The writing is on the wall he said, HBCUs are seeing declining enrollment, they're having to turn to Whites and Asians to fill classes. There are statistics that show that Black and Latino boys have a 50-50 chance of graduating from high school. Universities across the nation are seeing lower enrollment numbers from Blacks and Latinos. My professor said he could keep on listing "facts". The "crisis" of the black family, surging single mother households, studies showing that "pairing up" is a biological imperative for a reason. His course description even includes the following phrase, "Today, nearly fifty years after his [WEBDuBois ] death, we face a national crisis in American education, with African Americans and Latinos dropping out of school at alarming rates."
This is a familiar narrative--Single Black Mothers (SBMs) raisin' their kids without "baby daddies," 50% of Black and Latinos not graduating from high school, the Young Black Angry "Super-Predators" and Black-on-Black crime. The interesting thing about an accepted narrative is it's rarely interrogated. For example, the 50-50 odds of graduating high school is from the Department of Education and is almost never questioned in the Corporate Media (or the Alternative Press for that matter). However, this "fact" differs substantially from tons of other "facts," including the highly respected National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) which gives far different numbers. The NELS is more accurate because it is a longitudinal study, i.e. it follows the same kids. The other stats look at the how many freshman graduate in 4 years, not taking into account the "freshman bulge". The "freshman bulge" does not refer to weight gain, but instead refers to the fact that many freshman are held back because of the pernicious phenomenon of social promotion throughout US elementary schools. The NELS shows that about 75% of blacks and Latinos graduate from high school. Of those blacks that do dropout, about 1/4 receive their GED, and about 10% of Latino dropouts get their GED (Rethinking High School Graduation Rates and Trends). Don't read me wrong, this isn't "ok," but it's also not the 50-50 you hear about. The Corporate Media seems to have a reverse "talented tenth" philosophy of racial representations. Middle Class blacks are nearly invisible in most of the Corporate Media ether. Blacks are dropouts, welfare queens, and super-predators.
How about that welfare queens pernicious fallacy? Black women are baby making machines, and have many "baby daddies," right? Wrong. Fertility rates among black women are almost the same as that of white women:
"For every 1000 white women 15-44 there are 66.5 live births, while for every 1000 black women that age there are 71.7.
"Indeed, the fertility rate for black women has fallen by more than half in the last forty years, such that the gap between black and white fertility has been slashed by nearly 80%, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The birthrate for unmarried black women--especially vilified by racist rhetoric--is at a forty-year low and the rate of babies born to black teenshasn ’t gone up one iota since 1920" (Race, Sex and Work: Examining White Lies About Black Americans by Tim Wise).
What about teenage ne'r-do-wells and their babies? Well, "six-tenths of one percent of black babies are born to women under the age of fifteen, and the birthrate for black teens 15-19 has dropped by a third since 1991. Overall, more than eight in ten black babies are born to mothers in their twenties or older, and the teen birthrate has fallen faster among black youth than any other racial group over the last decade" (Race, Sex and Work: Examining White Lies About Black Americans by Tim Wise).
Well, surely the "sky-rocketing" out-of-wedlock births is proof of the "crisis" that we all know is plaguing "Black America," right? 0 for 4 so far...
The reason for the increase in the share of black children born out-of-wedlock in recent decades is that two-parent black couples are having fewer children than ever, meaning that a growing share of the children who are born in the black community will be out-of-wedlock, even though sexual behaviorhasn ’t changed, and fertility rates among single black women have been falling.
Indeed, eighty percent of the increase in out-of-wedlock childbirths in the black community is because of the falloff in children born to intact black families: a falloff that has been even steeper than the decline among single moms.
Additionally, the apparent “increase” in out-of-wedlock children in single mother homes within the black community, and generally, is the result of the Census Bureau changing the methods used for counting such families in the first place.
Whereas single moms with kids who lived in extended family settings (such as living with their own parents) were historically not counted as separate family units, since the early 1980’s they have been. So even though such families may have existed for many years prior to the accounting switch, they would not have appeared in statistical data until more recently.
Putting aside the issue of just how “harmful” single-parent homes are (and evidence indicates that with the exception of the smaller income base thereisn ’t much difference between such homes and “intact” families, and indeed children in intact families are often less confident and well-adjusted), clearly the problems for black folks in this country are not the result of childbirth patterns (Race, Sex and Work: Examining White Lies About Black Americans by Tim Wise).
Then you have the "super-predator" mythology. This story holds that violent crime in America is the result of a generation of Angry Young Black Super-predators. The narrative began with the "crack epidemic" of the 1980s. From 1985 to 1990 the corporate Media was in an orgiastic feeding frenzy over the idea of a "crack epidemic." Dan Rather crawled through a "crack house." Hell, "crack house" became part of our national lexicon. So did "crack babies," and no wonder, with this hellish prediction from columnist Charles Krauthammer , “a cohort of babies is now being born whose future is closed to them from day one. Theirs will be a life of certain suffering, of probable deviance, of permanent inferiority. At best, a menial life of severe deprivation. And all of this is being biologically determined from birth." Of course that's not true, but the "crack epidemic" was a Corporate Media wet dream and just three years after crack hit the streets in 1984 (courtesy of the CIA) the Corporate Media had written over 1000 stories on a surging "crack epidemic" (Crack Babies Talk Back).
The crack-epidemic "accompanied" a steep rise in homicide rates in the black community. "Between 1984 and 1994, the homicide rate for black males aged 14 to 17 more than doubled, and the homicide rate for black males aged 18 to 24 increased nearly as much. During this period, the black community also experienced an increase in fetal death rates, low birth-weight babies, weapons arrests, and the number of children in foster care" (How Bad was Crack Cocaine?). University of Chicago economists Steven Levitt and Kevin Murphy have attempted to study the impact of crack cocaine on American communities during and after this "epidemic," and what they have found is truly food for thought. "Rather than the drug use itself, the greatest social costs of crack are associated with prohibition-related violence" (How Bad was Crack Cocaine?). This means that the true costs of the crack epidemic come not from the drug but from the Drug War. This "war" has led to the massive incarceration of non-violent drug offenders (many black and brown) and countless acts of police brutality and human rights violations within urban neighborhoods. According to the Department of Justice's Household Survey "'most current illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72 percent of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15 percent), and 1.4 million Hispanics (10 percent) who were current illicit drug users in 1998.' And yet, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations. African-Americans comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies; Hispanics account for 20.7%" (Drug War Facts).
Well, the crack epidemic that invaded Black America actually claimed more white users in 1998, "an estimated 971 thousand Americans used crack cocaine in 1998. Of those, 462 thousand were White, 324 thousand were Black, and 157 thousand were Hispanic" (Drug War Facts). The chief thing the crack epidemic did was reinforce an already existing myth that black men are violent and should be behind bars even as they represented a significantly smaller number of drug users, even within the crack market.
As the decade of crack ended a new spectre emerged to reinforce and justify absurdly high incarceration rates and gestapo-inspired, police-state policies like the CRASH units ofLos Angeles and the unrestricted violence of prison guards. In 1996, Rep. Bill McCollum warned the House of Representatives to "brace yourself for the coming generation of `super-predators'" (No Minor Matter). These super-predators were predicted by conservative pop-criminologists throughout the late 1990s. For example, James Q. Wilson, one of the hippest pop-criminologists of the late 1990s wrote in 1995 that "the first decade of the next century will see 30,000 more young muggers, killers, and thieves than we have now. Get ready'" (No Minor Matter). And former-White House head of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives and inventor of the 'super-predator' moniker warned ominously that "By the year 2010, there will be approximately 270,000 more juvenile super-predators on the streets than there were in 1990" (No Minor Matter). Well, they were all wrong. Violent crime decreased dramatically from 1995 to 2005. The National Crime Victimization Survey and Uniform Crime Reports records that serious violent crime has decreased from a twenty year high in 1993 to a thirty year low in 2004 (Bureau of Justice Statistics Four Measures of Serious Violent Crime).
Finally, there is the myth that blacks are lazy welfare junkies who do not wanna work but would rather "hang" on the "corners".
Yet the truth is that welfare dependence is hardly the norm--for black women or anyone else receiving public assistance. Even before the passage of punitive welfare reform, six in ten welfare families were leaving the rolls within two years, debunking the notion of long-term dependency as the norm for welfare recipients.
Indeed, two-thirds of women who receive welfare as children will never receive aid as adults and 81% whose mothers received AFDC for long periods never receive aid as adults. In other words, the notion ofintergenerational welfare dependence so commonly accepted is a false one.
Instead of welfare, the poor prefer work, yet often there are not enough jobs to go around that pay wages at or above the poverty line. In Central Harlem, one study found that there were fourteen applicants for every job opening in the area.
Nationally, in times of recession, there may be as many as seven to ten people out of work for every job opening above the poverty line. And since the Federal Reserve’s policy is to raise interest rates whenever unemployment drops below four percent--thereby freezing new hires--millions will be jobless, poor, and need welfare no matter their work ethic, solely because of this one monetary policy intended to keep wages and prices low.
Indeed, experience from around the country demonstrates that low-income people of color have work ethics that are no different from whites and those above the poverty line. In the early 1990’s, when a handful oflongshore jobs opened up in Los Angeles, 50,000 blacks and Latinos--mostly low income--showed up to apply.
In Cleveland, 15,000 unemployed welfare mothers and teenagers of color stood in the rain for four hours to get one of the minimum-wage temporary jobs cleaning up public parks.
In Chicago, 15,000 mostly low-income applicants of color applied for less than 4,000 temporary jobs.
In Baltimore, 75 openings at the Social Security Administration were met with 26,000 applications, mostly from blacks, and heavily from low-income citizens.
Far from relying on taxpayers for their livelihood, only one in ten blacks receive any form of cash welfare, and only about one in six receives food stamps. In fact, blacks who are eligible for the Food Stamp program are actually less likely than similar whites to apply for and receive such assistance.
As for black single moms, although they are twice as likely as white single moms to be in poverty, they are no more likely than white single moms to receive public assistance. What’s more, three out of four single black moms have jobs, further dispelling the notion that single mothers in the black community mostly choose to “live off welfare” (Race, Sex and Work: Examining White Lies About Black Americans by Tim Wise).
What is especially interesting about this is that the accepted narrative is not only wrong but that it is wrong in a really predictable way. Blacks are portrayed in ways that reinforce the idea that their behaviorally or culturally abnormal and that that is the reason for any lasting racial inequality. Of course, that's if you believe there is lasting racial inequality, which it turns out, the majority of whites do not believe.
In 2001 the Washington Post, the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University conducted a national survey that found that "whether out of hostility, indifference or simple lack of knowledge, large numbers of white Americans incorrectly believe that blacks are as well off as whites in terms of their jobs, incomes, schooling and health care" (Misperceptions Cloud Whites' Views of Blacks).
How does this happen??? Blacks are at the same time welfare-queens, super-predators, crack-baby-raising, ghetto-dwelling, high school dropouts, AND they are "as well off as well off as whites in terms of their jobs, incomes, schooling and health care." You gotta respect racism for its tenaciousness in the face of common sense. What's funny is that none of these things are true.
Not only are blacks not the ugly stereotype that is often seen in the Corporate Media, they also have not made the gains that whites claim.
"Blacks are far more likely to be without health insurance than whites. In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey found that blacks were nearly twice as likely as whites to be without health insurance" (Misperceptions Cloud Whites' Views of Blacks).
"About one in six blacks -- 17 percent -- have completed college, compared with 28 percent of all whites. And 88 percent of all whites are high school graduates, compared with 79 percent of all blacks 25 years old or older" (Misperceptions Cloud Whites' Views of Blacks).
"Blacks are about twice as likely as whites -- 23 versus 12 percent -- to hold lower-paying, less prestigious service jobs. Blacks also are more than twice as likely to be unemployed; in May, the jobless rate for blacks stood at 8 percent, compared with 3.8 percent among whites" (Misperceptions Cloud Whites' Views of Blacks).
"A 1997 report found that the median income of young two-parent black families had fallen by nearly half since 1973. What’s more, even black women who 'played by the rules,' and had no kids out-of-wedlock, saw their incomes fall 32% from 1972-1989, and have been unable to regain the lost ground since" (Race, Sex and Work: Examining White Lies About Black Americans by Tim Wise).
"Substantial differences persist between black and white earnings. The median household income for whites was $44,366 in 1999, compared with $27,910 for blacks. Fewer than three in 10 whites earn less than $25,000; nearly half of all blacks in 1999 earned less than that. And the poverty rate for African Americans is more than double the white rate" (Misperceptions Cloud Whites' Views of Blacks).
"Blacks were twice as likely to have reported having difficulties recently paying their rent or mortgage and about half as likely as whites to have money invested in stocks, bonds or mutual funds" (Misperceptions Cloud Whites' Views of Blacks).
As I wrote at the beginning of this post, my professor asked us pointedly, "what is the cause of the crisis in black education?" A classmate, a teacher in an urban school that is predominantly poor and working class (as well as black and Latino--what a shocking coincidence!) responded that it was "their mentality." Pushed on whose mentality she was referring to, she paused and sheepishlyresponded, "black people...not that I am a racist..."
"Not that I am a racist." That's when my hand shot up, cause let's face it, when you say something that needs to be followed with "not that I am a racist," odds are, you probably are. "Nothing personal, and I don't mean to attack you at all, but you are a racist. It's important that we admit it. I am too. I'm no member of the Klan, but I am a product of an American society that divides access to power, privilege, and opportunity along the line of race, always has, and always will. And no matter your good intentions, just living here means you breath in the smog of racism and it does affect you. So, I know you think you're being honest and I agree with you that you are. It took guts to say what you said, to admit that you think black people have some anti-educational mentality. But, that does make you a racist, and if we are here to grow and we are here be honest then let's start now by admitting that whether we like it or not we white people are almost surely racists, it's just some of us are in recovery. It's like AA, the first thing you have to do is admitt you have a problem, that's the first step."
That's what I should have said.
Stay tuned for the next installment of our ongoing docu-blog-drama "what is the cause of the crisis in black education?"
2 comments:
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