By: Teairah Tate
Black men get a alot of bad rap from society. Stereotyping, and racial profiling are some conflicts they have to come in contact with on an everyday basis. They say its hard being a black men in America. The so-called facts on these black men are only half way true and the media does everything they can to portray a stupid naive thug as a black man. However, sometimes the black man don’t make it easy on himself when he acts ignorant in public and they capture it on camera, or saying things like the white man is holding him back from moving forward in life. One big issue and stereotype that I would like to clear up is the whole “there are black males in jails then college classrooms”. BS. Lets check the facts.
Correction: According to the Justice Department, there are more college-aged black men in prison than enrolled in college. This does not suggest that black men are not college able or ready, but rather points to a structural problem with the justice system. If black men are a smaller proportion of the population, why are they incarcerated at a higher rate compared to their other male counterparts? What's more, what does this say about the educational system and the opportunities they are afforded?
-There are more Black Males in Colleges than in Jails, Prisons, Private Corrections, Military Jails and Institutions for the Criminally Insane combined(1,236,443 in College/841,000 Incarcerates – regardless of age) “National Center for Education Statistics: iPeds data set, March 2011 – reporting Scholastic Year 2009”
-6.3%: Black Males (age 18-55+) enroll in College at a higher rate by sex than White Males and Hispanic Males and are surpassed only by Asian Males “Bureau of Justice Statistics: Prison and Inmates at Midyear 2009 – June 2010)”
-25.1% of Black Males (age 25 or over) have either an Associates, Bachelors, Masters, Professional, or Doctoral Degree. (2,519,000 with Degrees/10,018,000 Total) “US Census Bureau: American Community Survey: Table 1. Enrollment Status of the Population 3 Years Old and Over, by Sex, Age, Race, Hispanic Origin, Foreign Born, and Foreign-Born Parentage: October 2009”
I became interested in this topic because of my Sociology class lesson on Social Construction of Race. We watched how black men are viewed in America. More specifically 50 cent and President Barack Obama. Even though I don’t feel like they should not even be talked about in the same category, I saw where the theme was going. I personally think black men should be entitle to their swagger and not be judge as a thug or gangster. There are plenty of educated males who speak correct English and others who just don’t have a clue, notice I didn’t say college educated. A person does not have to be college educated to speak with intelligence. The moral to the story is, black men should not be stigmatized for just being BLACK!
Heres one news station, catching a black man in a ghetto rage to find his sister's perpetrator. In relation, he didnt have to put himself out there for people to stigmatize him as ghetto. Even one comment on this video was "he set us back 25 years" meaning he set black people back to a time where more open racism was going on.
Heres and educated black men speaking out on media. In fact he does so in a way that points the finger at whites and make them the perpetrator for setting the black man back 25 years.
Teairah you made some good points to with your blog. There are many African-American who are educated but those men only get recognized as individuals not as a black man. My point is the ignorance from our black men in our society stands out and have people of our own race and of other races only see the negative in all black men. So that when they become in the presence of an educated black man they are surprised to see that all black men are not ghetto, rude, in prison, robbers, or etc. Now the individual in the video above is funny to me by the way he responds on national television but is a prime example of how black men are portrayed GHETTO!
ReplyDeleteThis blog about black men versus the media caught my attention because the media has brainwashed many Americans into believing that African American men are rude, delinquents and undereducated. Therefore, when an educated African American-like Barack Obama or Will Smith-appears in the media people get amazed about how well they speak, and how much they have achieved in their lives. Also, another problem that we have with the media is that the media is affecting society with color blind racism claiming that they do not judge American men by the color of their skin, but the truth is that the media often categorizes African American men as second class Americans.
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