DarkStar Spouts Off

I Present, Media Misrepresentation

Here are examples of media lies misrepresentation. The first example is a lie misstatement of fact that has quickly taken a life of its own:

The larger truth is that graduation is the last stop for an academic train whose passengers mostly disembark at earlier stations. According to statistics released last week by America's Promise Alliance, only 53 percent of African American students complete high school.

I'm sorry, but that's not what the report stated. (The report in PDF is here). The report stated:

This report concentrates on the performance of America’s largest cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas. The 50 most heavily populated cities in the nation were identified using 2006 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. With a population of 8.2 million, New York is by far the largest city in the country. Los Angeles and Chicago follow with 3.8 and 2.8 million residents respectively. Wichita rounds out the top 50. With a population of about 358,000, the leading city of Kansas is less than one-twentieth the size of New York City.

Concentrating on the largest cities is different from all African American students.

The second example, to me, is purposeful and insidious.

Getting Stats Right Before Societal Discussions Can Begin

I was going to write a long and very detailed post about societal discussions being based on statistics which are inaccurate or inaccurately applied. I was going to use as the first example, the belief that Black American youth education is dominated by the charge of "acting white" despite the studies showing the "acting white" idea is suspect. I have a category just for "Acting White" here. If that isn't good enough for you, type the following into Google and have at it:

• "Acting white" fryer torelli
• "Acting white" phillip cook jens ludwig

I was also going to use as an example, the results of a racial profiling poll done in 2001 that "showed" Blacks support racial profiling of Arabs in airports. This is the post I made after I tried to contact Zogby International and The Gallup Organization about the poll. (Ignore the USENET flame war).

Guess who wrote to Zogby International and The Gallup Organization?

Moi.

Guess who asked to know what questions were asked, the responses, the demographics of the poll respondents, the times the poll was done, the areas of the country the poll respondents were from, age of the respondents, and whether or not the respondents knew anyone who was killed or injured in the attacks?

Moi.

Guess who responded?

Not Zogby, but Gallup.

Do you think I got all of the information I asked for?

No, I did not.

Do you think I got some information?

Yes, I did.

[ Note to Trudogg. The numbers you see here are different from what I sent you. That is because the person emailed me again with the _CORRECT_ numbers ]

So, Kaiju? Do you want to read what I have?

Well, here we go: :=D

Number of people polled: 1032
Number of Blacks in the poll: 71
Percentage of Blacks in the poll: 6.88%
Percentage of Blacks in the U.S. population: 13%

Oh, look what the numbers show us. Is a sample size of 71 Blacks accurate? How about a sample size of 6.88% vs 13%?

For grins, here is a link about error in sample size:

http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kp9809-8.htm

Look at the tables and explanation on sample size. And look at the cut off. A sample size of 100.

I was going to use that post as an example of the inaccuracies that result from stating poll results broken down by race when the poll itself didn't use methods to "over sample" racial groups to get a proper poll universe.

I was going to write about the affirmative action "discussion" which a large part of it is based on the graduation rates of Blacks in college. One of the things I've always stated was the statistics being used never accounted for what percentage of drop outs did so because of funding issues or those who actually left one school and transferred to another school. I wrote that because I noticed that instead of saying "dropped out," many people were saying the Black students did not graduate from the institution they entered in 4 or 5 years. I was going to point to this post:

According to a study by Nellie Mae, the largest nonprofit provider of federal and private education loan funds in this country, 69 percent of African Americans who enrolled in college but did not finish said that they left college because of high student loan debt as opposed to 43 percent of white students who cited the same reason.

Do you see how that information can drastically alter the discussion?

I was going to write about The Washington Post poll about Black Men. ( I have a category just for The Washington Post "Black Men" series). I pointed out in one of my blog entries:

• Six in 10 black men said their collective problems owe more to what they have failed to do themselves rather than "what white people have done to blacks." At the same time, half reported they have been treated unfairly by the police, and a clear majority said the economic system is stacked against them.
• More than half said they place a high value on marriage -- compared with 39 percent of black women -- and six in 10 said they strongly value having children. Yet at least 38 percent of all black fathers in the survey are not living with at least one of their young children, and a third of all never-married black men have a child. Six in 10 said that black men disrespect black women.
• Three in four said they value being successful in a career, more than either white men or black women. Yet majorities also said that black men put too little emphasis on education and too much emphasis on sports and sex.
• Eight in 10 said they are satisfied with their lives, and six in 10 reported that it is a "good time" to be a black man in the United States. But six in 10 also reported they often are the targets of racial slights or insults, two-thirds said they believe the courts are more likely to convict black men than whites, and a quarter reported they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black.
• Black men said they strongly believe in the American Dream -- nine in 10 black men would tell their sons they can become anything they want to in life. But this vision of the future is laden with cautions and caveats: Two-thirds also would warn their sons that they will have to be better and work harder than whites for equal rewards.

I was going to point out that I never see this poll being cited in commentary about Blacks and their thoughts about things happening in some aspects of Black America. Do you think a poll like that would affect the discussion?

I was going to write all of that plus more, but DS 2.0 is throwing a fit because he's sleep deprived, I have household laundry to do, and I'm waiting status on something work related that is of importance. Besides, I've already written about that stuff and P6 gets off a decent rant related to the same idea so you should probably read it and think about it. If that's not enough, Dr. Spence writes about this as well. So, I guess my commentary isn't needed. ;)

P6 Brings It On "Black Stat" Manipulation

Bring IT!

America Has Lost a Generation of Black Boys

Drumbeats from Phillip Jackson (The Black Star Project) brought us the essay below. Villagers, as you read it ... ask yourself what you can do in your space ... in your home ... in your neighborhood ... to ensure that we turn this situation around in 2008.

I'm going to comment on the essay...if I could find it at The Black Star Project's web site I'd have linked that so as to avoid the perception of jacking Villager, who is good people.

"There is no longer a need for dire predictions, hand-wringing, or apprehension about losing a generation of Black boys. It is too late. In education, employment, economics, incarceration, health, housing, and parenting, we have lost a generation of young Black men....Most young Black men in the United States don't graduate from high school. Only 35% of Black male students graduated from high school in Chicago and only 26% in New York City, according to a 2006 report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education. 

Bullshit. This is what the Schott report actually says.

According to estimates based on the most recent data from the National Center of Education statistics, in 2003/2004 55% of African-American males did not receive diplomas with their cohort. Nevada and Florida graduated less than a third of their Black male students on schedule. Eight others—Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, South Carolina and Wisconsin—graduated fewer with their peer group than the national average.

"With their peer group" means within four years.

More at the link provided.

Black Gender Enrollment In College

At Howard, the enrollment of women to men is about 65% to 35%. I've been told at other co-ed HBCUs, the numbers are similar. However, when this has been mentioned, I tended to mention that, overall, women are now the majority on college campuses. I said it to try to put a proper perspective on things.

P6 got mad about a segment on NBC News and went digging. He got the results and I'm straight jackin' it.

U.S. College Enrollment Rates, 2005

Black Women 18-24: 37%
Black Men 18-24: 28%

White Women 18-24: 46%
White Men 18-24: 39%

NPR Poll on Blacks: Class or Values?

The following is disjointed, and I know it. I'm hoping I have time to clean it up before it is posted based on time. If not, consider this a draft that I made public.

I read this on Wednesday morning:

Consider: The black people most likely to say that blacks no longer share values across class lines have only a high school diploma or less education (37 percent), or they are lower-income (39 percent). Those most likely to say that all black people have many common values are college-educated blacks (78 percent) and black Americans who have incomes of more than $100,000 (66 percent).

But 70 percent of the same well-educated black people also acknowledge that they see values increasingly "diverging" between the black poor and middle class. That's different from the responses to a 1986 poll in which all classes of black Americans said differences over values were not diffusing the common black experience. Today both middle-class and poor blacks agree that racism is still a big issue for any black person. But they admit that the divide over values is splitting the community.

Is this a class issue or a values issue? If it is a values issue, is it broad based values being compared or "key" values being the issue?

Are most Blacks in the middle and upper classes criminals? How about most Blacks in the lower classes? If the answer is no, which is the answer, then what? Obeying the law is not a class value it is a societal value, in general.

Class has been an issue in the Black community for a very long time. This was born out with the clashes that occurred between "northern Blacks" and the incoming "southern Blacks" during the period of the Northern Migration.

When I was younger, "everyone" knew about Jack & Jill. I'm sure Juan Williams knows about Jack & Jill and about the rules in order to be NOMINATED to get into the group and what it takes to get in after being nominated. If Juan Williams wanted to illuminate things in the Black community, he could have mentioned Jack & Jill and their class based organization. Or maybe he could have mentioned the Prince Hall Masons, Elks, Daughters of Elks, and other "old" Black groups that revealed the class differences in the Black community going back DECADES. Jack & Jill was founded in 1938!

So, why is it that the Black folks who were part of this survey didn't consider Jack & Jill when responding to the questions? Or, the "Black Masons"? Or the Black Greeks?  Or the Black funeral home director families!!!!! ( I think that's a good one. Just TRY to get into that field without being family or close friends of the family of a Black funeral home director and see how far you get! ) All of these groups are a consideration of class, and by direct extension, class values.

Again, I don't understand the responses.

I am really mulling these studies over.

NPR Poll on Blacks: Mental Health Assessment

The NPR/Pew Research Center Poll showed something interesting:

The survey also finds blacks less upbeat about the state of black progress now than at any time since 1983. Looking backward, just one-in-five blacks say things are better for blacks now than they were five years ago. Looking ahead, fewer than half of all blacks (44%) say they think life for blacks will get better in the future, down from the 57% who said so in a 1986 survey.

However, there is more to that one: 44% said better,  21% said worse, and 31% said the same. You can say that 75% said that things are going to get better or stay the same. Is that positive or negative?

20% of the Blacks polled said things are better for Blacks than 5 years ago, 49% said the same, 29% said worse. You could say that 78% said that things are better or the same. Is that positive or negative?

What does this say about my mental view of the "Black world"? What does the poll results say about the mental view of the "Black world" of those Blacks who gave responses? If you take the same view as the person who wrote the "abstract," then you would have to say there is a negative pervasiveness of the Blacks polled. If that matches that of the general Black population, then "we" have an overall negative outlook. And what does that say?

To me, again, it says that Blacks, as a group, are mind f****d mentally damaged. Overall income of Blacks is rising. More Blacks are entering the middle class. More Blacks are creating businesses. Are their negatives? Yes, but to take a negative view of things, to me, is unwarranted. And it demonstrates, to me, that Blacks are adverse to thinking good about "themselves." Which, to me, means "we" need mental help.

Or am I a Pollyanna?

Full results are here. Enjoy.

NPR Poll on Blacks: Single Race?

A new Pew Research Center survey found that nearly 40 percent of Blacks think "blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race."

The phrasing of that bothers me. It's as if a "poor" Black person is considered to be a different "race" than a "not poor" Black person. It should be stated that 40% of Blacks are acknowledging class differences. Or better yet, that people are now recognizing class differences and are finally being ASKED about it.

Or maybe not. I'm still thinking... Marinading....

[ Update ]

This is from a letter to The Washington Post Op-Ed section:

Black America is not a monolith, and neither is white America. Because a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant cab driver sees the world differently than a Hungarian immigrant computer company executive doesn't mean that they're not both white. White Americans are more diverse than African Americans are. Whites span the spectrum from dairy farmer to homeless Vietnam veteran and from minimum wage waitress to college professor. They descended from English Episcopalians; Russian Jews; Irish, Polish and Italian Catholics; German and Norwegian Lutherans and members of the Armenian Orthodox Church. They invented the Ku Klux Klan and taught kids how to be hippies. There are huge divides among whites in values, education and class.

Clearly, whites are at least as "divisible" as blacks. But nobody is looking to divide whites into different races.

NPR Poll on Blacks: Race Hustlin

Do you want to see an example of race hustling in action? This paragraph in an article by Juan Williams is an example:

But a critic who points out that this so-called culture is defeatist and damaging — because it leads to high drop-out rates, record black-on-black murder statistics and a record number of out-of-wedlock births — is dismissed as a prude and a censor. Anyone questioning lyrics that glorify violence and make it cool to treat women as sex toys is told that the words reflect the reality of black life, and that they are "acting white."

So, I ask you, who said Chuck D was acting white when he criticized rap? Who criticized Al Sharpton as white when he criticized rap?

How about this? Has anyone examined the music listened to be Blacks who graduate high school and who graduate college? You mean most of them don't listen to rap? You then follow up with this?

A poll released by the Pew Research Center, in association with NPR, finds that 67 percent of black men and 74 percent of black women think rap music is a bad influence on black America. In fact, 59 percent of black men and 63 percent of black women think the whole hip-hop industry — from the jailhouse fashion of pants hanging low, to indifference to work and school — is equally detrimental to black America.

Uh, if the poll is accurate on this account, and it is, how does your prior narrative maintain consistency?

It doesn't unless you ignore the people I listed as well as the women as Spelman who stood up against Nelly, Essence Magazine, and other "every day" Black people who have been criticizing rap for years!

I'm not ignoring the rest of what Juan Williams wrote, but I'm highlighting what I'm highlighting to point out the race hustling that Juan Williams is doing. And since he seems to point out the "race hustling" of others, why not point out his?

NPR Poll on Blacks: My Comments

I'm doing the road dog thing and am really busy otherwise, but I want to put my comments out there concerning  NPR/Pew Center Research poll results. I'm writing a series of posts now, hoping I make myself clear and hoping each post is self contained and make the point I want to make. I'll set those to display "in the future."

I'll also try to keep this post at "the top"

Stats Generate Questions

This article generates a lot of questions for me.

Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study -- a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans.

Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children.

Forty-five percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle class in 1968 -- a stratum with a median income of $55,600 in inflation-adjusted dollars -- grew up to be among the lowest fifth of the nation's earners, with a median family income of $23,100. Only 16 percent of whites experienced similar downward mobility. At the same time, 48 percent of black children whose parents were in an economic bracket with a median family income of $41,700 sank into the lowest income group.

This troubling picture of black economic evolution is contained in a package of three reports being released today by the Pew Charitable Trusts that test the vitality of the American dream. Using a nationally representative data source that for nearly four decades has tracked people who were children in 1968, researchers attempted to answer two questions: Do Americans generally advance beyond their parents in terms of income? How much is that affected by race and gender?

"We are attempting to broaden the current debate" beyond the growing gap between higher- and lower-income Americans, said John Morton, Pew's managing director for program planning and economic policy. "There is little out there on the question of mobility across generations, and we wanted to examine that."

The data source, called the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, followed 2,367 people from across the country, including 730 African Americans, since 1968. The study participants have been repeatedly interviewed about their economic status through the years, allowing for income comparisons across generations.

The Pew reports found that in many ways the American dream is alive and well. Two out of three Americans are upwardly mobile, meaning they had higher incomes than their parents. About half the time, moving up meant not only that they earned more money than their parents, but also that they were better off in relation to other Americans than their parents were.

My questions:

• The results don't mesh with the growth in income and growth in the middle class as previously defined in other studies. How can you have that growth of the Black middle class and NOT have overall stability of those who enter?
• Are single family homes and the comparatively lower rate of marriage a factor and if so, how much of a factor?
• From what I remember of statistics, it isn't middle class and above women who are having the out of wedlock births. Am I wrong?
• How does net worth come into play, now, vs. then?
• The prime earning years are the 50s. So, are they comparing the right age groups an income ranges? Meaning, are they comparing the status of parents in their 30s to the status of children in their 30s, comparing the status of parents in their 40s to their children in their 40s, etc?
• Are the comparisons "snap shots" meaning, if there is a dip in income for some reason, and they measure at the dip, how does that affect the outcome of the statistics?

I have to re-read the Pew report and digest the details.

Black Student College Graduation Rates

There is a lot of information available this Journal of Blacks in Higher Education article titled "Black Student College Graduation Rates Inch Higher But a Large Racial Gap Persists".

According to a study by Nellie Mae, the largest nonprofit provider of federal and private education loan funds in this country, 69 percent of African Americans who enrolled in college but did not finish said that they left college because of high student loan debt as opposed to 43 percent of white students who cited the same reason.

There is a lot of information at that link. Now, should this play a part in the affirmative action debate?

Interesting Stats

I'm waiting on a large file to transfer over a VPN. While waiting, I'm cruising and look what I found at P6's place. These are labor force participation rate statistics.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Series Id:           LNU01300006 Not Seasonally Adjusted Series title:        (Unadj) Labor Force Participation Rate - Black or African American Labor force status:  Civilian labor force participation rate Type of data:        Percent Age:                 16 years and over Race:                Black or African American
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
1996	63.0	62.4	63.4	63.4	64.0	64.6	66.0	65.4	63.9	64.8	64.4	64.1	64.1
1997	63.5	63.5	64.1	63.8	64.2	65.1	66.1	66.4	65.2	64.8	64.7	64.9	64.7
1998	64.2	64.5	65.4	64.9	64.6	66.5	67.3	66.1	65.4	66.2	66.1	65.7	65.6
1999	65.3	64.8	65.2	65.2	65.5	66.3	67.3	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.2	65.8	65.8
2000	65.8	66.3	65.9	65.6	65.7	66.3	66.5	65.7	64.8	65.5	66.1	65.8	65.8
2001	65.2	64.8	65.5	65.0	65.1	66.1	66.3	65.5	65.1	65.0	64.9	65.3	65.3
2002	64.4	64.4	64.6	64.8	65.0	65.3	65.0	64.7	64.9	64.8	64.4	64.9	64.8
2003	63.8	63.8	63.7	64.2	64.6	65.6	65.3	64.6	64.4	64.2	64.2	63.4	64.3
2004	63.5	62.8	63.7	63.1	63.0	64.1	65.2	64.3	63.9	64.5	64.1	63.8	63.8
2005	62.9	62.8	63.2	63.5	64.2	65.6	65.8	64.9	64.3	64.7	64.4	63.6	64.2
2006	62.6	63.6

And white folks:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Series Id:           LNU01300003 Not Seasonally Adjusted Series title:        (Unadj) Labor Force Participation Rate - White Labor force status:  Civilian labor force participation rate Type of data:        Percent Age:                 16 years and over Race:                White
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
1996	66.3	66.7	66.9	66.7	67.1	67.8	68.2	67.5	67.2	67.4	67.4	67.2	67.2
1997	66.9	67.0	67.3	67.1	67.4	68.2	68.4	67.8	67.3	67.5	67.5	67.3	67.5
1998	66.9	67.0	67.1	66.8	67.3	67.9	68.0	67.6	67.3	67.3	67.3	67.2	67.3
1999	67.0	67.1	67.1	66.9	67.2	68.0	68.1	67.6	67.0	67.2	67.2	67.3	67.3
2000	67.0	67.2	67.3	67.3	67.1	67.9	67.8	67.4	67.0	67.0	67.0	67.1	67.3
2001	67.0	67.1	67.3	66.9	66.8	67.5	67.6	66.9	66.8	67.0	66.9	66.8	67.0
2002	66.5	66.9	66.8	66.7	66.8	67.4	67.5	67.1	66.7	66.8	66.5	66.3	66.8
2003	66.3	66.5	66.5	66.5	66.4	67.2	67.0	66.6	66.1	66.3	66.4	66.1	66.5
2004	66.0	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.2	66.9	67.0	66.5	66.0	66.2	66.3	66.1	66.3
2005	65.8	66.0	65.9	66.1	66.3	66.7	66.9	66.7	66.3	66.4	66.4	66.2	66.3
2006	66.0	66.0

Hmmmm....
I'll have to get back to this.

Black Men In College And Jail Stats

Are there more Black men in jail than in college?

No.

But as Iain Murray noted in a column for TechCentralStation.Com, the Justice Policy Institute's estimate of the number of African American men in college is too low. According to the Census Bureau, there were an estimated 804,000 African-American men in college in 2000. So, in 2000, there were (barely) more black men in college than in jail or prison.

Of course the comparison is of little use since people of all ages are sent to jail, whereas college students tend to be 18-24 year olds. Murray tracked down the respective figures for those age groups and found that for African American men 18-24, there were 480,000 in college and 180,000 in prison or jail. An young African American male is, in fact, two-and-a-half times as likely to be in college as prison or jail.

Black Stats

Just because someone elsewhere asked where I got the idea that Blacks have had some positive advancements in the past 40 years.

Poverty Rate

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html

Blacks below the poverty level:
2005: 24.7%
1966: 41.8%
1959: 55.1%

Educational Attainment

http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-550.pdf

2005
High school +: 80%
Some college +: 44.7%
Bachelors +: 17.3 

http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/p20-158/tab-01.pdf

1966
High school graduate: 28.5%
4 years college: 2.3%
5 years+ college: 1.3%