"The percentage of African-Americans that have a college education has gone up from 3.5 percent to 18 percent. The number holding political office, including the presidency, has risen from about 1,400 to more than 10,500. Black men and women have held corporate CEO positions".
This sounds like an article touting the accomplishments of black Americans, however, this article, written by Margaret C. Simms, in the 1/18/12 issue of the AJC,
http://goo.gl/IcSpw is actually a complaint that blacks have " made little progress relative to their white counterparts" (note in the article that blacks are referred to as "African Americans", but whites are still "white").
In this article, Simms wastes eight paragraphs with lines like "Median household income for African-Americans is only 58 percent of the median white household income", and "African-American wealth fell by 53 percent compared with a 19 percent drop for white households". Without one line on how to correct this.
This is where That Weird Uncle comes in...
Let me start with this. There is, in no way, any evidence that would suggest that income inequality could possible be a product of race. Rather, it is more a product of attitude and culture.
According to Simms, " Children are more likely to succeed if they have a stable home environment, adequate nutrition and the opportunity to get a good education". This is a big part of the problem. 72% of black babies are born to unwed mothers.
http://goo.gl/2515Q This compared to 17 percent of Asians, 29 percent of whites, and 53 percent of Hispanics. As revered as the single mothers is today, they cannot give the same care to a child as a two parent family can. It's difficult for a single mother to give the nutrition the child needs, and many times, the single mother cannot spend as much time helping to educate their child as a married mother can.
I partly blame the black community for being so accepting of this, and partly blame the government for financing it. If women knew that the government wouldn't give them money when they have a baby, maybe they would be more careful (although "careful" doesn't come into play in some cases. Some women have babies just so they can get the money).
And where are the men? (that's another story for another day).
While Simms complains that white income is greater than black, she does not address the fact that black income is greater than Hispanic, and Asian income is greater that all three. Why leave this part out? Is she pushing a "poor poor me" mentality. Maybe she wants the government to do something (about the black/white discrepancy, not the black/Hispanic or white/Asian one).
I think I'm sorry I even wasted my time reading the article, although it did give me something to write about.
-That Weird Uncle
