Who is the Most "Hated"?

The New York Times columnist Charles Blow has recently included FBI hate crime statistics in his opinion pieces. These columns have caused me to re-think these statistics and what they can tell us about racial relations.

Although I consider hate crimes to be a very serious issue and I have even briefly studied white supremacist organizations (the spawning ground for a number of the people who commit racially-motivated hate crimes), I have been reluctant to discuss hate crimes. Hate crimes tend to reinforce the view that the issue of racial discrimination is about just a few crazy, bad apples. In 2007, there were less than 5,000 hate crime victims against all racial groups by the FBI racial categorization and likely a smaller number of offenders. In comparison, possibly ten times that number of blacks only were victims subtle and not-so-subtle biases in our criminal justice system. Maybe hundreds of thousands of blacks faced discrimination in the workplace--much of which they were probably not aware of, and millions of black children went to separate and unequal schools. The impersonal, bureaucratic institutional discrimination in the society greatly dwarfs the few-bad-apple hate crimes.

There are other problems with the FBI hate crime statistics. They likely significantly undercount the number of hate crimes. Many people may not report being a victim of a hate crime. Police officers for a variety of reasons may intentionally mis-categorize a hate crime as some other type of crime. Some police agencies simply do not report hate crimes. (For more on these points see "Understanding Hate Crimes" by the Prejudice Institute.)

On the other hand, even hate crimes are sociological phenomena. A hate crime is a crime against a socially-recognized group motivated by a culturally-shared narrative about a group. The narrative may not be believed by a majority or even a large number, but it is none-the-less shared. So, hate crimes may provide a type of a hate index of the society.

In different societies, racial hate crimes are likely disproportionately directed to different groups based on the specific history of racial relations of that country. Hate crimes also would depend on specific criminological factors. Some countries would likely have factors that lead to more or less hate crimes, and also more or less hate crimes against specific groups. It is not clear what conclusions can be drawn from relative rates of hate crimes, but it is worth pondering.

With these thoughts in mind, I decided to take a preliminary look at the hate crime statistics of 2007 to see who is "hated"--in the hate-crime sense--in America. The simple number of hate crimes by racial group does not tell us much since different groups make up different shares of the population. What is interesting is the percent of racially-motivated hate crimes relative to the share of the population. If a group were to make up 10 percent of the population and were victims of 10 percent of the racial hate crimes then there is nothing unusual there. If a group were 10 percent of the population but victims of 90 percent of the hate crimes then the group is a particularly "hated" group.

Before I go into my findings, I have to address the question of which groups count as a racial group. I have written at length about this issue in my book Achieving Blackness. The official Census racial categories do not get at the way people think about race. Just as in many cases people are not economically rational, people's racial categories are not consistent, discrete and logical scientific categories no matter how much scholars of racial relations wish that they were. It is clear to me that Jews, Muslims and Hispanics are sometimes thought of as racial groups by people in general and, importantly, by people committing hate crimes against them. This may not be the case in every hate crime, but I'll nonetheless include these groups as racialized groups. Since the Census Bureau does not follow this scheme, individuals will be double-counted. An individual can be a black, Hispanic Muslim and be counted in all three categories, for example. My racialized groups are whites, blacks, Asians and Pacific Islanders, American Indians and Alaska Natives, mixed-race people, Jews, Muslims and Hispanics.

For simplicity, the figure below shows findings only for whites, blacks, Jews and Muslims. Although in absolute number, there were more anti-black hate crime incidents in 2007 than incidents against other racialized groups, blacks were not the most "hated" group. Relative to their share in the population, Jews were nearly eight times (7.94) more likely to be the target of a hate crime. Jews make up only 2.2 percent of the U.S. population but 17.5 percent of the racialized hate crimes were targeted at Jews.

Source: Author's analysis of FBI data.

Blacks and Muslims had the misfortune to come in second and third respectively. Relative to their share of the population, blacks were almost four times as likely to be targets of racialized hate crimes; Muslims were 3.5 times as likely. Of all the groups examined, whites were greatly under-represented among racialized hate crime targets.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

The Racial Mismatch

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

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

Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________


Many people argue that the jobs crisis facing black men stems from their lower educational attainment. There is a great need to improve the educational attainment of blacks generally, but educational improvements alone won't solve the crisis. The figure above shows the 2006 unemployment rates for non-Hispanic black and white males in Chicago. In Chicago, at every educational level, whites are more likely to be employed than blacks. If blacks had the exact same educational-attainment profile as whites, blacks would still be more likely to be unemployed. It is particularly surprising that the disparity is so large for high school dropouts. One high-school dropout should be as good or bad as the next.

If one does the same analysis for other major cities, one ends up with similar results. This analysis challenges the education-as-THE-solution perspective, and it also challenges the spatial-mismatch hypothesis. This hypothesis states that blacks have a harder time finding work because many of the jobs have moved out of heavily-black cities and to the predominantly-white suburbs.

But what the figure (and similar ones for other cities) shows is that in the same city proportionately more whites are finding work when blacks are not. Again, white high-school dropouts are having much greater success at finding work than black high-school dropouts.

The findings of this relatively simple analysis are corroborated by the paper "Spatial Mismatch or Racial Mismatch?" by Judith Hellerstein, David Neumark, and Melissa McInerney (NBER Working Paper 13161). These researchers find that only black job density in black neighborhoods predicts black male employment rates, not the overall job density for all racial groups. In other words, black men could live right next door to employers, but if those employers do not hire black men then the employer might as well be on Mars as far as black men are concerned. This finding of the overall job density not mattering for black men is what one would find if black men were facing anti-black discrimination in the labor market.

Returning once again, to the issue of high-school dropouts or the "less-educated," Hellerstein et al. state, "less-educated blacks do live in areas where there are many jobs held by less-educated whites." In fact, they find that the average black male high-school dropout lives in a neighborhood where four non-black male high-school dropouts are working for every resident who is a black male high-school dropout (Table 3). Also, the average employment rate for these black male high-school dropouts is under 50 percent. The authors observe, "This suggests that the problem may not be a lack of jobs at appropriate skill levels where blacks live, but a lack of jobs that are available to blacks" (16). If discrimination is a major factor in black men's unemployment rate, education alone will not fix it.

Hellerstein et al. conduct an interesting simulation. They estimate the effect on black male employment rates of black male high-school dropouts moving from an average black neighborhood to an average white neighborhood. This is the proposed solution to the black male jobs crisis that emerges from the spatial mismatch hypothesis. By their calculations, the average employment rate for black male high-school dropouts is 46 percent. (The average for white male high-school dropouts is 69 percent.) The move to an average white neighborhood is estimated to increase the black male high-school dropout employment rate to 48 percent--2 percentage points--not much change.

In 1967, the black unemployment rate was about twice the white unemployment rate. In 2009, the black unemployment rate is about twice the white unemployment rate. As long as we pretend that this stubborn fact has nothing to do with anti-black discrimination, nothing will change.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

The Black AIDS Crisis is Not Over

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
________________________________________________________________________


In 2007, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports, nearly 200,000 blacks were living with AIDS. This number is the highest for the major racial and ethnic groups although blacks make up only 12 percent of the U.S. population. After an apparent declining number of new HIV/AIDS cases, new HIV/AIDS cases among blacks increased 17 percent from 2005 to 2007. Blacks still have an astronomically high rate of infection (see figure below).
Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009.

Although blacks are generally aware of the epidemic, they still have misconceptions about the basic facts of the disease. (See the section on African Americans in Impressions of HIV/AIDS in America.)

Review the basics. Do you know the answers to these questions?

• How is HIV passed from one person to another?


• Can I get HIV from casual contact (shaking hands, hugging, using a toilet, drinking from the same glass, or the sneezing and coughing of an infected person)?


• Can I get HIV from mosquitoes?


• What can be done to prevent HIV transmission?

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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Hard Economic Times Ahead

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

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

Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________


Even before the current Great Recession, the economic state of black America was not good. Blacks made significant economic progress during the strong economy of the 1990s, but the “jobless recovery” after the 2001 recession put black economic progress in reverse [PDF]. Black incomes declined and black poverty rose from 2000 to 2007.

Now things have gone from bad to worse. We have been in a recession for 17 months and have seen historic job losses. Not surprisingly, blacks have been overrepresented among those losing jobs. The black unemployment rate in May was 14.9 percent, the highest for the major racial groups. For black men, nearly one-in-five is unemployed, up from about one-in-ten two years ago. One-in-ten unemployed is very bad, one-in-five is a disaster.

As bad as these black unemployment numbers are, in a “normal” recession they would be even higher. The black unemployment rate is usually at least twice the white rate, but during this recession it has been a little less than twice the white rate. In May, it was “only” 1.7 times the white rate.

It seems that blacks are, ironically, benefiting some from anti-black racial discrimination. Yes, that’s right—benefiting from anti-black discrimination. During the housing boom many construction jobs were created. Now, during the housing bust, construction has seen massive job losses. Historically, blacks have been underrepresented in the construction industry, likely due to anti-black discrimination. Relatively few blacks were able to ride the construction-job rollercoaster up and now relatively few are riding it down with the construction-job losses.

It is important to understand that blacks have had significant job losses in construction. Even for the relatively small number of blacks in construction, it appears that they are more likely than whites to lose their jobs. Had blacks been better represented in construction, their construction-job losses would likely have been greater.

Even if, relative to whites, the recession is less bad than “normal,” overall this recession is much worse than “normal.” The signs are that the Great Recession will set blacks back substantially in income and wealth. Already, the inflation-adjusted black median weekly wage is down $23 from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2009. None of the other major racial groups have seen weekly wage declines over this period. In fact, they have all seen wage growth during this period.
The Federal Reserve reports that blacks are also alone in showing a loss of wealth from 2004 to 2007. During this period, the net worth of white households increased 10 percent, but the net worth of blacks declined by 24 percent. It is likely that the decline in the black homeownership rate from 2004 to 2007 is driving this finding.
In 2007, the impact of the foreclosure crisis was only beginning to be felt. The AARP Policy Institute estimates that the black foreclosure rate is about three times that of the white rate [PDF]. This higher black foreclosure rate will likely mean that the black-white wealth gap will continue to increase because of the proportionally greater loss of homes among blacks.

Fewer jobs, declining wages, and less wealth all spell increases in black poverty and economic hardship. Unfortunately, it will probably take at least four years before blacks recover from the economic impact of the Great Recession. We should not be surprised if it takes even longer.

More jobs, fewer foreclosures and greater investments in black communities will lessen the economic pain blacks will experience and quicken the black economic recovery. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) is one organization that appears to be focused on helping the communities that are hardest hit by the Great Recession. On June 11th, NCRC is planning a national day of action for Jobs and Homes Now! More needs to be done, but this action seems like a good start.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

The Blindness of Color Blindness

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
________________________________________________________________________

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
--U.S. Supreme Court nominee, judge Sonia Sotomayor

Let me begin by saying that I disagree with the statement above. For example, it is possible for black person to have seen the poverty and discrimination experienced by blacks in the Jim Crow South and still become a “Clarence Thomas.” The best example of this is, of course, Clarence Thomas. The sad fact is that it is not uncommon to find people of color who are callous or exploitative to other people of color. There is no guarantee that a Latina woman Supreme Court judge would not be another “Clarence Thomas.”

Having said that, the attack on Sotomayor for making the above statement is ridiculous and outrageous. It is terrible that her long career is being reduced to one poorly-chosen sentence.

Ironically, the criticism of the Sotomayor sentence tends to make the sentence seem more valid than it is. The critics, unfortunately, most prominently white males, clearly don’t get it, when probably majorities among groups of color do.

Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Editon (May 30th) raised the question of whether a white man could say that a white man would be a better judge than a Latina woman and not be considered a racist. The logic behind this question has been the starting point of the criticism of Sotomayor. And this logic ignores all the sociological and historical facts. It assumes that we live in a world where white men and Latina women have equal opportunities for success and have always had it.

Christopher Metzler reports, “There have been 110 Supreme Court Justices, and of those only four have been other than White men.” There has never been a Latina Supreme Court Justice.

More generally, in 2007, the unemployment rate for Hispanic women was 1.5 times the rate for white men. Also that year, the median income for white men with a bachelor’s degree and no higher degree was $67,000. For Hispanic women with a bachelor’s degree it was $41,000. The white poverty rate was 8.2 percent in 2007; it was 21.5 percent for Hispanics that same year. These disparities did not just appear in 2007. They have been among the persistent racial disparities in American society.

Against the history where there has never been a Latina on the Supreme Court and where Hispanics generally experience discrimination and disadvantages, it should be understandable that an individual like Sotomayor might push strongly for greater inclusion of Latinas.

It is this current and historical advantage for white males and disadvantage for Latinas that make the similar statements by a white male and a Latina very different. A white male who claims that white men make better Supreme Court judges than Latinas when the Court has never had a Latina is arguing for the continued exclusion and marginalization of Latinas. A Latina making a similar sounding argument is making an argument to promote inclusion and opportunity. Only the colorblind fail to see this.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

The NAACP Debate

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

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

Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________

[In recent years, the belief that blacks are suffering from an epidemic of bad values and the rise of post-racialism has caused people to question the point and purpose of the NAACP and the need for black civil rights activism generally. People making these arguments, of course, haven't read Getting It Wrong to learn that there are only false racial stereotypes behind the cultural claims, and they are also ignorant of the ample evidence of persistent institutional racial discrimination like the fact that America's schools are still separate and unequal. Below is the recent debate in the Washington Post.]

Why We Should Get Rid of the NAACP

By Jonetta Rose Barras
Sunday, April 19, 2009

Watching the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's annual Image Awards in February, I found myself asking the question I always ask: Why, in an age of integration, do blacks still need our own Oscar-like program to honor "the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts"? Come to think of it, why do we even need the NAACP?

The organization is as anachronistic as colored-only water fountains and white-only bathrooms. Its racial focus perpetuates the evils it claims it wants to eradicate, and its audiovisual rendering of America as "them vs. us" abets the nation's balkanization.
Complete statement.

Why an NAACP? Because Racial Inequality Remains

Monday, April 27, 2009
By Julian Bond and Benjamin Todd Jealous

We look forward to when we can agree with why we should get rid of the NAACP ["Ten Things We Should Toss," Outlook, April 19], but unfortunately that day has not come.

The unemployment rate for blacks remains twice that for whites. Yet studies reveal that there is no variable -- neither education, test scores nor experience -- that provides a scientific rationale. In two studies, white employers preferred white males with criminal backgrounds to equally qualified African American men without them. Take any indicator, and a portrait of racial inequality is painted.
Complete letter.

Why We Still Need the NAACP

Friday, May 22, 2009
By Charles J. Ogletree Jr.

In her April 19 contribution to the Outlook feature "10 Things We Should Toss," Jonetta Barras asked: "Why do we even need the NAACP?" Let me count the ways.

Despite her claim that we are "in an age of integration," most African Americans live in segregated communities. The average black child attends a school that is racially segregated and where more than half the students are poor. Blacks make up 13 percent of our nation's population but 40 percent of the prison population, in part because of gross disparities between sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession.

In 2001, the average black male worker earned 72 cents to every dollar earned by a white male. African Americans have a lower life expectancy than whites, are more likely to be uninsured and are less likely to be treated aggressively for illnesses. Although the Voting Rights Act is now more than 40 years old, public officials still shamelessly attempt to suppress the African American vote during every election cycle.
Complete letter.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

NY State Health Care System Failing 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
Barnes & Noble.com Amazon.com
________________________________________________________________________


A detailed analysis of state-provided data has found racial disparities in health care among the three million New Yorkers in the state’s public insurance programs. According to the analysis, which was released by the Community Service Society, blacks experienced health outcomes that were significantly worse statistically in 10 out of 12 measures that the State Department of Health uses in quality assurance, including dental visits, asthma management, mammography and almost all diabetes indicators.
[Read more.]

Employment for College Grads Improves, But Not for Blacks

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

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

Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________


College graduates from all racial groups experienced a decline in their unemployment rate from March to April--except for blacks. In March, blacks with a bachelor's or higher degree were already suffering significantly more from unemployment than other groups. In April, the unemployment rate for college-educated blacks increased while the rate for all other groups decreased.

For whites with bachelor's degrees, the April unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, down 0.2 percentage points from March. For Hispanics, the April rate was 4.5 percent, down 0.5 percentage points from March. For Asian Americans, it was 4.2 percent in April, down 0.8 percentage points from March.

The April unemployment rate for black college graduates was 7.5 percent, up 0.3 percentage points from March. The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the black college-grad unemployment rate is trending upward while for all other groups it appears to be trending downward.

The unemployment rate data for the college-educated is not adjusted for seasonal fluctuations. Because of this problem, it is more accurate to make comparisons of the same month from different years. It's useful to compare April 2007--before the recession began--with April 2009.

The increase in the college-educated unemployment rate for whites from March 2007 to March 2009 was 2.2 percentage points. The increase from April 2007 to April 2009 was 2.0 percentage points. This month-to-month analysis also suggests improving conditions for whites--a decline from 2.2 percentage points to 2.0 percentage points.

The comparable analysis for college-educated blacks is distressing. The March 2007 to March 2009 increase was 4.5 percentage points. The April 2007 to April 2009 increase was 5.4 percentage points. Again, we see worsening conditions for college-educated blacks, an increase from 4.5 percentage points to 5.4 percentage points.

Much additional research is necessary to identify exactly why college-educated blacks are being pummeled so badly by the Great Recession. One idea that can be dismissed is the idea that black college grads are choosing the wrong majors. This hypothesis was raised when I first pointed out the worse conditions for college-educated blacks.

A quick look at the data on fields of study for bachelor's degrees by race from the Digest of Education Statistics shows that blacks and whites are very similar in terms of college majors. In 1993, the first on-line year for the Digest, the most popular black major was business. A quarter of all black bachelor's degrees awarded was in this field. The most popular major for whites was also business with a 22 percent of all white bachelor's degrees in this field.

In 2006, the year of the most recent data from the Digest, it was still the case that business was the most popular black field of study, and it was also still the case that a quarter of all black bachelor's degrees was in business. Business was also still the most popular white major with a fifth of all white bachelor's degrees awarded in this field.

Some people incorrectly assume that black college students flood Black Studies Departments. In 1993, only 1 percent of black bachelor's degrees was in "area, ethnic and cultural studies" (the Digest's category). In 2006, still only 1 percent of black bachelor's degrees was in "area, ethnic, cultural and gender studies." In contrast, for both blacks and whites about a fifth of all degrees in 1993 and 2006 were in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

While nonblack college graduates have been experiencing an improving employment situation in recent months, the situation continues to worsen for black college graduates. It is not clear specifically why this is occurring, but it does illustrate the fact that even in the age of Obama blacks still have a more difficult time finding work than other groups.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

NCLB is Not Working

Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”
--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.

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


The long-term trend version of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the best measure of how black students are doing academically over time. The results from last year's NAEP exams were released Wednesday, and they provide more evidence that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is not working.

The good news from the most recent long-term NAEP is that black students made slight increases in their 2008 average scores relative to the prior assessment in 2004. None of the recent increases were significant, however. The increases are still worth nothing because there have been periods where there have been declines in black scores. In other words, the results could have been much worse.

In contrast to the most recent results, from 1999 to 2004, younger black students made big gains in their NAEP scores. The long-term trend NAEP is given to 9 year olds, 13 year olds and 17 year olds. The black-white gap for 9 year olds in math was 28 points in 1999. From 1999 to 2004, in math, black 9 year olds increased their average score 13 points--nearly half the size of the black-white gap. Black 13 year olds increased their math score 11 points, but black 17 year olds only increased their score 2 points.

Proponents of NCLB, which started in 2002, claimed that the big gains from 1999 to 2004 were evidence that the Act was working. Research by the Civil Rights Project showed that the increase in test scores were likely due to factors other than NCLB. The fact that the gains in test scores have stalled from 2004 to 2008 while NCLB has continued supports the Civil Rights Project argument. NCLB isn't working.

Although black students made big gains from 1999 to 2004, this improvement did little to change the overall black-white test score gap because white students made roughly equivalent test score gains. Reducing the test-score gap is important, but we should also celebrate the black 1999-2004 test-score increases even if they did not substantially reduce the gaps.

Still, what can be done to eliminate the black-white test-score gap?

The scholarly evidence continues to mount that economic disparities cause educational disparities. It seems unlikely that we will be able to eliminate the test-score gap while economic inequality between blacks and whites remains so great. The black-white income and wealth gaps are large. In 2007, for every dollar of income the average white household had, the average black household only had 62 cents. For every dollar of assets the average white household held, the average black household only held 10 cents.

Researchers have found that more than half of the achievement gap can be attributed to economic and educational differences between black and white parents. Other factors relating to the differences in the educational opportunities provided to black and white children account for much of the remaining gap.

The NAEP gains from 1999 to 2004 may be an example of the importance of economic factors. The early childhood years are especially important for future educational achievement. From 1995 to 2000, blacks increased their employment rate, experienced income gains, and had dramatically declining rates of poverty. The children whose early childhood years were during this period of increasing economic prosperity showed the biggest gains in the long-term NAEP. The black 9 year olds who had the largest test-score gains in 2004 were born in 1995, just as the economic good times began.

In the late 1990s, blacks were not the only ones experiencing economic good times. Whites also benefitted from a strong economy, and the white children born in 1995 also showed large test-score gains. The matching white increase in test-scores is the reason why the black student test-score gains did not lead to significant reductions in the test-score gap.

We need to increase job opportunities in poor black communities and see that black workers earn equivalent salaries to comparable white workers. A new Urban Institute study finds that in the low-wage labor market, black workers earn 12 percent less than similar white workers. Until we address the black-white income and wealth gaps, I have little hope that we will be able to reduce the black-white test-score gap.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Short Takes: Unemployment, Incarceration, Discrimination Enforcement

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

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

Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________

Among College-Educated, Blacks Hit Hardest by Recession

Fifteen months into a deep recession, college-educated white workers still had a relatively low unemployment rate of 3.8% in March of this year. The same could not be said for African Americans with four-year degrees. The March 2009 unemployment rate for college-educated blacks was 7.2%—almost twice as high as the white rate—and up 4.5 percentage points from March 2007, before the start of the current recession (see chart). Hispanics and Asian Americans with college degrees were in between, both with March 2009 unemployment rates of 5%. [Read More]

Decline in Blacks Incarcerated for Drug Offenses

• The number of African Americans in state prisons for a drug offense declined by 21.6% from 1999-2005, a reduction of more than 31,000 persons.
• The number of whites incarcerated for a drug offense rose significantly during this period, an increase of 42.6%, representing an additional 21,000 persons in prison.

[Read the report summary] [Full report, PDF]

Among the things too many of the pundits missed was the large decline in crime over the 1990s. A new report, The Changing Racial Dynamic of the War on Drugs reveals another facet of that decline--the decline in blacks incarcerated for drug offenses. In 1999, 144,700 blacks were in state prison for drug offenses. In 2005, the number was 113,500. This change reduced the shared of blacks incarcerated in state prisons for drug offenses from 57.6 percent to 44.8 percent. This is a substantial decline and it should be celebrated.

Nonetheless, there are still too many blacks--as well as people of other races--incarcerated for drug offenses. Marc Mauer, the author of the report, observes "the number of people incarcerated for a drug offense is [still] greater than the number incarcerated for all offenses in 1980." He adds:

Overall, two-thirds of persons incarcerated for a drug offense in state prison are African American or Latino. These figures are far out of proportion to the degree that these groups use or sell drugs. A wealth of research demonstrates that much of this disparity is fueled by disparate law enforcement practices. In effect, police agencies have frequently targeted drug law violations in low-income communities of color for enforcement operations, while substance abuse in communities with substantial resources is more likely to be addressed as a family or public health problem.

While the number and share of blacks incarcerated for drug offenses declined, the number and share for whites increased. These findings did not completely surprise me because, in 2007, I noted the following in an op-ed [PDF]:

Another important source is the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN). DAWN tracks illicit drug use among visitors to emergency rooms in major metropolitan areas. DAWN’s numbers for substance abuse increased by nearly 50 percent between 1995 and 2002. A large part of this increase was due to white people. The number of whites visiting emergency rooms with cocaine in their system, for example, doubled from about 40,000 in 1995 to about 80,000 in 2002. There were no significant increases among blacks or Hispanics.

The trends that Mauer found among whites matches the trends in the DAWN database.

Discrimination Cases Up, Number of Anti-Discrimination Enforcers Down

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, charged with enforcing the nation's job discrimination laws, is facing its largest caseload in at least a quarter-century with sharply diminished staffing and resources, according to commission and union officials.

More than 95,400 charges of job bias in the private sector were filed in fiscal year 2008, up 15.2 percent from the previous year and up 26 percent from 2006. But the size of the EEOC staff, which is responsible for investigating the complaints, has steadily decreased in size and now numbers 2,192, down from approximately 2,850 in 2000. [Read more] [Some graphs]



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Getting Behind the Black-White Achievement Gap

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
________________________________________________________________________


More than half a century after the Brown decision, the majority of black students still attend racially segregated and inferior schools. By a variety of measures, but perhaps most importantly in terms of teacher quality, the larger the percentage of black students in the school the lower the overall quality of teachers. Teacher quality matters for academic achievement. Below are some short takes on some other factors that lead to lower academic achievement among blacks.

Black children are much more likely to grow up in poverty or to suffer from economic hardship than white children. Anyone who discounts the social and economic disadvantage that black children experience when thinking about the black-white academic-achievement gap is simply getting it wrong.

Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research by Gordon Dahl and Lance Lochner (Working Paper 14599, December 2008) reconfirms the finding that family income matters for academic achievement. Dahl and Lochner use a methodology that strengthens the causal claim that increases in family income lead to higher academic achievement for children. The researchers also find that “achievement for minorities (blacks or Hispanics) responds more to additional income than does achievement for whites. Achievement for children with low educated mothers increases more with income than does the achievement of children with more educated mothers.” Therefore, socioeconomic disadvantage appears to be a greater factor in low black student achievement than in low white student achievement. The researchers also find that income matters more the younger the child is and that income levels have to be maintained to have a continued effect.

A study discussed in The Economist, April 4th 2009, suggests ideas to fill in some of the missing pieces in Dahl and Lochner’s research. The study by Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that poor children are more likely to experience stress and that stress makes it harder for children to learn. The stress relationship suggests why a income level has to be maintained overtime to have a persistent effect. Increasing income one year and removing it another year is likely to increase stress the second year and lower academic achievement. The higher income must be maintained to sustain the lower stress level.

The Evans and Schamberg study was done on a sample of white youth only. One could imagine that black youth, poor and non-poor, might have higher stress levels than comparable white youth because of racial prejudice and discrimination. Additionally, even controlling for income, black families have much less wealth than whites and thus, in this sense, are still poorer than white families. The evidence is very strong that the socioeconomic disparities between black and white students are a factor behind the academic achievement gap.

Children in middle-class families are advantaged not only in income but they also tend to have more highly-educated parents, attend higher-quality schools from pre-kindergarten to college, and they also have more intellectually enriching extracurricular activities. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times reviewed the research on class and I.Q. this past week.

A number of studies have shown that I.Q. is malleable and responsive to education and one's social environment. Kristof reported that "when poor children are adopted into upper-middle-class households, their I.Q.’s rise by 12 to 18 points, depending on the study." Also, "The Milwaukee Project . . . took African-American children considered at risk for mental retardation and assigned them randomly either to a control group that received no help or to a group that enjoyed intensive day care and education from 6 months of age until they left to enter first grade. By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q."

I am generally skeptical of attempts to improve black outcomes through self-esteem. Many pop psychologists making this claim fail to note that blacks have higher global self-esteem than whites. On the other hand, blacks may have lower self-esteem related to academic matters specifically. The work on "stereotype threat" shows that black students can be psyched-out by racial stereotypes when taking an exam and do worse than they are capable of. It seems that researchers have found a way to psyche-up black students so that they perform to their full potential.

It is clear that black students face a number of social, economic and even psychological disadvantages that affect their academic performance. When intellectuals and policymakers ignore these facts they are doing a tremendous disservice to black students.


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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Restaurant Work in NYC: Tough Jobs for Women and People of Color

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

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

Contact Dr. Austin to arrange a speaking engagement.
________________________________________________________________________


Restaurant workers rate their work among the lowest in job satisfaction. A new report The Great Service Divide: Occupational Segregation and Inequality in the New York City Restaurant Industry [PDF] by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York shows some reasons why this might be—particularly for women and people of color. The report documents in great detail racial and gender-based discrimination both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Although “the [restaurant] industry employed an estimated 12.8 million workers nationwide, making it the nation’s largest employer outside of government,” reading The Great Service Divide one gets that sense that the industry still operates by the rules of the Wild West. Employers and high-paid restaurant workers seem to be able to do whatever they want, at least in New York City.

Practices toward women are blatantly sexist, if not outright violations of sex discrimination law. Here are some actual “job descriptions”:

Hello Ladies!: “Do you have a fit appearance? Are you naturally cute or just drop dead gorgeous? Like being flirtatious? Is provocative and demure your natural aura? Like to get a little wild? Please respond with recent picture (must be within the last 3 months)…”

Wine Enthusiast: “…Seeking attractive, outgoing, wine enthusiast to recommend and serve fine wines… enjoy stimulating conversation with upscale clientele… experience a plus, but not necessary, will train. Please forward resume with photo.”

The authors of the report point out that when employers rely heavily on appearance for the women they hire but not for men, they are, in fact, violating the law.

In addition to the sexism of job descriptions for women that read like escort ads, there are other gender-related problems. It is mainly white men who decide who is and is not attractive, which means that it is mainly white women, U.S.-born and European-born, who are deemed attractive. Generally, it is only the most exceptionally beautiful nonwhite women, by mainstream standards, who make it into the higher-paying front-of-the-house positions in the elite New York City restaurants.

After reading the “job descriptions,” it is not surprising to find that women experience sexual harassment.

One woman recalled her employer saying, “Come in something low cut, something sexy baby.” Another female recounted a similar experience, stating she was sent home for coming in with a turtleneck. When asked what happened when sexual harassment occurred, one male worker said, “Obviously management’s not going to do anything about it because it’s management doing it most of the time…It’s huge, and it stems from the top.”

Because sexism and sexual harassment seems to pervade the industry, many women feel that there is little that they can do about it.

The Great Service Divide also documents discrimination through audit or matched pair tests. When sending matched pairs of white and testers of color out to apply for work, testers of color were less likely to be granted an interview and those who did receive interviews were then less likely to be hired as waiters or waitresses in New York City’s elite restaurants. The tests were designed so that the person of color would be slightly more qualified than the white person.

Analyzing 2000 Census data, the researchers found that female workers earned 21.8 percent less than comparable male workers. Workers of color earned 11.6 percent less than white workers, and immigrant workers earned 9.7 percent less than non-immigrants.

The Great Service Divide provides a rich and insightful look into the scary world of New York City restaurant work. As the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York shows, the restaurant industry needs a great deal of monitoring and regulation. The report concludes with detailed policies for employers and policymakers.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Formerly Incarcerated Black Women and the Anti-Black Labor Market

Dr. Algernon Austin is available to lecture on "Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama." Analyzing and reviewing unemployment data, audit studies, and wage analyses, he shows that it is not a "culture of failure" that holds blacks back, but persistent anti-black discrimination.

Contact him for more details.
________________________________________________________________________


In 2007, there were over 200,000 women in prison or in jail. Of these women, nearly a third were black, giving black women an incarceration rate that approached four times the white female rate (see Prison Inmates at Midyear 2007, [PDF] Tables 9 and 10). The large and growing numbers of women, and particularly women of color, in America's prisons and jails led researchers at Henderson Center for Social Justice at the UC Berkeley School of Law to assess the effect of a criminal record and race on women's employment prospects [PDF]. This question has been asked of men, but to my knowledge this was the first investigation of these issues for women.

The study builds on the work of some recent discrimination studies that have received a fair amount of media attention. It employs a variation of the paired-tester or audit methodology. This methodology presents equivalent information from job applicants in the same manner to employers. The job applicants are therefore the same as candidates except for race or a criminal record. By doing this testing, researchers can determine is employers tend to be biased based on race or a criminal record.

Probably the most famous of the recent paired-tester research is by Devah Pager and Bruce Western. They found that formerly incarcerated men were less likely to receive call-backs for interviews or job offers from employers. Black men were also less likely to receive favorable responses than white men. The surprising finding was that black men without a criminal record were treated about the same as white men with a criminal record.

Instead of using actual people to visit employers and apply for jobs, the Henderson Center researchers decided upon another now famous methodology. They sent similar résumés to employers but with names commonly assumed to be of a particular racial group. This technique was used by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan in their study, "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?" Bertrand and Mullainathan found that "white" names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews than "black" names.

The Henderson Center researchers sent out comparable résumés to employers in the Bay Area of California with a subtle indications that some of the women were formerly incarcerated. They found, as the research of men did, that a criminal record significantly lowered the rates of positive responses.

The study was not large enough for strong conclusions on racial disparities, but it does suggest that black women have the most difficult time finding work in the Bay Area labor market. Résumés with "black" names were less likely to receive callbacks for an interview than those with "white" names. Among the formerly incarcerated, "black" résumés also did worse than "white" ones. The surprise in this study is that "black" women with and without a criminal record appeared to do equally poorly. In other words, it appeared as if all "black" women were treated as if they were black ex-offenders. Unlike in the study of men, "white" women with a record did better than, not equal to, "black" women. Again, because of the relatively small sample size, there is a potentially large margin of error in these findings. We need other researchers to replicate and refine this study with a larger sample to provide us with more solid results.

Some people believe that anti-black discrimination in the labor market is something that ended in the 1960s. If it does exist today, these people say that it is just a few bad apples. Collectively, these studies and as well as a large body of additional research shows that anti-black discrimination continues to be a reality across the country.

The data for the Pager and Western studies were collected in 2001 and 2004 in Milwaukee and New York City respectively. The data for the Bertrand and Mullainathan study was collected from 2001 to 2002 in Boston and Chicago. The data for the Henderson Center study was collected in 2008 in the Bay Area of California. The only way someone arrives at the idea that America is post-racial is by making a conscious effort to ignore all of the research showing the contrary.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Time for a Serious Debate about Drug Legalization

With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?

In response to this question from his online Town Hall, Obama's answer was a simple no. This answer may have been good for momentarily appeasing some on the political right, but it did not wrestle with the seriousness of the question.

The Huffington Post fleshed out the issue with a remark from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:

Despite the president's flippant comments today, the grievous harms of marijuana prohibition are no laughing matter. Certainly, the 800,000 people arrested last year on marijuana charges find nothing funny about it, nor do the millions of Americans struggling in this sluggish economy. It would be an enormous economic stimulus if we stopped wasting so much money arresting and locking people up for nonviolent drug offenses and instead brought in new tax revenue from legal sales, just as we did when ended alcohol prohibition 75 years ago during the Great Depression.

From The Economist, March 7th, 2009:

In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to leaglise drugs.

"Least bad" does not mean good. Legalisation, though clearly better for producer countries, would bring (different) risks to consumer countries. As we outline below, many vulnerable drug-takers would suffer. But in our view, more would gain.

From Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, March 27th, 2009:

It's an indictment of our fact-averse political culture that a statement of the blindingly obvious could sound so revolutionary. "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters on her plane Wednesday as she flew to Mexico for an official visit. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border . . . causes the deaths of police, of soldiers and civilians."

. . .

First, though, let's be honest with ourselves. This whole disruptive, destabilizing enterprise has one purpose, which is to supply the U.S. market with illegal drugs. As long as the demand exists, entrepreneurs will find a way to meet it. The obvious demand-side solution -- legalization -- would do more harm than good with some drugs, but maybe not with others. We need to examine all options. It's time to put everything on the table, because all we've accomplished so far is to bring the terrible violence of the drug trade ever closer to home.

If we are lucky, some day we will conduct a serious analysis and debate about decriminalizing drugs.

More Than Just Bonuses

Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”
--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.

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


The outrage over the AIG bonuses runs the risk of missing the larger point of the increasing income inequality in America. The culture-of-poverty argument about the black poor also misses this development. Since the 1970s, the wealth created by the American economy has been increasingly concentrated among the richest Americans. We can see this shift by looking at the minimum wage and the wages for workers by decile.

In 1968, the minimum wage was $7.63 in 2005 dollars [PDF]. In 2005, it had declined by about a third to $5.15. The minimum wage serves as a floor for all low wages. When it moves up, it pushes up the wages of workers earning just above the minimum wage. When it declines, the reverse happens. These workers at the bottom of the wage distribution are disproportionately black.

In 1975, workers at the 90th percentile of the wage distribution earned 3.8 times [PDF] what workers at the 10th percentile did. By 2005, the ratio had increased to 4.5. A similar trend occurred with the ratio of the 90th percentile and the 50th percentile. That ratio went from 1.9 in 1975 to 2.3 in 2005. Again, the workers in the lower half of the wage distribution are disproportionately black.

When the poverty punditry talks about black poverty without paying any attention to economics, they are "getting it wrong." The increasing income inequality that America has experienced since the 1970s is one reason why the black poverty rate is so high.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Another Black Public Intellectual Gets It Wrong

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
________________________________________________________________________

[Stanford University law professor, Richard Thompson Ford, whose bio states that he is a regular contributor to Slate, came to my attention because of his review of William Julius Wilson's new book More Than Just Race in the New York Times Book Review. In Ford's review, he makes all of the "classic" mistakes that I identify in Getting It Wrong. The following is an open letter to him.]


Dear Professor Ford:

The second sentence of your New York Times book review of William Julius Wilson's More Than Just Race states: "The poverty, violence and hopelessness in America’s inner cities have become increasingly dire in the four decades since the height of the civil rights movement." This statement is not correct.

The Census Bureau reports that in 1966 the black poverty rate was 41.8 percent. In 2007, it was 24.5 percent, 17.3 percentage points lower than in 1966. The Center for Disease Control's Health, United States, 2008 reports that in 1970 the age-adjusted homicide rate for black men was 78.2 for every 100,000 men. In 2005, it was 37.3 per 100,000. For black females, the 1970 homicide rate was 14.7 and 6.1 in 2005. Many of the leading black public intellectuals are nostalgic for the past, but this is only because they do not accurately remember how rough the 1960s and 1970s were.

Just about every leading black public intellectual who discusses the black poor recently gets these and other basic facts wrong. The consensus among these black elites is that there is an epidemic of bad behavior among lower-income blacks that has led to a big increase in black poverty. Juan Williams states, "too many poor and low-income black people are not taking advantage of opportunities to get themselves out of poverty." Cynthia Tucker claims, "drug use, poor classroom performance and the embrace of outlaw culture have done nothing but cement the black underclass at the bottom of American society." Henry Louis Gates argues that America now has "the largest [black] underclass in our history" and "it’s time to concede that, yes, there is a culture of poverty." You see that your second sentence fits with this theme.

Apparently, none of these commentators took much time to examine the black poverty trends. Over the 1990s, when lower-income blacks were supposedly mired in a culture of poverty, they experienced the largest reduction in black poverty since the 1960s. In 1992, the black poverty rate was 33.4 percent. By 2000, it had reached its lowest level on record, 22.5 percent. The culture-of-poverty idea or the "tangle of pathology" as William Julius Wilson has called it does not help us understand this historic decline in black poverty.

It is my hypothesis that Wilson's work (as well as the work of others over the 1980s and early 1990s) is a major factor in why black public intellectuals keep getting the facts wrong about black America. Wilson's underclass theory shifted the analysis of poverty away from an economic theory of poverty to a cultural theory of poverty. People spend less time looking at economic data and more time looking for "evidence" of bad black behavior which, according to underclass theory, has been on the rise since the 1960s. Gates reported that America has "the largest [black] underclass in our history" in the middle of the historic 1990s decline in black poverty.

Please be aware that I am not just playing a silly game of gotcha. Blacks are much more likely to be poor than whites. But if we wish to reduce black poverty, we absolutely have to understand the 1990s decline. The only way we can have further reductions in black poverty is to know what works. The immensely popular culture-of-poverty idea does not.

You are based at Stanford University. I would like to direct your attention to a short article in Pathways magazine. Pathways is a publication of the Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality. The Winter 2009 issue has a short article discussing research on the change in child poverty over the 1990s in 12 advanced countries including the United States. The Pathways piece concludes: "Much headway against child poverty can be made by combining full employment policy with aggressive income transfers." These are important findings that one sees over and over again in the economic analysis of poverty. Unfortunately, this knowledge seems to have been lost among the leading black public intellectuals in their culture-of-poverty haze. If we wish to reduce black poverty, we need to return to an economic analysis of poverty and heed its lessons.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Less Crime, Lower Costs: The Smart-on-Crime Approach

We can have lower crime rates, a less expensive criminal justice system, and more humane criminal justice policies. This was the message of a summit convened by Representative Robert Scott of Virginia on March 3rd. Representative Scott brought together a panel of researchers, advocates and criminal justice professionals to highlight smart-on-crime approaches to crime prevention, sentencing and ex-offender reentry. Representatives Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island and John Conyers Jr. of Michigan were also present to show their support for smart-on-crime approaches.

The U.S. criminal justice system is without a doubt the least effective and most expensive criminal justice system among advanced countries. Our incarceration rate is about seven times the rate of other advanced countries. One might think that with this extraordinarily high incarceration rate we would have a relatively low crime rate. This is not the case. We have a slightly above average overall crime rate among advanced nations. In other words, most of the Western developed world has policies that produce both less crime and less incarceration than in the United States. Our tough-on-crime approach has succeeded in providing us with the worst possible outcomes. Although the tough-on-crime approach has failed us for more than three decades, we continue to think that if we become even tougher on crime we will somehow produce different results.

The panelists assembled by Representative Scott showed clearly that there is a better way: smart-on-crime. What smart-on-crime means is that, as a first step, we need to increase our use of scientifically-proven programs that prevent individuals from ever beginning involvement in crime. If we prevent people from ever committing crime, there are fewer crime victims, lower criminal justice costs and more people working instead of languishing in prisons. A society with fewer criminals—not more inmates—is the absolute best for everyone.

Brian Bumbarger of the Prevention Research Center at Penn State University presented the audience with a menu [PDF] of rigorously-evaluated programs that prevent youth from engaging in criminal activity. Big Brothers/Big Sisters reduces youths’ likelihood of becoming involved in crime and increases student test scores. For a societal standpoint, when the criminal-justice savings are factored in, any investment in Big Brothers/Big Sisters ultimately pays for itself. The Nurse-Family Partnership program targets at-risk pregnant mothers for prenatal health care and for personal-development and parenting-skills training. This program reduces the likelihood of substance abuse and child abuse by the mother and dramatically improves child outcomes. For every dollar invested in this program, the societal financial benefit is over $3. It was mentioned at the summit that many youth in foster care end up in prison. But when foster care is paired with effective treatment programs through Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care the likelihood of a child in foster care becoming involved in crime is significantly reduced. For every dollar spent on this program, the societal benefit is more than $11. These are just a few of the options we have if we ever decide that we are serious about reducing crime and saving money.

The better an ex-offender reintegrates into mainstream society, the more likely the person is to give up on criminal activities permanently. Unfortunately, as part of our tough-on-crime mentality, we continue to devise ways to prevent the formerly incarcerated from living normal lives. Even after an individual has done the time for a particular crime, we find ways to punish them over and over again. At the summit, Margaret Love of the American Bar Association reported on an over-200-page report [PDF] which documents all of the federal laws and regulations that limit the access of people who have paid their debt to society to housing, voting, employment and social benefits. These tough-on-crime policies ultimately work to increase crime by preventing the reintegration of the formerly incarcerated.

One of the most important things to keep someone who was incarcerated from re-offending is a job. The Eastern District of Missouri has redefined the role of probation officers as Doug Burris, the chief probation officer, reported. In that district, the probation officers actively assist the formerly incarcerated in finding work. The officers have been highly successful at finding ex-offenders work and keeping them from re-offending. An evaluation of the Eastern District's program found that while the recidivism rate was 68 percent nationally, it was only 15 percent in the Eastern District. Jobs fight crime.

Representative Scott has done the country a service by highlighting the work of many people who are developing smart-on-crime strategies. These strategies will make our communities safer and save us money—if we ever manage to wean ourselves off of the failed tough-on-crime approach.

Do We Need to Talk about Race?

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
________________________________________________________________________


Attorney General Eric Holder makes a number of interesting points in his remarks on Black History Month. Ultimately, though, I am always sour on the idea of conversations on race. The call to "have a conversation about race" is really a call to discuss why is there racial inequality in America. For Holder, it is specifically a question about black social and economic disadvantage.

I'm not convinced that many Americans know enough of the facts around black inequality to have a useful discussion. I've been pointing out, for example, that few of the leading black public intellectuals even know the basic facts about black poverty. For example, in his recent book, Juan Williams states, “too many poor and low-income black people are not taking advantage of opportunities to get themselves out of poverty,” in complete ignorance of the historic decline in black poverty over the 1990s. I think that most of the discussions that Williams' work has engendered has been harmful to black people.

I much prefer Holder's call for Americans to study black history. I would add that we also need to study the black present. If we could have discussions within and after some serious study of the issues that would be better.

Holder's remarks were greeted with hostility by many. This development is not completely surprising. The racial "conversations" in the online commentary to articles on racial inequality that I have noticed have often been hostile and at times blatantly racist. This fact reveals another problem with the "talk about race" idea.

People assume that if people talk honestly about racial inequality they will be able to come to a shared understanding and a happy compromise about the issues. They do not imagine a situation where everyone becomes more narrow-minded and hateful. But this alternative is certainly a possibility.

DuBois once phrased the question of black disadvantage as "How does it feel to be a problem?" pointing out how that question can be hurtful and inspire defensiveness. And the reversal of the question is "How does it feel to be an oppressor?" This question does not put whites at ease either. There is a reason people are avoiding the discussions Holder is calling for. These discussions can go wrong easily.

A better approach would be to try to have discussions about solutions to the causes of black inequality. For example, Holder mentions that racial relations have changed since the Brown decision. He should have also mentioned that our schools, however, are still separate and unequal. I wish that he had called for not an open discussion on "race" but for a discussion about what can be done to make our schools more integrated and equal. Even this discussion could go bad quickly, but I think the odds of it being productive are higher than a random open discussion.

We do need to have discussions on racial inequality to end racial inequality, but it is a minefield. People engaging in these discussions need to educate themselves and proceed with empathy and caution.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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

Hardships of the African-American Unemployed

Read about the hardships of the African-American unemployed.

Conservative Leaders Still Reject Reality

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 senior advisor to president George W. Bush] said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
Ron Suskind, 2004

"By almost every measure available . . . this recession is steeper than any in the last 40 years, including the harsh recession of the early 1980s," states Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, an organization that I also work for. By every measure except for the way conservative members of Congress have been behaving. They have played petty politics in holding up the economic recovery package while the rate of job losses has increased to about a half a million a month. Everyone seems to realize that we needed urgent action--a month ago--but them.

The global economic meltdown basically started in the United States, but the United States has lagged in implementing an economic stimulus package. The Center for American Progress reports that Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea have all passed stimulus packages ahead of the United States.

Conservative leaders are big on tax cuts, but the record of tax cuts in stimulating the economy is poor. The Bush administration cut taxes and yet the Bush years had the worst record for economic growth since World War II. Even the conservative economist and former Ronald Reagan advisor, Martin Feldstein, acknowledges that tax cuts are very weak when it comes to stimulating the economy. He states, "Experience shows that the money from such temporary, lump-sum tax cuts is largely saved or used to pay down debt. Only about 15 percent of last year's tax rebates led to additional spending." He adds, "The proposed business tax cuts are also likely to do little to increase business investment and employment." For those of us in the "reality-based community," pushing for more tax cuts in the recovery package and less spending, makes the package worse not better.

Conservative leaders do not seem to get that the point of a stimulus package is too spend money to jumpstart the economy. John McCain recently condemned the recovery package by saying, “This is not a stimulus bill; it is a spending bill.” Consumers are cutting back spending and businesses are cutting back spending causing the economy to tank. The point of a stimulus package is for the government to step in and increase spending rapidly in the hopes ending the downward economic spiral. Conservative leaders think that by limiting the amount of spending in the stimulus package they are somehow being fiscally responsible. How is prolonging and deepening an already severe recession fiscally responsible?

Judging from the statements of Rush Limbaugh, we cannot be certain that conservative leaders even know that we are facing a severe economic crisis. Last month, Limbaugh wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

There's a serious debate in this country as to how best to end the recession. The average recession will last five to 11 months; the average recovery will last six years. Recessions will end on their own if they're left alone. What can make the recession worse is the wrong kind of government intervention.

The current recession began in December of 2007, 13 months ago. In January, the U.S. economy lost nearly 600,000 jobs. This month was the worst so far for job losses. We have lost 3.6 million jobs in total and the recession is not likely to end any time soon, so why is Limbaugh even discussing recessions that last 11 months or less?

There are now 2.2 million blacks unemployed. Without an effective stimulus we could add another million blacks to the ranks of the unemployed before the economy begins to recover. Someone, somehow needs to get conservative leaders back into the "reality-based community" or else they will continue to make matters worse.



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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.

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