Study Shows Depth of Unemployment for Blacks in New York - NYTimes.com

Study Shows Depth of Unemployment for Blacks in New York - NYTimes.com

The headline on a new report tells the bad news: “Only One in Four Young Black Men in New York City Have a Job.” The report, prepared by the Community Service Society of New York, has other unhappy news about this group — that the unemployment rate for African-American men in New York, age 16 to 24, was 33.5 percent from January 2009 through June 2010, while the labor force participation rate was 38 percent.

“The recession has created a landscape of the unemployed and underemployed with particular catastrophic consequences for young African-American men,” said David R. Jones, president of the Community Service Society, an advocacy group for New York’s low-income residents. “Now young black men between 16 and 24 years have become the banner of hopelessness, particularly here in New York City.”

The report, written by Michelle Holder, a labor market analyst with the Community Service Society, noted that during the recession that began in December 2007, working-age black men suffered an especially large increase of unemployment. The jobless rate for that group jumped to 17.9 percent in 2009 from 9 percent in 2006. Among young men of all races, age 16 to 24, the overall jobless rate rose to 24.6 percent during the recession.

The report, entitled “Unemployment in New York City During the Recession and Early Recovery,” noted that the jobless rate for Hispanic men, age 16 to 24, rose to 24.7 percent during the recession, while their labor force participation rate was 42 percent. For all men age 16 to 24 in New York City, the jobless rate was 22.4 percent during the period studied, while the labor force participation rate was 42 percent. According to the report, women with less than a high school diploma had the lowest labor force participation rate of any group: 28 percent.

The group with the lowest jobless rate during the recession and the early part of the recovery — the recession ended in June 2009 — was Asian women, age 55 to 64. Their unemployment rate in 2009 was 4.5 percent, the report found.

Nearly 40 percent of black New Yorkers who had held a job previously were unemployed for more than 12 months during the recession and early part of the recovery. That compared with 24 percent for whites, 27 percent for Latinos and 26 percent for Asians. For men aged 55 to 64, 34 percent were unemployed for more than a year.

In one especially grim finding, the report noted that among black men in New York City age 16 to 24 who do not have a high school diploma, just one in 10 had a job. Ms. Holder wrote that the findings of her report were disturbing “because young African-American men without a job and without an adequate education become at-risk for involvement in the criminal justice system.”

She added, “We need to ensure that young men of color in New York City are achieving the basic educational requirements to either get a decent job or go on to college if they so choose.”

Related articles

• Only One In Four Young Black Men In New York Have A Job: Study (huffingtonpost.com)

Study: Barack Obama Seen as Being More Black Than White - BV Black Spin

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeStudy: Barack Obama Seen as Being More Black Than White - BV Black Spin

By Boyce Watkins, PhD

A recent study out of Harvard University has concluded that the typical adult American sees mixed-race Americans like Barack Obama and Halle Berry as being more black than white. The study, conducted by Arnold K. Ho, a doctoral student of Psychology at Harvard, says that even when bi-racial people are equally mixed with both the white and black races, they are seen as being more black than white.

Ho conducted the study with James Sidanius, a Professor of Psychology and African American studies, also at Harvard.

The authors interpret their findings to relate to the "one-drop rule," based on a 1662 law in Virginia that connected mixed-race individuals to their lower social class. Even as recently as 1985, a Louisiana court ruled that a woman with a black great-great-great-great grandmother could not claim that she was white on her passport.

"One of the remarkable things about our research on hypodescent is what it tells us about the hierarchical nature of race relations in the United States," Sidanius said. "Hypodescent against blacks remains a relatively powerful force within American society."

The work is published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study certainly opens the mind toward noticing the things that are typically left out of our consciousness. Racial divisions are so deeply entrenched in our society that they are accepted as part of our nation's default state of existence. Matters are made worse by the fact that African Americans have been so terribly miseducated about the horrors we've experienced in this country and our nation refuses to acknowledge how 400 years of sub-human treatment affects all of us today. One interesting example is the finding of a researcher that black babies were used as alligator bait during the 1800s. The researcher dug further into the matter after wondering why there are so many postcards from 100 years ago that featured black babies running away from hungry alligators.

I am not one to disagree with the conclusions of the scholars who conducted the Harvard study, given that their explanation for the findings seem quite plausible. Another possibility, however, is that skin complexion and hair texture may also play a role in how mixed race Americans are perceived. Given that we are used to seeing black people in all different shades, it's not out of the question that Halle and Barack are identified as being black primarily because they look like other black people.

One personal example of the strength of the black gene pool is my God daughter, who has a white grandmother, a bi-racial mother and a father from Ghana. There is nothing about her dark, beautiful skin that would make you think that she could possibly be one-quarter white. Now, if she looked white and called herself white, I can't imagine anyone challenging her self-identity. But her father's African blood seemed to step into her DNA and take over the whole party.

Another reason that Halle Berry and President Obama might be considered black is because they also identify themselves as being black. Perhaps it was social pressure or something even more sinister, but Barack Obama has never identified himself as anything other than a black man (although it may have cost him politically, since Republicans have consistently tried to radicalize his image), and the same is true for Halle Berry. If anything, it might be the case that mixed-race individuals are made to feel that they can't be proud of the white side of their family, for fear of being considered a sell-out. For example, Tiger Woods' world-famous "Cablinasian" remark to describe his pride in being of mixed race was met with ridicule from quite a few members of the African American community. So, while we cannot argue that black people have been consistently relegated to a lower socio-economic class, the truth is that black people also some ability to define ourselves.

More...

Related articles

• '1-drop rule' appears to persist for biracial individuals (eurekalert.org)
• Who's White? Who's Black? Who Knows? (healthland.time.com)
• Harvard Study Proves That Americans Still Use the 1-Drop Rule (alternet.org)
• '1-drop rule' appears to persist for biracial individuals (thegrio.com)

The Maddow Blog - Same old story, morning glory, young black males and reading proficiency

The Maddow Blog - Same old story, morning glory

I was complimented often on my reading proficiency as a young child -- but much too often, the accolades would arrive on a high note, the kind you hear when something surprises someone: "He reads/speaks so well!" I always wanted to live in a world where young black boys were expected to read and speak well, and so it stung like an insult.

It seems that we don't quite live in that world yet. A new report focusing on African-American males offered, sadly, more of the same:

Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

Poverty alone does not seem to explain the differences: poor white boys do just as well as African-American boys who do not live in poverty, measured by whether they qualify for subsidized school lunches.

American Prospect writer Jamelle Bouie examines the report, and calls for education reform. Ultimately, he's about as optimistic as I am about people giving a crap:

That everything contributes to the racial achievement gap is what makes it so difficult to narrow. Worse, there is absolutely no appetite -- among the public, in government, or in the media -- for pursuing a comprehensive solution to the racial achievement gap. When education reform doesn't work, we'll give up and with the thought that "nothing will change anyway." Of course, I could be wrong. But until other people start panicking about the near-50 percent black teen unemployment rate, I think it's safe to say that few people actually care.

____________________________________

So true, I used to always here this as a child "he reads so well". Upon moving from Brooklyn, New York to Staten Island, New York in 1962, the new school, P.S. 45 refused to accept my standardized reading test scores because they believed that it was impossible for them to be so high due to the fact they were higher than any of the students in the new, all white class.

John H. Armwood

Related articles

• Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected (politics.ie)
• Proficiency of black students found to be far lower than expected (thegrio.com)
• NYT: Black education gap looks even bleaker (msnbc.msn.com)

Poll: Hispanics give Barack Obama mixed marks - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com

Image via WikipediaPoll: Hispanics give Barack Obama mixed marks - Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com

Hispanic voters gave mixed marks to President Barack Obama in an election-eve poll released Wednesday -- an early sign that he has ground to make up with this constituency ahead of his 2012 reelection campaign.

Forty-nine percent of Hispanic voters said they approved of Obama’s handling of immigration, and 40 percent disapproved, according to the polling by Latino Decisions, which surveyed 3,200 voters in eight key states.

Thirty-nine percent said they would definitely support Obama in 2012, while 20 percent said they might and 29 percent said they wouldn’t back him for reelection.

“This is not a resounding endorsement and reflects frustration in the Latino community,” said Gary Segura, a senior researcher with Latino Decisions and Stanford University professor. “The president’s path to reelection with Latinos requires some work and investment of time.”

The findings provide a benchmark for Obama's support within the Hispanic community after months of contentious debate over the Arizona enforcement law and the collapse of immigration reform in Congress.

His overall job rating was 68 percent approve, 25 percent disapprove.

More...

Related articles

• Tuesday may produce new Latino stars (politico.com)