hop activists, as opposed to liberal, conservatives and to a lesser extent progressives.”6

“The real test of white kids and hip-hop is what happens with police brutality when the white officers policing Black and Latino communities are those same young whites who grew up on hip hop.”7

“Hip-hop lifestyling offered, to use an advertising term, a complicated kind of aspirational quality. . . .
“. . . selling white youth on their fetishization of black style, and black youth on their fetishization of white wealth.”8

“The business of hip-hop isn’t vastly different from any other corporate American industry. While the artistic and creative sides of hip-hop remain largely dominated by Blacks, the business side of the industry is firmly in the hands of white American men.”9


Credits
1. Bakari Kitwana, Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005), xvi.
2. William Upski Wimsatt, Bomb the Suburbs (NY: Soft Skull Press, 2001), 25.
3. Ibid., 23.
4. Ibid.
5. Kitwana, Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, 3.
6. Ibid., 172.
7. Quoted in Kitwana, Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, 3-4.
8. Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2005), 425.
9. Kitwana, Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, 46.

Black Directions v2n6: Will White Rap Fans Help or Hurt Black America?

To order this issue send a check or money order for $9 made out to “Thora Institute LLC” to “White Rap Fans,” Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367.

To keep abreast of the latest high-quality social science research on black America, subscribe to the Black Directions newsletter. Send a check or money order for $36 (33% off) made out to “Thora Institute LLC” for a year’s Black Directions subscription (six issues) to Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367. Only Black Directions separates the myths from the facts about black America.

Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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[The Thora Institute needs you.]

Will White Rap Fans Help or Hurt 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
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[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
________________________________________________________________________

From Black Directions v2n6

Eighty percent of hip-hop consumers are white according to the Simmons Lathan Media Group. In the various debates about rap, too little attention has been paid to this majority-white consumer base. Are white rap fans a force for “achieving Martin Luther King’s dream” as Bakari Kitwana argues? Or are they merely fans of stereotypical images of blacks as Bill Yousman declares?

Rap has been a vehicle for serious commentary about racial inequality and American society. But the heyday of political rap was more than a decade ago. Further, researchers have found that references to alcohol, drugs and violence in rap have increased along with the growing popularity of rap music. Today, even Kitwana admits, one can find a parade of negative stereotypes of blacks on display in rap music. Much of the music, the critics charge, has become a modern-day minstrel show. Thus, one can ask, will white rap fans help or hurt black America? Do whites who love rap love black people or merely negative stereotypes of black people?

In addition to helping or hurting black America, there is, of course, a third alternative. Rap music may be just pop music and may not make much of a difference one way or another.

This issue of Black Directions reviews the social-scientific literature on the effect of rap music on white racial attitudes. Additionally, the Thora Institute conducts its own statistical analysis of white rap fans.

To order this issue send a check or money order for $9 made out to “Thora Institute LLC” to “White Rap Fans,” Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367.

To keep abreast of the latest high-quality social science research on black America, subscribe to the Black Directions newsletter. Send a check or money order for $36 (33% off) made out to “Thora Institute LLC” for a year’s Black Directions subscription (six issues) to Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367. Only Black Directions separates the myths from the facts about black America.

Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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[The Thora Institute needs you.]

The Number One Black Civil Rights Issue

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

[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
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Black Directions v2n5: Criminal Justice Reform

As important as it is to address racial disparities in sentencing, this issue is just the tip of the iceberg for criminal justice reform. We need a complete overall of the criminal justice system to undo the damage and waste caused by more than 30 years of tough-on-crime and war-on-drugs legislation. The harm of these failed policies has been born most heavily by blacks.

In 1970, the incarceration rate in the United States was about average for a developed, Western country. Today, it is about seven times the average. Are we seven times safer than we were in 1970? Not even close.

America has the toughest criminal justice policies and the highest incarceration rate in the West. Are we the safest country? Not at all.

Tough-on-crime policies are extremely expensive; weaken black communities economically, politically and socially; and do precious little to reduce crime. It is time for civil rights activists to insist that we engage in constructive crime prevention instead of continuing the destructive crime prevention of tough-on-crime and war-on-drugs policies.

High-quality pre-kindergarten education has been proven to reduce crime. It is more effective at crime prevention than incarceration, and it has none of incarceration’s negative effects. Providing jobs for poor black youth will reduce crime, and it too has none of the negative effects of incarceration. We need to invest in and develop more constructive crime prevention policies. Three decades of tough-on-crime and war-on-drugs policies have proven them to be harmful, inefficient and extremely expensive. The current issue of Black Directions begins the necessary discussion on fundamental criminal justice reform.

What’s in the current Black Directions

• Comparing Constructive and Destructive Crime Prevention


• The Three Biggest Myths about Blacks and Drugs


• Clifford Thornton’s Plan to Stop 90% of Drug-Related Violence


• The Flaws of Relying on Incarceration for Crime Prevention

To order this issue send a check or money order for $9 made out to “Thora Institute LLC” to “Criminal Justice Reform,” Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367.

To keep abreast of the latest high-quality social science research on black America, subscribe to the Black Directions newsletter. Send a check or money order for $36 (33% off) made out to “Thora Institute LLC” for a year’s Black Directions subscription (six issues) to Thora Institute LLC, P.O. Box 367, New Haven, CT 06513-0367. Only Black Directions separates the myths from the facts about black America.

Share this article with a friend. Use the email icon below.

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[The Thora Institute needs you.]