Thora Institute

8/20/2007

America’s Real Criminal Justice “Three Strikes”

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 "Acting White".]
________________________________________________________________________

A multiple murder by two ex-cons in Cheshire, Connecticut and an execution-style shooting of four black youngsters (one survived) in Newark, New Jersey have recently received a great deal of media attention. These very disturbing murders have led some to make renewed calls for the U.S. to again become even “tougher on crime.”

The murder of anyone is a tragedy. There is the horrible loss of life, and there is that painful, empty hole left in the lives of the friends and family of the deceased. We all can empathize with the feelings of despair of the loved ones left behind. Many of us also fear that we could easily have been the victim or that we might be the next victim.

The news media effectively stokes these emotions. The more unusual and the more gruesome a murder, the more likely it will be covered by the news media. If it is bad and shocking enough, the story will be repeated over and over again in the news. We receive the worst possible picture of crime from the daily news.

Although news reports do not encourage clear and big-picture thinking about criminal justice policies, it is important that we do just that. The policies which best satisfies us emotionally may not be the best policies for the long-term health of the society.

In Connecticut, for example, people are calling for new “tougher on crime” three-strikes policies, but these policies would not have prevented the Cheshire murders. These policies will certainly increase the incarceration rate, increase the cost of prisons, but it is doubtful that they will actually reduce the crime rate.

“Tough on crime” is a misnomer. America’s criminal justice policies are tough on criminals but actually easy on crime. This is a crucial distinction that we often fail to make. For example, earlier this year (May 11, 2007) the New York Times reported on a study published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine that indicated that “the practice of transferring children into adult courts was counterproductive, actually creating more crime than it cured.” We are being tough on criminals when we treat juveniles as adults, but we are also creating conditions for there to be more crime—not less. This is not the only “tough on crime” policy that actually helps to create more crime in the future.

The inaccuracy of the “tough on crime” phrase, from a politician’s perspective, is brilliant. It is relatively easy for politicians to increase the number of people in prison. It is far more difficult for them to reduce the crime rate. The “tough on crime” thinking of the past three decades has greatly reduced the pressure on politicians to find ways of actually reducing crime.

While “tough on crime” is good from the perspective of getting a politician elected, it is bad from all others. “Tough on crime” increases the numbers of people in prison, but it does not necessarily reduce the amount of crime. For many years of America’s thirty-plus-year “tough on crime” wave, we have seen both the incarceration rate increase and the crime rate increase. Only policies that have been proven to reduce the crime rate would actually make us safer.

It is expensive to care for a large and growing prison population as we have been doing for more than three decades. Reducing the crime rate would not only save tax dollars, it would likely generate tax dollars because more people would be productive citizens. The high cost of incarceration can also contribute to increasing crime by draining resources away from schools and other programs that could lower the crime rate.

The public needs to demand that politicians reduce the crime rate. Politicians regularly sidestep the issue by talking about policies that will only increase the incarceration rate. We need to force them to focus on the crime rate. We also have to remember that this is not easy to do. But we should not accept an increased incarceration rate as a substitute.

The sad fact is that everyday people kill people. This has been going on for all of human history. Nonetheless, some societies suffer from less violent crime than others. Americans need to be aware that the countries with the lowest violent crime rates are not the ones that are “toughest on criminals.” In fact, among western industrialized nations, the U.S. has (1) the most severe criminal penalties, (2) the most violent crime, and (3) the highest incarceration rate. This is the real “three strikes” of American criminal justice policy. The only way we will change this sorry state of affairs is by ending our “tough on criminals” mentality and by becoming “smart on crime.”

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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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8/13/2007

8/06/2007

Black Immigrants in Elite Colleges

Douglas S. Massey, Margarita Mooney, Kimberly C. Torres and Camille Z. Charles, “Black Immigrants and Black Natives Attending Selective Colleges and Universities in the United States,” American Journal of Education, February 2007, 243-271.

Upon reading my article about the increase in the number and share of blacks receiving college degrees someone responded that I must be talking about black immigrants, not native blacks. It is true that black immigrants are over-represented among blacks attending elite colleges. However, over-represented does not mean that they are a majority. And, furthermore, elite colleges are only a minority of all colleges. The statistics I presented in the “The Truth about Black Students” are for all black students in all colleges, not just black immigrants in elite colleges.

Massey et al. found that in 1999, first- and second-generation immigrants made up 13 percent of black 18-19 year olds, but they represented 27 percent of blacks in elite colleges. Immigrants are found among blacks in elite colleges at twice their rate in the general population, so they are overrepresented. But they are not yet the majority of blacks in elite colleges. The researchers found that more than 70 percent of blacks in selective colleges are “native” blacks.

While the elite college enrollment average for black immigrants is 27 percent of black students, there is variation by the selectivity of the school. Generally, the more elite the college is the higher the share of black immigrants is among the black students. The Massey et al. analysis found that the share is 41 percent for Ivy League institutions but 23 percent for selective public universities.

Massey et al. examined selective colleges. These institutions are elite because most college students do not attend them. My statistics were for the entire nation, not just for elite college attendees. I do not know what share black immigrants make up of all blacks earning degrees. Black immigrant over-representation declines the less elite the school among elite schools. If this relationship were to hold for non-elite schools then nationally immigrants would make up considerably less than 27 percent of black college graduates. Only when someone conducts the analysis on a national sample would we have a good estimate.

Why are black immigrants over-represented at elite colleges? Massey et al. do not provide any clear answers. The socioeconomic and academic profile of native and immigrant blacks in elite colleges are very similar. Once in school, both groups perform equally well or equally poorly. This means that both groups under-perform relative to whites.

There are two hypotheses that can be derived from the Massey et al. analysis about why black immigrants are over-represented. Black immigrants may simply be over-represented among the black students qualified for elite colleges. They may make up approximately 27 percent of qualified blacks and therefore make up 27 percent of blacks in elite colleges. Black immigrants are more likely to be middle class than black natives. Middle-class students tend to have higher achievement than poorer students. So, this might explain why black immigrants are over-represented among the qualified students.

One difference between black natives and immigrants is that black immigrants are more likely to have attended private high schools. Elite colleges probably do have some bias in favor of private high schools in their recruiting and admissions practices. This bias would lead to an over-representation of black immigrants. It is possible for both the qualifications and private school factors to be at play simultaneously.

Researchers need to explore these explanations for the over-representation of black immigrants in elite colleges. If a private-school bias is at work, elite schools should be aware of this and work to correct their recruiting and admission polices.

Rather than have this issue be another one to foment tension between black “natives” and black immigrants, both groups should recognize that they under-perform equally relative to whites. It would make most sense for everyone to work together to improve all black student achievement in elite schools.

Elite schools are important, but we should not ignore the majority of black college students in non-elite schools. I purposely wanted to highlight the growth of blacks attaining associate’s degrees because these students are mostly likely to represent poor and working-class blacks struggling to get ahead. Find out more about average blacks students in “The Truth about Black Students.”

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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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7/30/2007

Are Hispanics and White Private School Students Most Afraid of “Acting White”?

Or The Problems of Roland G. Fryer “Acting White” Study

[This is the third part of a second open letter to John McWhorter, author of Winning the Race.]

If one accepts the findings of the Roland G. Fryer “acting white” study then the group with the most intense fear of being perceived as “white” for having high academic achievement is Hispanics. Whites in private schools have the second strongest fear of “acting white.” Blacks would come in third with the mildest fear of “acting white.” I raise these points because I doubt that white private school students are afraid of “acting white.” The closer one examines the study, the more problems appear.

In 2005, Roland G. Fryer, Jr. and Paul Torelli circulated a paper titled “An Empircal Analysis of ‘Acting White’” through the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Fryer published a version of the paper for more general audiences titled “Acting White” in Education Next. The research received a great deal of media attention and it was treated as conclusive proof that the “acting white” phenomenon is a serious problem among black students. But if one reads the study carefully and especially the more academic version circulated by NBER one comes to very different conclusions.

The “acting white” phenomenon was defined in Fryer and Torelli’s study as when there are racial differences in the relationship between grades and “spectral popularity index scores.” It is important to note that the analysis is based on spectral popularity scores not actual accusations of “acting white.”

If we accept Fryer and Torelli’s assumptions and evidence then it appears that in majority black schools, black students cease to be as popular as white students after a B+ GPA. We can only dream of the day that most black students have B+ GPAs. This has to be seen as a very, very mild case of “acting white.”

The problem for black students appears to be more severe in integrated schools because in integrated schools after a C GPA, black students are not as popular as white students. This still makes the problem fairly modest because the vast majority of black students attend segregated schools. Additionally, although black students in integrated schools have lower popularity index scores than whites, their popularity index scores still increase slightly up to a B+ GPA. (See image below. Click on image for a better view.) So, if popularity affects black student achievement, even in integrated schools they still have an incentive up to a B+.

Grades and “Popularity” in Integrated Schools

But even these very modest claims of the Fryer and Torelli study are suspect since Fryer and Torelli’s spectral popularity scores may not even measure popularity. This question arises when we examine the findings for whites and Hispanics more closely.

Because of the way Fryer and Torelli define “acting white,” they actually end up using white students as the standard even when their findings indicate that the white students do not appear to be valuing education very highly. This makes literal sense for examining a fear of “acting white,” but if one thinks anti-intellectualism is a problem, it should be a problem when whites are anti-intellectual also.

If we put aside Fryer and Torelli’s nonwhite-only definition of the “acting white” phenomenon and simply say that we expect there to be a positive relationship between spectral popularity scores and grades for all groups, popular assumptions about education are turned upside down. With this simple universally-applied definition, Hispanic students are the most anti-intellectual group. Hispanic popularity scores decline dramatically after a C+ GPA in public schools and after a C- GPA in private schools. I am not aware of anyone theorizing that “acting white” is worst among Hispanics compared to other groups.

White students in private schools also appear to be rather anti-intellectual according to Fryer and Torelli’s spectral scores. In private schools, white spectral scores peak at about a C- and then decline. See the figure below. (Click on the image for a better view.) The trend line for white private school students clearly differs from that of white public school students, but Fryer and Torelli's definition requiring racial differences allows them to ignore this fact. If white private school students were black public school students, however, the authors would declare them to have a severe C- case of "acting white."

The Most Popular Whites in Private Schools Have C- Grades!?!

Approximation of white public school scores on private school graph.

So, if we accept Fryer and Torelli’s evidence then anti-intellectualism is most rampant among Hispanics, and the second biggest problem occurs among white students attending private schools. If black leaders and public intellectuals really want to lecture groups based on Fryer and Torelli’s research then they should be lecturing Hispanics and whites in private schools. Because this is where according to the research the most serious “acting white” problems lie.

I do not recommend this course of action, however, since I have serious doubts that Fryer and Torelli’s spectral popularity scores measure what the researchers think they measure.

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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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7/23/2007

The Educational Proof is in the Achievement Pudding

Ogbu reported that 33 percent of the black households had an income over $50,000 while 58 percent of whites did—a difference of 25 percentage points. If we use the $50,000 as the minimum for defining a middle class household then whites were 76 percent more likely than blacks to be middle class.

Further, in another 1990s study of Shaker Heights, Ronald F. Ferguson found that 90 percent of white parents had at least four years of college, but only 45 percent of black parents could say the same. A quarter of the black households had parents with only a high school diploma or less. Fewer than 5 percent of white parents had this low level of education. Also, Ferguson reported, “a larger percentage of parents have postgraduate degrees among whites than have four-year college degrees among blacks.”

These are, in fact, large socioeconomic differences.

Ogbu also avoided explaining why black students in Shaker Heights out-performed black students in other areas. Again in Black Directions, I state:

[Ogbu] observed, “Black students in Shaker Heights perform considerably better than other Blacks in the rest of the state of Ohio and in the rest of the nation” as measured by standardized tests. Also, more than 70 percent of black Shaker Heights high school graduates went on to college in the late 1990s. Nationally, about 50 percent of black high school graduates went on to college at that time.

”Academic disengagement” or “acting white” does not do a good job at explaining this higher achievement.

Beyond Shaker Heights, there is encouraging news in black student test scores. While it is true that black students score lower on standardized tests than white students. It is important to examine the trends in black students’ test scores. Probably the best measure of black students’ academic achievement trends is the long-term trend National Assessment of Educational Progress exams. These exams show increasing black student scores in reading and math over time.

Not only have black NAEP scores increased, so have black scores on the National Assessment of Adult Literacy and on IQ tests. These increasing test scores do not fit well with the widespread claims that black students are not interested in school, but it does fit with the idea that black students value education.

The increasing rates of black college completion also fits black students’ statements about valuing education. Again, in Black Directions, I reported that

In 1994, 7.2 percent of all bachelor’s degrees went to blacks. By 2004, black students increased their share to 9.4 percent. In 1994, 8.6 percent of all associate’s degrees went to blacks. By 2004, black students increased their share to 12.2 percent.

In fact, in The Black-White Test-Score Gap (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips conduct a very interesting analysis of the likelihood of black and white students to attend college. When they “compare blacks and whites with the same twelfth grade test scores, blacks are more likely than whites to complete college” (p. 7). They add in a footnote that the findings cannot be attributed to affirmative action since they can be found before affirmative action and during affirmative action. Again, this higher college graduation rate controlling for test scores fits the finding that black students highly value education.

The survey evidence indicates that black students highly value education. The test-score evidence indicates that black students highly value education. The college enrollment and graduation rates indicate that black students highly value education. And, yet, one only hears black leaders and the leading black public intellectuals condemning blacks for not valuing education. There is a serious problem here, but it does not lie with black students.

Next Week: What the Pundits and the Media Did Not Tell You about the Roland G. Fryer “Acting White” Study.

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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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7/16/2007

Do Blacks Value Education More Than Whites?

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 "Acting White".]
________________________________________________________________________

[This is the first part of a second open letter to John McWhorter, author of Winning the Race.]

Dear John:

Thanks for your response to my first letter. As I mentioned, I had three major issues/reactions to Winning the Race. The first letter addresses my first issue. This letter addresses the second.

It’s good to know that we are diametrically opposed on the “acting white” issue. Consistency is comforting. I think the “acting white” discussion has distracted America from far more important policy reforms needed to address the black-white achievement gap.

Blacks Value Education as Much, If Not, More Than Whites: The Attitudinal Survey Evidence

You too quickly dismiss the research of James Ainsworth-Darnell and Douglas Downey (“Assessing the Oppositional Culture Explanation for Racial/Ethnic Differences in School Performance,” American Sociological Review 63, 1998: 536-553). As you state in Winning the Race, “Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey find that on the average, black students report more positive attitudes toward school than whites and that black students who report being popular also tend to do well in school” (p.271).

It’s important to realize that one finds this consistently in survey after survey, year after year. In the 1986, the year Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu study was published, the Monitoring the Future survey found that 74 percent of black high school seniors thought that getting good grades was of “great” or “very great importance.” Only 41 percent of white seniors felt the same. Half of black seniors indicated that “knowing a lot about intellectual matters” was of “great” or “very great importance.” Only one-fifth of white seniors felt the same.

In the 1987, the General Social Survey of adults of all ages finds that 90 percent of blacks believed that education is “very important” or “essential” to getting ahead in life. Eighty-three percent of whites felt the same. Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey showed that in the 1990 National Educational Longitudinal Study black students report more pro-school attitudes than white students.

More recent surveys show similar results. A 2006 survey by Public Agenda (see p. 12 of the report), found that 67 percent of black students believed that more math and science courses would improve high school education. Fifty-four percent of white students felt the same. The 2006 Higher Education Research Institute College Freshman Survey finds that 26 percent of the majority-black students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities aspire to obtain a Ph.D., but only 17 percent of freshmen at colleges generally say the same.

When asked, black students also regularly report having lower grades than white students. And, as you also note, they will also admit to spending less time on homework, if asked.

You believe their statements about having lower grades and doing less homework but disbelieve their statements about their pro-school attitudes. Why would black students be deceptive, consciously or unconsciously, about liking school and valuing education but then be generally accurate and straightforward about having relatively low grades? This does not make sense to me. Low grades should be as, if not more, embarrassing than not feeling positive about school. I find black students’ responses convincing precisely because they readily admit details that could be viewed in a negative light.

What we need to realize is, as the song goes, “you can’t always get what you want.” Wanting to do well in school does not guarantee that one has had the necessary preparation and school resources to do well. Current research shows that there is a significant black-white achievement gap way before middle-school when you argue the “acting white” problem begins (Winning the Race, p. 275). We know that black children on average receive less academic preparation, formally and informally, than white students in the pre-kindergarten years. Improving the quantity and quality of black pre-kindergarten education is one of the things that we should be talking about.

The Commission on No Child Left Behind’s report Beyond NCLB: Fulfilling the Promise to Our Nation’s Children states the following about the importance of teacher quality:

teacher quality is the single most important school factor in student success. There is ample research to show just how critical teachers are. For example, studies in Tennessee, Dallas and elsewhere have shown that good teachers can improve student achievement by as much as a grade level more than less effective teachers over the course of a year. (p.30)

They add:

Research also shows that teacher quality is unevenly distributed in schools, and the students with the greatest needs tend to have access to the least qualified and least effective teachers. A study by The Education Trust, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to making schools and colleges work for all students, examined the distribution of teachers in three states and found that children in high-poverty schools are much more likely than their more advantaged peers to be assigned to novice teachers, to teachers who lack subject matter knowledge and to teachers with lower academic skills (Peske and Haycock 2006). (p.31)

I hope that one day the leading black public intellectuals would show interest in discussing the black-white teacher-quality gap—from pre-kindergarten through high school.

Why We Should Believe Black Students’ Pro-Education Survey Responses

What you skip over in your discussion of Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey is that they showed that black responses had similar statistically-measured correlations among answers as white responses. This is quite powerful evidence. If all black students merely responded randomly there would be no correlation. If all black students simply choose very positive responses to education/school questions, there would be no correlation. It is pretty much impossible for a survey like the National Education Longitudinal Study to yield similar statistical correlations without there being a truly similar relationship among the answers black students give as among the answers white students give. If you think the white students are presenting accurate information then, from a statistical standpoint, you are also endorsing the black student responses.

I can provide a simple example of this idea and test your hypothesis that 1960s black nationalism caused blacks to devalue or detach themselves from the educational endeavor. Since the General Social Survey is a nationally-representative survey of adults, we can do analyses of black adults of different ages on their views on how important education is for success.

If we compare blacks who were 18 years old or younger in 1965—40 years old in 1987—with blacks who were 19 or older in 1965, your hypothesis receives no support. Forty-five percent of the younger blacks, who you argue are disengaged from education, believe that education is “essential”—the extreme positive choice—for success. Only 30 percent of older blacks, who you argue highly value education, felt the same.

Now if we examine whites in these two age categories, we see the same pattern of the younger group valuing education more than the older group. Thirty-nine percent of the younger whites see education as “essential” but only 31 percent of older whites do. The only difference between the results of the blacks and the whites is that younger blacks, once again, may possibly value education a bit more than younger whites. It does not seem reasonable for one to accept the findings among whites and then turn around and declare the similar findings among blacks to be the result of deception by the black respondents.

And Finally, the Homework Issue

You make a big deal about black students doing less homework and Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey’s failure to explain how this finding fits in with valuing education. Ronald Ferguson’s research (see “A Diagnostic Analysis of Black-White GPA Disparities in Shaker Heights, Ohio,” in Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 2001, ed. Diane Ravitch (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), 347-414), I think, provides the answer. In Ferguson’s Shaker Heights study (he found no support for John Ogbu’s academic disengagement argument, by the way), he does not find that black students spend less time on homework than white students.

Ferguson’s analysis differs from Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey’s, in that Ferguson controls for or takes into account whether students are taking honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses or not. So, when Ferguson compares blacks not in honors/AP classes with whites who are also not in honors/AP classes, they spend similar amounts of time on homework. When he compares blacks and whites in honors/AP classes with each other, they spend similar amounts of time on homework.

It is important to control for honors/AP classes, because students in these classes spend more time on homework than other students, most likely because they are assigned more homework. If one does not control for these classes, it will look like blacks students spend less time on homework than white students because blacks are less likely to be in honors/AP classes. So, it appears that black students’ homework responses do not support your argument that they devalue education, but it does support the view that they are providing fairly accurate answers to survey questions. In an indirect fashion, black students are accurately indicating that they are less likely to be in honors/AP courses which we know to be true.

Next week: More Problems for McWhorter: The educational proof is in the achievement pudding.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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7/09/2007

The Truth about Black Students

[click on image for a better view]

All racial groups, not only blacks, are going to college in increasing numbers. How are blacks doing relative to other groups? When we look at the share of all degrees going to blacks, we find significant positive movement. In 1994, 7.2 percent of all bachelor’s degrees went to blacks. By 2004, black students increased their share to 9.4 percent. In 1994, 8.6 percent of all associate’s degrees went to blacks. By 2004, black students increased their share to 12.2 percent. Once again, the facts about black student achievement differ greatly from what the pundits are saying.

In addition to this story missed by the pundits and the rest of the media, the current issue of the Thora Institute’s Black Directions newsletter discusses:

• Why the Claim of a 50 Percent Black High School Graduation Rate is Wrong
• The Evidence that Black Standardized Test Scores are Rising
• The Actual Facts about the State of Black English
• Two Programs Proven to Increase Black Educational Achievement

To order this issue of Black Directions, send a check or money order for $9 made out to “Thora Institute LLC” to “Truth about Black Students,” 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.

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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7/02/2007

The Sophistry of Segregationists

If Brown stands for anything, Brown stands for integration. --Wendy Parker, law professor, Wake Forest University

“Segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever,” proclaimed Governor George C. Wallace in his 1963 inaugural address. In regards to America’s elementary and secondary schools, it looks like Wallace may turn out to be correct: segregation forever.

This year the Supreme Court will issue decisions on two cases involving school desegregation policies in Seattle and Louisville, KY. It is likely that they will find these plans unconstitutional because they use race as a criteria for school assignment. (See Linda Greenhouse, “Court Reviews Race as Factor in School Plans,” New York Times, December 5, 2006.) Such a decision will continue the reversal of integrated schooling in America that has been taking place since the 1990s.

With the 1954 Brown decision, the Supreme Court joined the vanguard of the struggle for black civil rights and racial integration. Since the 1990s, the Supreme Court has been the vanguard of the struggle against black civil rights and racial integration.

The Civil Rights Project has documented that the Supreme Court’s decisions terminating school desegregation plans have resulted in more segregated schools. In every school district with 30,000 students or more, the termination of desegregation resulted in more segregation.

While the nation as a whole produced more integrated schools from the 1960s through the 1980s, schools have been becoming more segregated since the 1990s. In 1991, 66 percent of black students attended majority nonwhite schools. In 2003, 73 percent of black students were in these schools according to the Civil Rights Project’s report.

As bad as increased school segregation is, the greater damage from anti-integration rulings would be the codification of the Brown decision as standing for “colorblindness” and not for integration. Everyone knows that in the Brown decision the Court took a stand against segregation and more generally for policies designed to achieve racial equality, but the anti-integration arguments in the current cases assert that the Brown decision simply opposed the use of race and is indifferent to the existence of racial segregation. This is a travesty.

Any one interested in racial equality and racial justice should be outraged. The “colorblindness” logic represents a resurgence of Jim Crow. It does not institutionalize Jim Crow policies, but it bolsters any and all of the legacies of Jim Crow. If the line of argument of the opponents to school integration wins any attempt to address racial inequality could be ruled unconstitutional. During the hearing, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked if a school district could deliberately place a new school in a location that would—without any additional intervention—achieve a racially mixed student body. The lawyer representing the parents challenging the Seattle plan said no. (See Greenhouse.) Any plan for a new school, therefore, that does not yield a school as segregated as the already existing schools is subject to court challenge. By preventing the state from doing absolutely anything to address racial inequality the “colorblindness” advocates do a great deal to ensure the persistence of racial segregation and inequality.

“Colorblindness” means being willfully blind and indifferent to racial inequality and injustice. “Colorblindness” advocates are winning. Why aren’t more people outraged?

--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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6/25/2007

McWhorter’s Culture of Poverty Myth

My argument, then, unabashedly assumes that there is such a thing as a culture of poverty. We must be under no illusion that this book only ‘implies’ this or that it is ‘dressing up’ the culture of poverty argument in new clothes. My explicit aim is to argue that poor blacks indeed have been waylaid by a culture of poverty. I unhesitatingly agree with all those before me who have analyzed poor blacks post-1970 in that way. The only ‘new clothes’ I intend is in my attempt to get at just what led poor blacks to fall into this culture of poverty so deeply at a particular time. This book is, most definitely, one more in the line of arguments that poor blacks’ problems are primarily due to culture rather than economics. Its argument stands or falls on whether my particular argument is effective. (p. 112, emphases in original)

Winning the Race is an attempt to explain why there is more black poverty and unemployment today than in the 1960s. Thus, one sees why the dust jacket claims that there is more black poverty today than in the 1960s. The entire book rests on this claim being true.

I state over and over again, that there has been no sustained increase in black poverty since the 1970s because Winning the Race is premised on this false idea. In 1966 (a 1965 estimate is not available from the Census Bureau’s “Historical Poverty Tables”), the black poverty rate was 41.8 percent. In 2005, the year Winning the Race was published it was 24.9 percent—nearly half of what it was in 1966. This rate is still way too high, but I see no evidence here that blacks “have been waylaid by culture of poverty” post-1970.

It is also wrong to presume that we can read cultural values from economic outcomes. The leading black public intellectuals like you, Juan Williams, Orlando Patterson, Bill Cosby and too many others divorce black economic outcomes from the goings on of the American labor market and the American economy. This is incorrect.

If we examine the statistics on the economic state of black and white America, it is clear that we cannot treat black economic outcomes as a “black thing” that has nothing to do with the American economy. Below is a graph of the black and white unemployment rates. Blacks have a higher unemployment rate than whites. I will address reasons why this is below. What I want to first focus on is the relationship between the black and white unemployment rates. The rates are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. [click on image for a better view]

Source: “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey,” Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What should be clear is that the black and white employment rates move in sync. When the black unemployment rate increases, so does the white. When the white decreases, so does the black. If a presumed crisis of cultural values produced the black unemployment rate and presumably good white cultural values produced the white unemployment rate, we would not see these parallel trends. It is the overall changes in the American economy, not black culture, which drive the largest changes in the black unemployment rate.

The increases in the black unemployment rate and the white unemployment rate are caused by economic recessions. All of the nearly vertical increases in the black and white unemployment rates correspond to recessions. The overall economic condition of blacks is strongly shaped by the overall economic condition of the American economy. The false idea that culture determines black economic outcomes obscures this important fact.

If we turn to poverty rates, we can see the same points illustrated again. It is harder to see the parallel trends between the black and white poverty rates because the black poverty rate has been roughly 3.5 times the white rate. An increase of 1 percent in the white poverty rate corresponds to about a 3.5 percent increase in the black rate. For blacks and whites respectively, the highest poverty rate is in 1966 and the lowest in 2000. The relatively slight increases in poverty in the graph correspond with economic recessions. The recession of 2001 reversed some of the poverty reduction experienced in the 1990s.

Source: “Historical Poverty Tables, Table 2, All People,” U.S. Census Bureau.

One comes across a startling finding if one examines the ratio of black to white poverty rates overtime. It is important to note that before 1973, the Census figures did not separate white Hispanics from white non-Hispanics. White Hispanics have had higher poverty rates than white non-Hispanics. White Hispanics increase the white poverty rate, and therefore lower the black-white poverty ratio before 1973 by some unknown degree. Beginning in 2002, blacks who identify as being of more than one race are not included in the statistics. This removal of multiracial blacks increases the black-white poverty ratio slightly, because multiracial blacks have a lower poverty rate. In 2005, for example, the black-white poverty ratio including multiracial blacks was 2.88. Excluding multiracial blacks, it was 3.00.

While the black-white poverty ratio historically has been roughly 3.5, when one looks closely one sees that it has actually been trending downward. You can see this more clearly if you look at the average by decade. The black poverty rate has been 3 times the white rate since 2000. This is a huge disparity. But when black public intellectuals wax romantic about earlier decades, they are simply not looking at the evidence. The black poverty rate was 3.8 times the white rate over the 1970s. Again, the presence of Hispanics in the white category likely means that the ratio in the 1960s and 1970s is actually higher than what we see in the graphs.

Contrary to what you claim in Winning the Race, that black poverty has worsened since the 1970s, in both absolute and relative measures there is less black poverty today than in the 1960s. There is a very positive downward trend in the black-white poverty ratio. This finding is exactly the opposite of what one would find if blacks were afflicted with a culture of poverty. Black public intellectuals should be celebrating this declining ratio but instead they are condemning poor blacks based on fictions.

Even with these improvements, the economic condition of blacks is still far from ideal. Unfortunately, we cannot look to the leading black public intellectuals for solutions to the high rates of black unemployment and poverty because they have ignored the facts, misread the trends and misdiagnosed the problems.

The economic conditions of blacks improve when the America economy improves. We need policies that strengthen the American economy and that reverse the growing income and wealth inequality. Blacks are worse off than whites economically to a significant degree because blacks have lower educational outcomes than whites. The major reason for the lower black educational outcomes is because of the lower quality of black educational opportunities which begin from even before kindergarten. There are effective programs that reduce these disparities running today. We need to push policy makers to make them widely available. And last but not least, there is considerable evidence that blacks still face discrimination in the labor market. We have unfinished business in the area of black civil rights. Improving the economic state of black America requires that (1) we improve the American economy, (2) improve the quality of black educational opportunities, and (3) eliminate anti-black discrimination in the labor market. Spending all of our energy fighting a mythical culture of poverty is a waste of time and resources since it does not exist.

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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.

6/18/2007

Twisted Justice

Source: Adam Liptak, “Ruling Likely to Spur Convictions in Capital Cases,” New York Times, June 9, 2007.

In capital cases, only people willing to apply the death penalty are allowed to serve on juries. According to the New York Times, past research has shown that these pro-death-penalty jurors are more likely to find a defendant guilty, and they also tend to be more racist, sexist and homophobic than other jurors.

A recent decision by the Supreme Court makes it easier to eliminate anyone from a jury in a capital case who is not enthusiastically pro-death penalty. The Court argued that it would be legitimate to exclude a juror who “stated six times that he could consider the death penalty or follow the law,” because the juror did not display, as an appeals court judge stated, a “bloodthirsty eagerness” to apply the death penalty.

Once again the current Supreme Court has put on display their twisted sense of justice. Justice John Paul Stevens captures the problem well:

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority had “gotten it horribly backwards” by creating the impression that “trial courts should be encouraging the inclusion of jurors who will impose the death penalty rather than only ensuring the exclusion of those who say that, in all circumstances, they cannot.”

The practices upheld by the Court will lead to exclusion of at least half of potential jurors from capital cases.

When he was on the Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall went even further and objected to the exclusion of anti-death penalty jurors. He argued, rightly in my view,

The exclusion of jurors opposed to the death penalty, he said, “allows the state a special advantage in those prosecutions where the charges are most serious and the possible punishments the most severe.”

It seems to me that excluding half of the potential jurors corrupts the ideal that one should have a jury of one’s peers.

Part II: For the Justice Department, Religion is In, Race is Out

Source: Neil A. Lewis, “Justice Department Reshapes Its Civil Rights Mission,” New York Times, June 14, 2007.

In pursuing civil rights cases, it should not be a matter of choosing religious discrimination or racial discrimination, but with the current administration, this seems to be the case. The Bush Justice Department is aggressively pursuing cases it defines as religious discrimination but displaying little interest in race-based hate crimes and voting rights violations against blacks.

Some of the cases the Justice Department has pursued are questionable as to whether they are really examples of religious discrimination. For example, the Times illustrates one recent questionable initiative:

Intervening in federal court cases on behalf of religion-based groups like the Salvation Army that assert they have the right to discriminate in hiring in favor of people who share their beliefs even though they are running charitable programs with federal money.

The government is therefore fighting to allow religious groups to discriminate.

Along with this focus on religion, the Justice Department is recruiting more from religious universities and less from the top-ranked universities than in the past.

Part III: Throwing Out a Case for Having Too Much Evidence of Discrimination

Source: Linda Greenhouse, “Justices Limit Discrimination Suits Over Pay,” New York Times, May 29, 2007.

Lilly M. Ledbetter was the only female among 14 men in a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala. For almost 20 years she was paid less than her male co-workers--including those with less seniority than she had. The Supreme Court decided that she could only sue Goodyear within the first 180 days of experiencing pay discrimination. Of course, it is just about impossible for someone to be certain of pay discrimination and to have evidence for a case in this six-months time frame. The Court has made it a lot more comfortable for employers who discriminate.

Sadly, we will see more twisted justice from the Supreme Court for years to come. Register and vote for an administration with a better sense of right and wrong.

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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.

6/11/2007

Income Inequality Increasing; Male Incomes Declining

The Great Debate

United States
France
Canada
Denmark.

Hint: It’s not the United States.

According to current research discussed in a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, an individual has the best chance of achieving relative upward mobility in Denmark. Of the countries listed above, the United States had the least relative mobility. Of the nine countries examined in the report, only the United Kingdom is a less economically mobile society. Canada is more than twice as economically mobile as the U.S. “Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well?” the title of the Pew Charitable Trusts report, finds the American Dream sick and in the hospital.

It is not clear whether the U.S. ever offered as much economic mobility as it claimed to, but, today, one’s parents’ economic status plays a large role in one’s possibilities for economic success. The Pew report states:

Most studies find that, in America, about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income are passed on to the next generation. This means that one of the biggest predictors of an America child’s future economic success—the identity and characteristics of his or her parents—is predetermined and outside that child’s control. To be sure, the apple can fall far from the tree and often does in individual cases, but relative to other factors, the tree dominates the picture.

It is possible to advance relative to others in American society, but if one wishes to be rich generally it is better to have rich parents or be born in Denmark.

Most Americans probably failed to recognize the limited relative mobility in the U.S. because, we have had a good deal of absolute mobility. Relative mobility refers to how much shuffling there is of people’s position in income rankings. Absolute mobility refers to increases of income even if the ranking stays the same.

For most of the past century, Americans’ individual incomes have generally increased overtime. This historic trend appears to have come to an end. We can see this in men’s income. Between 1964 and 1994, adjusted for inflation, the median income of men in their thirties rose 5 percent from $31,097 to $32,801. When comparing men in their thirties from 1974 to 2004, the picture is starkly different. Men’s incomes declined 12 percent from $40,210 to $35,010.

Although absolute mobility does not occur broadly for men anymore, it is still occurring for American families. Because women increasingly work, their added incomes have caused household incomes to rise even as men’s individual incomes declined.

Part of the reason for men’s declining incomes is that the American economy generally has grown much more slowly post-1960s compared to pre-1960s. Another important factor is that the benefits of increasing American productivity are not being distributed widely. Productivity and income used to grow together prior to the 1970s. Since the 1970s the productivity growth has been increasingly disconnected from income growth. The benefits of economic growth have been increasingly concentrated among the rich.

Between 1979 and 2004, the income of the poorest one-fifth of Americans grew 9 percent. Over the same period, the income of the richest fifth grew 69 percent and the richest 1 percent by 176 percent. An article in the New York Times states the recent economic trends make it appear as if “every household in [the] bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent.” (David Leonhardt, “Larry Summers’s Evolution,” New York Times, June 10, 2007.)

Americans seemed to have been satisfied with the American economic policy because although there was little relative mobility, there was a significant degree of absolute mobility. With declining absolute mobility and increasing income inequality, there may be opportunity for creating new and innovative economic policies. Now might be a good time for the so-called black leaders to start articulating an economic vision that will help poor Americans. The so-called black leaders need to remember that Martin Luther King Jr. died beginning the Poor People’s Campaign. Will they continue where King left off?

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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.

6/04/2007

Health Care for All?

The Great Debate

Algernon Austin, Thora Institute and Demos
John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute
Orlando Patterson, Harvard University
Moderator: Felicia Lee, New York Times

The Future of Black America: The Burden of History or the Audacity of Hope?
Does the twenty-first century require a new black politics? For many, the success of Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Oprah and Richard Parsons signals the emergence of a post-race America where anyone with the right values and skills can succeed. For others, the persistence of segregated schools and the increasing numbers of blacks in America's prisons indicate that we are still living in the shadow of Jim Crow. What are the major obstacles to a prosperous future for black America? What are the best policies for moving forward - an effort to change values, an anti-discrimination offensive, or something else? Is it useful to continue to think about politics through the lens of race?

June 13, 2007, 6:30 PM
Donnell Library, Manhattan, NYC
20 West 53rd between 5th and 6th
Register here or call (212) 633-1405 x533

Sponsored by Demos and the Donald and Paula Smith Family Foundation

[Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com]

[Find out The Truth about "Acting White".]
________________________________________________________________________

[re-post]

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

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

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

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

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

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

The United States spends a greater proportion of its wealth on health care than any other county, but Americans have rather little to show for it. In international comparisons, American health care ranks highly for treating some specific diseases, but overall the American system tends to fall near or at the bottom of developed Western nations. In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. healthcare system 37th in the world.

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

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

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

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

Quaye concludes that blacks and other Americans would benefit from a system that provides health care for all.

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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.

5/28/2007

Take from the Poor, Give to the Rich

The Great Debate

Algernon Austin, Thora Institute and Demos
John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute
Orlando Patterson, Harvard University
Moderator: Felicia Lee, New York Times

The Future of Black America: The Burden of History or the Audacity of Hope?
Does the twenty-first century require a new black politics? For many, the success of Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Oprah and Richard Parsons signals the emergence of a post-race America where anyone with the right values and skills can succeed. For others, the persistence of segregated schools and the increasing numbers of blacks in America's prisons indicate that we are still living in the shadow of Jim Crow. What are the major obstacles to a prosperous future for black America? What are the best policies for moving forward - an effort to change values, an anti-discrimination offensive, or something else? Is it useful to continue to think about politics through the lens of race?

June 13, 2007, 6:30 PM
Donnell Library, Manhattan, NYC
20 West 53rd between 5th and 6th
Register here or call (212) 633-1405 x533

Sponsored by Demos and the Donald and Paula Smith Family Foundation

[Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com]

[Find out The Truth about "Acting White".]
________________________________________________________________________

“Innovative and zealous firms have lured unsophisticated shoppers by the hundreds of thousands into a thicket of debt from which many never emerge,” states the coverstory of Businessweek. (Brian Grow and Keith Epstein, “The Poverty Business: Inside U.S. Companies’ Audacious Drive to Extract More Profits from the Nation’s Working Poor,” Businessweek, May 21, 2007.)

American companies have discovered a new gold mine: the working poor. They are finding ever new ways to lend to the working poor for higher and higher interest rates. Businessweek reports that in 1989 poor households paid 16.8 percent more on their interest rate for their auto loans. In 2004, poor households were paying 56.1 percent more. In mortgage loans, the poor paid 6.4 percent more than the rich in 1989. In 2004, they were paying 25.5 percent more. For a wide range of products, from college loans to car loans, the poor are paying more.

Some auto dealers serving poor clients no longer post the prices of the cars they sell, but use software to mine customers’ financial records to find out the maximum the person can afford to pay. Tax-preparation companies give advances on poor people’s Earned-Income Tax Credit and they can then skim 10 percent off of the tax returns of the working poor. A 10 percent rate is a bargain compared to the interest rates exceeding 100 percent charged by other types of lenders who target the poor.

Now would be a good time to bring back usury laws that limit the amount of interest a company can charge. Businessweek also suggests bringing more mainstream banking to poor communities and educating customers.

How the New Loan Sharks Divide Up $250 Billion

[click on image for a better view]

--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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5/21/2007

Turning Tides in the War on the Poor?

The Great Debate

Algernon Austin, Thora Institute and Demos
John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute
Orlando Patterson, Harvard University
Moderator: Felicia Lee, New York Times

The Future of Black America: The Burden of History or the Audacity of Hope?
Does the twenty-first century require a new black politics? For many, the success of Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Oprah and Richard Parsons signals the emergence of a post-race America where anyone with the right values and skills can succeed. For others, the persistence of segregated schools and the increasing numbers of blacks in America's prisons indicate that we are still living in the shadow of Jim Crow. What are the major obstacles to a prosperous future for black America? What are the best policies for moving forward - an effort to change values, an anti-discrimination offensive, or something else? Is it useful to continue to think about politics through the lens of race?

June 13, 2007, 6:30 PM
Donnell Library, Manhattan, NYC
20 West 53rd between 5th and 6th

[Find out The Truth about "Acting White".]
________________________________________________________________________

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reports big increases in Americans’ concern for the poor. Between 1994 and 2007, Americans’ desire to have the government provide a social safety net increased by at least 10 percentage points across three measures.

This increasing concern for the poor spans all of America’s major social and political divides. “Some of the biggest increases in concern for the needy,” the Pew Center observes, “have come from unexpected sources: political conservatives, Southern whites and older Americans.” In response to the idea that “the government should help more needy people even if it means going deeper into debt,” the percentage of self-described conservatives agreeing increased 20 percentage points to 48 percent between 1993 and 2007. Forty-nine percent of whites, today, agree that the poor “have it hard”; in 1994, only 35 percent agreed.

We can examine the changes by race, political affiliation and income in the percent of people who agreed to all three of the safety net questions. The questions are (1) “The government should help more needy people even if it means going deeper into debt”; (2) “The government should guarantee every citizen enough to eat and a place to sleep”; (3) “It is the responsibility of the government to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.”

Percent of White and Black Support for a Social Safety Net
Whites increased their support for a social safety net 13 percentage points. However, even with an increase more than twice the size of the black increase, whites are still less likely to support the government helping the poor than blacks. [Click on images for a better view.]

Percent of Support for a Social Safety Net by Political Affiliation
Democrats and Independents had similar strong increases in support for a social safety net. Republicans had weaker gains and continue to be the least supportive of the three political groups. Democrats are the most supportive.

Percent of Support for a Social Safety Net by Household Income
Perhaps not surprisingly, the poorest Americans showed the biggest increase in support for government help for the poor among income groups. All other income quartiles had increases about half as big as the poorest quartile. The lower middle quartile increased 12 percent to a level of 43 percent in favor, the upper middle quartile increased 10 percent to 40 percent support, and the highest quartile increased 13 percent to 29 percent agreeing. In 1994 and 2007, the lower ones income the more likely one is to support government aid for the poor.

Source: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 2007.

Americans are more interested in having government help the poor, but are our elected officials concerned about helping the poor? The current crop of presidential candidates is made up mainly of multimillionaires. Imagine what our political system might be like if non-millionaires had a fair shot at getting elected. Nonetheless, non-rich Americans should not further diminish their political power by not voting. Register and vote.

--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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[Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin]

5/14/2007

One-Third of Black Diabetics Unaware

One of the 10 Best Black Books of 2006! --Kam Williams, African American Literary Book Club

I taught Getting It Wrong to my undergrad black politics class. The book is a real tonic. --Adolph Reed, University of Pennsylvania

Purchase Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals
Are Failing Black America by Algernon Austin
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________

Information from Ed Stephens,
Co-founder of Type Free, LLC
A web community for diabetes care and nutrition
www.ImTypeFree.com

The Diabetes Epidemic in the Black Community
Blacks have the second highest incidence of Type 2 diabetes in the U.S. Unfortunately, one out of every three black diabetics is unaware that they have the disease.

This is due to:

Poor public health policy

Insufficient health care insurance benefits

The lack of screening for diabetes

Poor access to helpful information

Poor lifestyle choices.

What Is Diabetes?
The normal digestive process is as follows: After eating, glucose and other nutrients circulate in the bloodstream. The pancreas then produces and releases insulin into the blood to help transport glucose into the cells. Insulin is created by beta cells located in the pancreas. Insulin works like a unique key that contacts each cell, unlocking a doorway for glucose to enter. Glucose feeds virtually all cells in the body, especially the brain and muscle.

Type 1 diabetes (T-1) occurs when most or all of the beta cells inside the pancreas have been destroyed by a person’s immune system. Consequently, these patients need insulin from outside sources.

Type 2 diabetes (T-2) occurs when some of the body’s cells cannot recognize the insulin molecules. Consequently, these cells do not allow insulin to unlock the doorway for glucose to enter. This allows the glucose to accumulate in the blood and continue to circulate, damaging the body.

Gestational diabetes is diagnosed as elevated blood glucose levels during the 24th and the 28th weeks of pregnancy. However, blood glucose levels return to normal after delivery. These women have a much higher chance of developing diabetes in later years.

Do You Have Diabetes But Don’t Know It?
Early symptoms of Type 2 diabetes include the following:

Increased urination – The kidneys are trying to reduce the amount of glucose in the bloodstream.

Increased thirst – The body is trying to replace the water loss due to increased urination.

Increased appetite – The cells of the body are starving.

Fatigue – Reduced amount of absorbed glucose equals reduced energy.

Weight loss – Cellular starvation forces the body to use up its stored fat.

Blurred vision – Small capillaries in the eyes begin to multiply and/or rupture.

Slow-healing wounds and infections – Poor circulation inhibits the healing process.

Type 2 diabetes can be prevented through early screening, good nutrition and ongoing physical activity.

Early screening helps. The simplest means for early detection is a blood sugar test, measured after a person has fasted for at least eight hours. About 54 million Americans are “pre-diabetic.”

Good nutrition means eating balanced meals at all times. This involves eating a combination of high fiber carbohydrates, low fat protein, polyunsaturated fats, and flat water. For more information on nutrition go to www.ImTypeFree.com.

Increased daily activity means more than walking and strength training. It means playing with the kids in the park, running with the dog, parking your car a little farther from the store, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, etc.

Diabetes is a leading cause of:

Strokes

Kidney failure

Adult blindness

Non-trauma lower limb amputation

Nerve damage

Pain in the feet and legs

Loss of feeling in the feet

Erectile dysfunction

Lost control of bladder, bowels, stomach

Cardiovascular disease.

Stroke and heart attacks are the leading cause of death in people with diabetes.

How to Avoid Type 2 Diabetes

Good nutrition – snack on and eat more nutritious foods.

Increased physical activity – at least 30 minutes a day of moderate exercise/activity.

Visit your physician at least once per year.

Take your prescribed medication.

Get helpful information from websites, books, your medical team, etc.

For more information go to www.ImTypeFree.com, a web community for diabetes care and nutrition, and consult your physician.

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[Find out The Truth about "Acting White".]

Thora Institute

8/20/2007

America’s Real Criminal Justice “Three Strikes”

8/13/2007

Recommended Reading: Anti-Black Sentiments and America's Criminal Justice System

8/06/2007

Black Immigrants in Elite Colleges

7/30/2007

Are Hispanics and White Private School Students Most Afraid of “Acting White”?

Or The Problems of Roland G. Fryer “Acting White” Study

7/23/2007

The Educational Proof is in the Achievement Pudding

7/16/2007

Do Blacks Value Education More Than Whites?

7/09/2007

The Truth about Black Students

7/02/2007

The Sophistry of Segregationists

6/25/2007

McWhorter’s Culture of Poverty Myth

6/18/2007

Twisted Justice

6/11/2007

Income Inequality Increasing; Male Incomes Declining

The Great Debate

6/04/2007

Health Care for All?

The Great Debate

5/28/2007

Take from the Poor, Give to the Rich

The Great Debate

5/21/2007

Turning Tides in the War on the Poor?

The Great Debate

5/14/2007

One-Third of Black Diabetics Unaware

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