1. African Americans Today
Chapter 8
African Americans Today

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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

3. Education Educational gap between Blacks and Whites
Always been present
Gap is narrowing in recent years
Many students would not drop out of school were it not for inadequacies noted:
Insensitive teachers
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

4. Education Poor counseling Unresponsive administrators
Overcrowded classes
Irrelevant curricula
Dilapidated school facilities
Several can be addressed with more funding
Some are stalemated by disagreements
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

5. 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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

6. School Segregation Apartheid Schools Tracking
Refers to schools that are all Black
1 of 6 of the nation’s Black students are in attendance
Tracking
Placing students in specific curriculum groups on the basis of test scores and other criteria
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

7. School Segregation
African American children disproportionately assigned to
General classes and more White children placed in college preparatory classes
Integration is not one of the successes of public education
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

8. Acting White, Acting Black, or Neither
Shifts responsibility of low school attainment from school to the individual
Overemphasizes personal responsibility, not structural features –
Quality of schools, curriculum, and teachers
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

9. Higher Education
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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

10. Higher Education Push for higher standards Employment opportunities
Negative publicity and a decline in enforcement of affirmative action
Racial incidents on college campuses
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

11. The Economic Picture Income and Wealth Income
Two measures of overall economic situation of an individual or household
Income
Refers to salaries, wages, and other money received
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

12. The Economic Picture Wealth In 2009
Encompass all of a person’s material assets, including land & other types of property
In 2009
Median income of Black families was $32,584
Compared with $54,461 for White non-Hispanic households
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

13. The Economic Picture Wealth demonstrates greater disparity
Black income today resembles that of Whites more than 10 years ago
25.8% of Black people lived below poverty level & 9.4% of non-Hispanic Whites
Wealth demonstrates greater disparity
Generations of social inequity left Blacks unable to accumulate the wealth of Whites
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

14. Employment
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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

15. Employment Official unemployment rate
White middle-class women entered the labor force
Illegal activities youth find they can make more money have become more prevalent
Official unemployment rate
Unemployed people are only people actively seeking employment
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

16. Employment Underemployment
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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

17. Family Life Challenges to Family Stability Female-headed household
Economic status of African-American male has been deteriorating
Extended family & augmented members as a means of emotional, social & physical support
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

18. Family Life
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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

19. 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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

20. Strengths of African American Families
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 White ones
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

21. The African American Middle Class
Migration of middle-class African Americans from ghetto in 1970s & 1980s
No longer present as role models
African American middle-class do not
Automatically accept all aspects of White middle-class
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

22. The African American Middle Class
W.E.B. DuBois (1952)
When racism decreases, class issues become more important
Class
Sociologist Max Weber
Sociologist William J. Wilson
The Declining Significance of Race (1980)
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

23. 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
1968 Federal Fair Housing Law and U.S. Supreme Court decision of Jones v. Mayer
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

24. 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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

25. Residential Segregation
Banks & other lenders create barriers based on race to financing home purchasing
Redlining
Discrimination against people trying to:
Buy homes in minority/racially changing neighborhoods
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

26. Residential Segregation
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
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

27. Criminal Justice Blacks constitute (2010): 4.7% of the lawyers
14.1% of police
14.9% of detectives
28.6% of security guards
39% of jail inmates
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

28. Criminal Justice FBI’s Uniform Crime Report Conflict Theory
Black’s account for 28% of arrests
Even though they represent only about 12% of the nation’s population
Conflict Theory
UCR focuses on index crimes most often committed by low-income people
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

29. Criminal Justice Victimization Surveys Differential Justice
Annual systematic interviews of ordinary people to reveal how much crime occurs
Show that African-Americans are 35% more likely to be victims of violent crime than Whites
Differential Justice
Whites dealt with more leniently than Blacks
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

30. Criminal Justice
Whether at the time of
Investigation, arrest, indictment, conviction, sentencing, incarceration, or parole
Application of differential justice to the harshest judgment that can be made:
In the legal system
The Death Penalty
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

31. Health Care Black men are much more likely to fall victim to:
Unrelenting stress
Heart disease
Cancer
Death from hypertension twice as high as Whites
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

32. Health Care
Blacks’ high mortality rates from heart disease, kidney disease, and strokes
Conflict Perspective
Howard Waitzkin (1986)
Racial tensions contribute to the medical problems of African Americans
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

33. Health Care Blacks represent 6% of practicing physicians
Stress from racial prejudice and discrimination help to explain high rates of hypertension
Blacks represent 6% of practicing physicians
Issues of environmental justice
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

34. Politics Barack Obama entered the White House as president in 2009
Only 42 African American congressional representatives
Locally elected Black officials have difficulty jumping to statewide office
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

35. Politics
African Americans have not received an equal share of the political pie
Non-Black voters are concerned that view of Whites and non-Blacks:
Will not be represented by an African American
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

36. Politics Gerrymandering Dated from 1810
The bizarre outlining of districts to create politically advantageous outcomes
© Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.