A new study shows that disproportionate imprisonment rates faced by people of color exacerbate race-based inequalities in educational attainment.
Source: How Mass Incarceration Contributes to the Achievement Gap
My Comments: Really depressing report. Hello God…where are you?
We’ve known for a while that black Americans aren’t making economic progress. A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, shows that the black-white wage gap is now the widest it has been since 1979. What’s more interesting, though, is how inequality has been increasing, and for whom.
Source: Why black workers who do everything right still get left behind
My Comments: Really interesting study – will have to look more deeply at this.
As a white mother of two black children, three white children, who all have a white father, I have something to say.
Racism exists. It is real and tangible. And it is everywhere, all the time.
When I brought my boys home they were the cutest, sweetest babies ever. Wherever we went, people greeted us with charm and enthusiasm. Well, not all people and not everywhere. But, to me, they were the “wacko” exceptions. I thought to myself, “Get over it.”
Source: “The Cloak I Was Offering Them Was Identification …
My Comments: First person accounts are usually pretty deep. I found this quite moving.
Jimmie Williams joins demonstrators in a protest outside of City Hall calling on Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign on December 11, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. A recently released video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald by Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke has sparked protests and calls for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to resign for allegedly trying to cover up the circumstances surrounding the shooting.SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
I was a grad student at the UCLA film school, getting my MFA in screenwriting, when a consumer-trends company asked me to work for them. Why did they want me? Well, they advised major corporations on how to best situate their products for the African-American consumer market, and in order to do that effectively, the company needed people who understood African-American values and behavior and could turn those factors into macro trends. In essence, my job was to predict the things black people did today to hint at future behavior and, from that info, identify the strategies companies should use to reach black people.
Source: Black America Is Leaving While Staying Put
My Comments: Well written – captures the sentiments of the majority of black folks. We’ve got to start tending our own gardens – there is no sustenance in hope, no love in fear and the hot rage and meanness of racism knows no bounds. We are way too beautiful for this shit!
Abigail Fisher and Edward Blum walk outside the Supreme Court in 2012 (Susan Walsh/AP Photo)
The Supreme Court has upheld the University of Texas’s consideration of race in admissions. The case had been brought by Abigail Fisher, who argued she had been denied admission because of her race.
Source: What Abigail Fisher’s Affirmative Action Case Was Really About
My Comments: Excellent piece by Nikole Hannah-Jones of ProPublica on the decision from the Supreme Court.
The groups that are most likely to get divorced in America
There’s this persistent myth in America that about half of all marriages end in divorce.
In fact, the figures are significantly lower, as new graphics by Nathan Yau of Flowing Datademonstrate.
As Claire Cain Miller wrote at the Upshot, the divorce rate peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s and has been declining since then. In fact, if current marriage and divorce rate continues, only about one-third of American marriages will end in divorce, the Upshot’s Justin Wolfers has calculated.
Source: Who gets divorced in America, in 7 charts…
My Comments: Pretty interesting data. Good to see that folks are sticking it out. Interesting how the data between white and blacks were present in such a muted tone.
