1. AFRICAN AMERICANS TODAY
CHAPTER 8

2. Education
African Americans place special importance on acquiring education
Racial and ethnic groups realize that formal schooling is key to social mobility
Documented inadequacy of quality and quantity of education
Educational gap between Blacks and Whites
Always been present
Gap is narrowing in recent years

3. Many students would not drop out of school were it not for the combined inadequacies noted:
Insensitive teachers
Poor counseling
Unresponsive administrators
Overcrowded classes
Irrelevant curricula
Dilapidated school facilities
Several can be addressed with more funding but some are stalemated by disagreements over what changes lead to the best outcome

4. School Segregation
De jure patterns of segregation - according to policy or law children were assigned to schools on the basis of race
U.S Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas.
De facto Segregation
Results from residential patterns
Apartheid Schools
Refers to schools that are all Black
1 of 6 of the nation’s Black students are in attendance

5. Integration is not one of the successes of public education
Tracking
The practice of placing students in specific curriculum groups on the basis of test scores and other criteria
African American children disproportionately assigned to general classes and more White children placed in college preparatory classes
African American students more likely than White students to be classified as learning disabled or emotionally disturbed
Integration is not one of the successes of public education

6. Acting White, Acting Black, or Neither
Common view reason of African Americans, especially males, not succeeding in education is that they do not want to be caught “acting white”
Shifts responsibility of low school attainment from the school to the individual
Overemphasizes personal responsibility, not structural features – quality of schools, curriculum, and teachers

7. Higher Education
There has been an increase in African American students going to college and graduating
Upward trend to higher education has declined and in part is a function of:
decline in educational financial aid
push for higher standards
employment opportunities
negative publicity and a decline in enforcement of affirmative action
racial incidents on college campuses

8. The Economic Picture Income and Wealth Income Wealth
Two measures of overall economic situation of an individual or household
Income
Refers to salaries, wages, and other money received
Wealth
A more inclusive term encompassing all of a person’s material assets, including land and other types of property

9. Wealth demonstrates greater disparity
In 2005
Median income of Black families was $37,500 compared with $64,663 for White non-Hispanic households
Black income today resembles that of Whites more than 10 years ago
24.7% of Black people lived below poverty level compared with 8.4% of non-Hispanic Whites
That an African American family is three times more likely to be poor shows staggering social inequity
Wealth demonstrates greater disparity
Generations of social inequity left Blacks, as a group, unable to accumulate the wealth of Whites, as a group

10. Employment
Even in the best of times, national unemployment rate is significantly higher for Blacks than Whites
Factors explaining official unemployment rate of young African American males
Many live in depressed economy of central cities
Immigrants and illegal aliens present increased competition
White middle-class women entered the labor force
Illegal activities at which youth find they can make more money have become more prevalent

11. Official unemployment rate
Federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics counts as unemployed only people actively seeking employment
Leaves out millions of Americans, Black & White
Underemployment
Refers to working at a job for which one is overqualified, involuntarily working part-time, or being employed only intermittently

12. Family Life Challenges to Family Stability
Female-headed household
Economic status of African-American male has been deteriorating
Extended family and augmented members as a means of emotional, social and physical support
Sociologists attribute rapid expansion of single-parent households to shifts in the economy that keep Black men, especially in urban areas, out of work
Phenomenon not limited to African Americans

13. Strengths of African American Families
Robert Hill (1999)
1. Strong kinship bonds
2. Strong work orientation
3. Adaptability of family roles
4. Strong achievement orientation
5. A strong religious orientation
Social scientists are learning to look at both weaknesses and strengths of African American family life

14. Most consistently documented strength
Presence of an extended family household
Most common feature
Having grandparents residing in the home
Extended living arrangements more common among Black households than among White ones
Arrangements recognized as having important economic benefit of pooling limited resources

15. The African American Middle Class
African Americans still aware of racial subordination even when that have achieved economic equality
Migration of middle-class African Americans from ghetto in 1970s and 1980s left a vacuum
No longer present as role models
African American middle-class do not automatically accept all aspects of White middle-class

16. Sociologist William J. Wilson
W.E.B. DuBois (1952)
When racism decreases, class issues become more important
Class
Sociologist Max Weber
Refer to people who share a similar level of wealth and income
Sociologist William J. Wilson
The Declining Significance of Race (1980).
“Class becomes more important than race in determining black life-chances in the modern world” (p. 150).

17. Housing Plays a major role in determining quality of a person’s life
For African Americans, housing has been restricted through discrimination
President Kennedy Executive Order
Government required nondiscrimination in federally assisted housing, included only 7% of the housing market
1968 Federal Fair Housing Law (Title VII of the 1968 Civil Rights Act) and U.S. Supreme Court decision of Jones v. Mayer combined to outlaw all racial discrimination in housing

18. Residential Segregation
Factors that create residential segregation in the United States
Private prejudice and discrimination
Prejudicial policies of real estate companies
Ineffective enforcement of anti-bias legislation
Public housing policies and past construction patterns reinforce housing for the poor in inner city neighborhoods
Policies of banks and other lenders create barriers based on race to financing home purchasing

19. Redlining
The practice of discrimination against people trying to buy homes in minority and racially changing neighborhoods
Zoning Laws
Enacted to ensure specific standards of housing construction
Can also separate industrial and commercial enterprises from residential areas
Some appear to curb development of low and moderate-income housing

20. Criminal Justice Blacks constitute: FBI’s Uniform Crime Report
4.7% of the lawyers
15.7% of police
17.1% of detectives
28.4% of security guards
39% of jail inmates
FBI’s Uniform Crime Report
Black’s account for 28% of arrests even though they represent only about 13% of the nation’s population

21. Victimization Surveys
Conflict Theory
Higher arrest rate is not surprising for a group that is disproportionately poor and therefore much less able to afford private attorneys, who might prevent formal arrests from taking place
UCR focuses on index crimes most often committed by low-income people
Victimization Surveys
Annual systematic interviews of ordinary people to reveal how much crime occurs
Show that African-Americans are 22% more likely to be victims of violent crime than Whites

22. Differential Justice
Whites are dealt with more leniently than are Blacks
Whether at the time of
Investigation, arrest, indictment, conviction, sentencing, incarceration, or parole
The application of differential justice to the harshest judgment that can be made in the legal system
The Death Penalty

23. Health Care Black men are much more likely to fall victim to:
Unrelenting stress
Heart disease
Cancer
Compared with Whites, Blacks have higher death rates from heart disease, pneumonia, diabetes, and cancer
Death from strokes twice as high as Whites

24. Blacks represent 6% of practicing physicians
Conflict Perspective
Howard Waitzkin (1986)
Racial tensions contribute to the medical problems of African Americans
Stress resulting from racial prejudice and discrimination help to explain high rates of hypertension
Blacks represent 6% of practicing physicians
Of students entering medical school in fall of 2004 – only 6.5% were Black
Issues of environmental justice

25. Politics Only 38 African American congressional representatives
Locally elected Black officials have difficulty jumping to statewide office
Non-Black voters are concerned that view of Whites and non-Blacks will not be represented by an African American
Gerrymandering
Dated from 1810; the bizarre outlining of districts to create politically advantageous outcomes

26. QUESTIONS

27. To what degree have the civil rights movement initiatives in education been realized, or do they remain unmet?

28. What challenges face the African American middle-class?

29. What are the biggest assets and problems facing African American families?

30. How are differential justice and victim discounting related?

31. How is race-based gerrymandering related to affirmative action?

32. How are the problems in crime, housing, and health interrelated?

33. What are the implications of Wilson’s assertion that class has become more important than race in determining life-chances of African Americans? Why do you agree or disagree?