African American Unemployment Rises 700% More Than White

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University – Scholarship in Action 

This weekend, I was on the radio with Rev. Jesse Jackson. He'd just completed a march in Detroit, for jobs, peace and justice, only to find that his SUV was stolen upon arrival. But when I asked him if he was OK, his response was quite telling of the leader that he is: He simply said that the car doesn't matter at all when there are so many people suffering across America.
Well, the nation-wide suffering for African Americans has just intensified with the recent unemployment data delivered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's most recent report showed that while white unemployment only went up from 8.6 percent to 8.7 percent, black unemployment went up from 15.6 percent to 16.3 percent. This increase of seven percent is at a rate that is 700 percent of the increase of white Americans.

 

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Dr. Boyce and Chris Metzler on CNBC Debating the Rich vs. the Poor

 

Watch Dr. Boyce Watkins and Christopher Metzler on CNBC - should the rich be taxed more than the poor?  Click here to watch

 

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Dr. Boyce on Fatherhood

by Dr. Boyce Watkins - The Institute for Black Public Policy

 

Father's Day usually occurs on my birthday, which is both exciting and a little bit sad. With each birthday, I feel like I'm on a slow ship to an unforeseen destination, with each birthday reminding me that I've passed another landmark. I keep wondering why birthdays show up around the same time every year, and I'm still hopeful that the trend will discontinue at some point. Wait, let me rephrase that.....if my birthdays stop coming then I'll be, well..... you know.

At any rate, when my birthday hits, doubled-up with Father's Day, I am led to evaluate my life and myself. I evaluate my life to see if I am the same man this year that I was last year; the truth is that I should have grown in some meaningful way or achieved something positive. I also evaluate myself as a father to see if I am getting at least a little bit better at making myself the kind of man that my kids need me to be.

 

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Black Prof Says NCAA is a Plantation

 

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Your Black World

Professor Billy Hawkins of The University of Georgia has released a controversial new book that describes the experiences of NCAA athletes by comparing them to slaves on a plantation. According to the research of professor Hawkins, black athletes are exploited by the NCAA physically, financially and intellectually.

Hawkins cites the massive revenue earned by the NCAA via March Madness, which includes a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS sports. In spite of seemingly unlimited revenues to encourage athletes to stay focused academically, Hawkins notes that nearly one-fifth of the 64 teams participating in the NCAA tournament had graduation rates of less than 40 percent. Across the 36 sports monitored by the NCAA, men's basketball has the lowest graduation rates, where less than two-thirds of the players earn degrees.

The dismal graduation numbers for the NCAA support Dr. Hawkins' research, in which he argues and shows that black athletes at predominantly white institutions are being exploited while being neglected academically. In his book, "The New Plantation," the well-respected Professor of Sport Management and Policy uses a plantation model to present the black male athletic experience as part of a broader historical context.

 

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What's New in the world of Black Folks - 6/11/10

NBA Gets High Marks for Diversity in Annual Report Card

• According to Professor Richard Lapchick, author of the recent Racial and Gender Report Card for ... Read More
• By Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 12th 2010 11:20AM | Comments (0)

Obama's "Angry Black Man" Criticism: Isn't He Also Half White?

• In light of all of the interesting analysis that others have done regarding why President Barack ... Read More
• By Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 9th 2010 9:36PM | Comments (34)

CNN Asks Why Black Men Are Not Graduating From College

• Richelle Carey at CNN Headline News recently reached out to me to find out why black men aren't ... Read More
• By Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 5th 2010 4:24PM | Comments (32)

Dwyane Wade Given Temporary Custody of His Sons

• NBA star Dwyane Wade's divorce just got a little uglier. This week, the court gave Wade custody ... Read More
• By Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 4th 2010 8:51AM | Comments (33)

Could LeBron James' Mother Rumors Push Him Out of Cleveland?

• The world seems to be buzzing incessantly about the statements made by former NBA great Calvin ... Read More
• By Dr. Boyce Watkins, PhD on May 24th 2010 10:41PM | Comments (4)

 

Slim Thug and his comments about black women continue to get the artist into trouble.  Is he going to lose big money because of this?

Dr. Boyce Watkins: Why Black Men Aren't Graduating from College

 

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

Last week, the American Council on Education issued a report on the state of black males in the higher education system.  The report reveals some interesting and disturbing trends.  It turns out that black men are graduating from college at a rate which lags significantly behind other ethnic groups. When determining graduation probabilities over a six-year period, black males were found to have a graduation rate of 35 percent.   This compares with rates of 59 percent, 46 percent and 45 percent for white males, hispanic males and black women, respectively.  In other words, black men are a little more than half as likely to finish college when compared to their white male counterparts.

I have been a black man for my entire life now, and I’ve taught at the college level for the past 17 years.  So, perhaps I can shed some light on the nature of these problems and how we might work to solve them.  Some of the factors are institutional and some are cultural, so prepare to be offended by at least one of the things I have to say:

RELATED: Why Aren’t Minorities Graduating From College?

1) Most American universities refuse to hire or retain African American professors, including many HBCUs: If your professors look like you, you are more likely to relate to that individual and enjoy the class.  When I went to The University of Kentucky, Indiana University and The Ohio State University (where I earned my PhD), I didn’t see one single professor who looked like me (and I took A LOT of classes).  This made for an incredibly awkward and damn near traumatic educational experience.  When I first noticed institutions like Morehouse College presenting images of black males in the front of the classroom, I was envious after realizing what I’d been missing.  Rather than finding excuses for firing or not hiring black professors, most universities would be well-advised to stop lying to themselves and become serious about diversity.  Yes, black professors are out there to hire if you are looking for them, but many academic departments find a reason to believe that they are not qualified.  Just look at the experiences of myself, Cornell West and Michael Eric Dyson as cases in point.  Each of us has received significant resistance in our careers because our work is connected to the black community. Our stories are just the tip of the iceberg, since there are thousands of black professors who’ve gone through the exact same experience when dealing with the entrenched racism of academia.  Many HBCUs are not immune to this trend, as most of them don’t have very many African American professors (Don’t believe me?  Go to the Computer Science Department or Business School at any random HBCU and count the number of African American professors).

 

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Dr. Boyce Watkins: Tavis Smiley Can't Win with Anti-Obama Rhetoric

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

Tavis Smiley has a problem. The problem is one that is rooted in egregious miscalculation, poor target selection and mild delusions of self-righteous grandeur. As Tavis plans his symposium this week to define the black agenda in America, most of us are wondering if it's Smiley's agenda that will be highest on the priority list. While Smiley presents himself as a consistent political figure who has held all politicians equally accountable, many view his gathering this weekend in Chicago as a Barack Obama bashing festival.

 

Let's be clear: It's not easy to objectively criticize President Obama when his approval ratings in the black community remain above 90 percent. At least half of my articles about Obama have been critical, and I always have to make sure that I am not haunted by the ghostly spirit of Obama-mania, which is just as bad as Obama-haterology. Dr. Julianne Malveaux and Rev. Jesse Jackson have done a very good job of holding Obama accountable in a way that does not appear to be driven by personal motivations or latent hostility. Tavis Smiley, however, can't shake the perception that he has a personal vendetta against the president, for it is quite rare to see a prominent public figure so obsessed with the career of another person.

 

The Your Black World Coalition monitors the political mood of our supporters when it comes to issues that matter to African-Americans. With 60,000 African-American members nation-wide, we have the ability to put our fingers on the collective pulse of black America through various forms of statistical sampling. In our analysis, a few things remain abundantly clear: Most of our followers love Barack Obama (probably more than they should), and a large percentage of them, to be quite frank, can't stand Tavis Smiley. What makes matters worse for Smiley is that many of those who refuse to buy his books were once loyal fans - meaning that he has engineered the double loss of turning many of his friends into enemies. This is enough to make any publishing house or corporate sponsor run in the other direction, undermining the power of the Tavis Smiley brand. With such a terrible approval rating, Smiley wouldn't even be invited to sell predatory loans for Wells Fargo.

 

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Dr. Boyce: Obama Attacked on Fox News

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

 

The Democrats must pass health care reform. If they pass the legislation, they are still going to get hammered in the mid-term elections. If they don't pass the bill, the hammering will only multiply in its intensity. Right now, our Congress finds itself in a terribly complex situation, with terms like "reconciliation" and "deem and pass" being thrown around like profanity against a growing backlash from a portion of the American public. If we could go back in time, President Obama would never have taken on this issue.

I watched President Obama's interview with Brett Baier on Fox News with intrigue. I wondered why Obama would want to appear on a network that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars undermining the White House. I then realized that Obama's appearance is likely in line with the White House strategy of taking on the Republicans face-to-face. Rather than appearing to be an elitist leader who hides from his adversaries (as George Bush might have done), Obama is walking into one lion's den after another, making his presidency even more interesting than it was when he arrived. Also unlike President Bush, Obama is savvy and intelligent enough to debate 100 Republicans in a single bound, the way Tiger Woods can dominate a golf course with scores of non-black competitors. Barack Obama is his own greatest asset.

 

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Dr. Boyce: Crack Disparity Law Should Have Been Changed More Effectively

Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University

 

When I was a teenager, a police officer explained to me how the "War on Drugs" took place in his hometown. The officer candidly described how every policeman in the city knew what boats contained drugs and when those boats would arrive in the city's major port. But he also knew that officers were not expected to show up on these boats to make arrests, and that they were not to deter the progress of the product when it hit the port. Instead, they were instructed to allow the drugs to get to the inner city, where they were given authorization to make as many arrests as necessary. In other words, his job was to arrest the small fish, not the big ones.

The misleading, ill-conceived and terribly racist set of drug policies which defined the Reagan era has been absolutely devastating for the African-American community. The existence of gang warfare in South Central Los Angeles has left hundreds of thousands of youth with post-traumatic stress disorder, as the CIA was oblivious to the fact that drugs and guns were being openly delivered to a community that no one cares about. The Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was the product of America's broad-stroke reaction to increased drug use of the 1980s. The law gave a sentence 100 times greater for possession of crack cocaine (more likely to be possessed by blacks) than the one given for powder cocaine (possessed in greater proportion by whites), creating a black incarceration rate of holocaust proportions.

After sitting on the books for decades, the law was finally modified this year. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin and Republican Jeff Sessions did black people the "favor" of agreeing to reduce the sentencing disparity from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1. So, instead of getting a prison sentence that is 100 times longer for the same crime, we only get one that is 18 times longer. Gee thanks. I'm supposed to be happy about that one, huh? So, we're not good enough to demand true equality, and are instead forced to accept dysfunctional compromises with Republicans from Alabama? While some might call this political pragmatism, others might describe this outcome as the modern-day version of the Three-Fifths Compromise.

 

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Dr. Boyce Watkins on CNN to discuss Harry Reid

 

Click here to watch Dr. Watkins on CNN discussing the recent comments by Harry Reid about “negro dialect.”

Dr. Deborah Stroman: Tiger Acting Like a Black Athlete Now?

by Dr. Deborah Stroman 

 

Tiger Woods has a problem and now so do I. I was naïve to think that I could survive this holiday season of Tigervision with its seemingly minute-by-minute reports of his self-described transgressions. Every media outlet needs a story to remain viable in this world of at-your-touch news and Tiger’s naughtiness provides the perfect scoop. This tale probably has no beginning and quite possibly no end. However, my nerves became frayed and I saw the immediate end of my sideline observer role when I changed the channel and popped in on the Joy Behar Show. As they discussed the latest Tiger escapade, Ms. Behar cleverly asked for insight on how the African-American community might possibly feel about his sins. Her query was directed to a female African-American guest, Karith Foster, who calmly stated that Tiger was finally acting like a black athlete. Pump your brakes!

Although Ms. Foster’s listed occupation is comedian, she made her bold statement sans smile or giggle. She was very serious and obviously hurt by his choice of women in this scandal. She went on to describe how the black athlete needs a white woman – a trophy wife – to be successful. Ms. Foster’s understanding of the black male athlete is a stereotype and confusion-filled. Shame on her and the media for supporting the racist mindset that promulgates a representation of the black male athlete as a superhuman man that seeks sexual pleasure from every white female that worships his athletic prowess. Surely we in 2009 know better, right? Yes, the ESPNification of our sports world has created larger than life entertainment figures. Money, power and women. That’s the ticket out of a poor situation – mentally and physically. It is no longer satisfactory to score a touchdown and hand the ball to the referee or dunk the basketball and hustle back to play defense. Instead we see many of our athletes (and more likely a black man) showboating, drawing attention to themselves, and discounting the teamwork necessary to achieve such success. We as fans are drawn to the television waiting to see the clownish antics instead of running to the restroom or going back for more chips.

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Dr. Boyce: How Rihanna Is Profiting from Her Tragedy

by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University 

I hated what Chris Brown did to Rihanna. I was angered, disappointed and irritated by the fact that many are quick to forgive egregious behavior on the part of celebrities, and a hit song can forgive all sins. At the same time, celebs are just like the rest of us, full of complexities that the world may never come to understand. Rihanna has walked away from Chris and she is now telling the entire world how bad of a man he is, and we're all taking her side.

The problem for Rihanna, however, is that her actions aren't making much sense.

Rihanna's recent whirlwind media tour has included the likes of ABC News, MTV and other major media outlets. Throughout this tour, she has allowed the world to enter into her dark reflection on the relationship she had with Chris Brown, with that reflection seeming to have almost no productive purpose. I am not sure why the he-say/she-say between two 19-year old kids should be the concern of the nation. But then again, I am sitting here writing about it, so I am as guilty as everyone else.

 

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The Hypocrisy of the Republicans in the Joe Wilson Case

 

By

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Your Black World 

On Saturday September 12^th, at the U.S. Open semifinals, Serena Williams was caught in a “human moment” that she wishes she could change. After being called for a foot fault by a line judge Ms. Williams launched into an “f-bomb” laden tirade saying in part, “If I could, I would take this @#$#ing ball and shove it down your @#$#ing throat…" The resulting unsportsmanlike conduct penalty cost Ms. Williams the match.

On Monday September 14^th Ms. Williams offered a written apology. In it she said, "I want to sincerely apologize first to the lineswoman, Kim Clijsters, the US Tennis Association and mostly tennis fans everywhere for my inappropriate outburst … I really wanted to apologize sincerely...I think the lady was doing the best she could. She was just trying to do her job.”

Some have questioned Serena’s sincerity and others have questioned the timing of her apology. These questions may be valid but at the end of the day Ms. Williams did the right thing. She took responsibility for her behavior and apologized directly to all of those whom she attacked and offended.

On Wednesday September 9^th, Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) had his own “human moment.” During President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress on health care, Wilson shouted at the President “you lie”. Shortly after his outburst Congressman Wilson called the White House to offer his apology to the President. President Obama did not take his call. It was accepted on his behalf by Chief of Staff Rhom Emanuel.

Congressman Wilson has been asked by members of his own party as well as Democrats to formally apologize on the House floor. He has refused to apologize on the floor of the House saying, "I've apologized one time. The apology was accepted by the president, the vice president. ... I am not apologizing again … I believe that is sufficient."

As a result of Congressman Wilson’s failure to apologize on the floor, the House passed a “resolution of disapproval” by a 240-179 vote. Congressman Wilson has now been duly punished for his outrageous and childish behavior.

Even though polls show a strong majority of American’s oppose Congressman Wilson’s actions, Republican Party leadership stands behind him. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said the House Democrats are guilty of “stunning…. Hypocrisy.” GOP leader John Boehner (R-OH) said that the action initiated by Wilson's fellow South Carolina colleague, Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) — is "patently partisan." Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) circulated a letter of support for Wilson.

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