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1.5 Million Missing Black Men
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- novacole 11y agoThis is sad
- novacole 11y agoDown votes why? As a black man I find this sad.
- justizin 11y agoThe title is actually, "1.5 Million Missing Black Men"
- dragonwriter 11y agoLike six orders of magnitude matters...
- InclinedPlane 11y agoI've spotted the physicist. http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2679 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2679
- nathanb 11y agoYeah, the title mangling really changed the sense of what the title was trying to convey.
- dang 11y agoThanks, fixed.
- santaclaus 11y ago"The gaps tend to be smallest in the West." Well, except for LA and Oakland. I wonder why the other west coast cities have the opposite trend?
- maxerickson 11y agoIt's probably excessively naive, but my first guess is some sort of demographic velocity. My expectation is that the gap will be the smallest in the places that have the most mobile populations.
- happyscrappy 11y agoMore likely it correlates to gang activity.
- maxerickson 11y agoI would expect higher rates of gang activity in populations with lower mobility.
- downandout 11y agoLA and Oakland have higher crime rates than the other cities. Since black men are disproportionately represented in the criminal population, areas with higher crime rates will have higher gaps. Additionally, there are significant gang populations in these areas. Because gangs tend to recruit along racial lines, this further adds to the disparity vs areas with fewer/smaller gangs.
- panglott 11y agoLooks like gentrification is pricing out the historic black community of San Francisco, &c., because the NIMBYs don't want to build enough housing for the people moving there. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9408009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9408009
- dmix 11y ago> The black women left behind find that potential partners of the same race are scarce, while men, who face an abundant supply of potential mates, don’t need to compete as hard to find one. As a result, Mr. Charles said, “men seem less likely to commit to romantic relationships, or to work hard to maintain them.” Interesting, I never thought about this side-effect of mass incarceration. Another aggravating factor in a repeating cycle? I remember reading a hypothesis of why many middle eastern countries generate so many young angry jihadists is that most of the young men had never had a stable interactions with women in their youth. Most grew up in socially conservative environments and missed out on the stabilizing effect of having relationships with women, not having a sexual output, not having reasons to stay alive for a girl at home, or even missing out on having a female perspective on things (women are arguably less war-prone than men). Middle eastern young males obviously experience a different social environment than black men do but I'm curious if stable relationships with women really do lead to less violence/crime by males? Or is that merely hopeful thinking by social conservatives?
- dccoolgai 11y agoThis dynamic has always frightened me about China's "one child" generation coming of age. Instead of a group of disaffected Jihadists, you have a large and influential political force in an increasingly belligerent and powerful nation.
- Someone1234 11y ago> increasingly belligerent I'd argue that China's belligerence is lower now than it has been. They've moved from a very communist that strongly distrusted and arguably even hated the West, to a semi-capitalist one who mostly just wants to compete with the West (and makes oodles of $$$ selling to us). The US has been drum-beating against China a lot recently, but frankly that seems more about the US losing in the "trade wars" than anything specific China did.
- Dirlewanger 11y agoI think (may not be) he's talking about the fact that China's male-to-female ratio is just under 1.2, which is insane for a country their size. Lots and lots of single unhappy men in a society where one is pressured to marry ASAP does not make for a happy society.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoThe black women left behind find that potential partners of the same race are scarce,...The imbalance has also forced women to rely on themselves — often alone... There is a pretty obvious solution to this problem which has been legal since 1967. It works well and the babies come out really cute. Weird how the NYT glosses that over...
- Someone1234 11y agoInterracial marriage only works as a "solution" if there were an inverse imbalance in other racial communities to supply the men needed to fulfil the shortfall. It also completely ignores the fact that people in the black communities may not wish to date people from other races. it isn't a breading farm after all, people's choices matter a lot. If black woman want to date a black man, that is completely normal/understandable/a valid choice.
- infruset 11y agoYou are starting from the assumption that it is normal that people date inside of their "race". This is an assumption that is very often made by Hollywood movies and which I find offensive, all the more because it is self-fulfilling: if you only see people of the same skin color dating one another, you're probably less likely to imagine yourself outside of the norm you perceive.
- Someone1234 11y agoYour offense is of no concern to me. The stats back up that people prefer to date within their own race when they can. Ultimately I am just arguing that people's choice is important to the whole topic, if black women would prefer to date black men, pointing out that they could date white or asian men won't help the situation.
- tomjen3 11y agoActually you are wrong in this specific case. Okcupid has the data (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-...) which shows that black women are more likely to reply to men now of her own race (and white men are almost at the top).
- dataker 11y agoWill this have an effect on U.S diversity ? In a way, it may foster more interracial relationships on affected areas
- chaostheory 11y agoI can't find the study to cite, but if I remember correctly an old study found that while most males of all ethnicities are open to relationships with females of different ethnicities given attractive qualities are sufficient (I could be wrong but only physical attraction was measured in this study); they found that most females tend to only go for males within their own ethnic group. The exception was Asian women with Caucasian men. Maybe if this trend continues, it will change for African American women as well (though for that past several years, there have been similar articles like this concerning African American relationships)?
- tomjen3 11y agoOk cupid suggest that black women are rather likely to answer back to white men who write to her (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-...), moreso than black men who write to her.
- whatsgood22 11y agoI believe I read the same study, and it went on to find that of women who did leave their ethnic group, there was high correlation to their looks falling outside of what was considered traditionally attractive within said group.
- chrischen 11y agoIn Asian culture Asian woman always have a strong preference for other Asians (this is of course generalizing across the different Asian cultures), especially from the same Asian race. But there's a strong fetishizing of Asian women by certain non-Asian men so there's a disproportionate amount of Asian-women-chasing by white men that gets misconstrued as preference by Asian women. If everyone preferred blue M&Ms, you'll simply see more blue M&Ms in everyone's mouths, regardless of their race. The Asian women fetish is quite unique in that there's really nothing else like it for women of another race present in American culture. You'll find it in pop culture such as Weezer's album "Pinkerton," named after the character from Madame butterfly who marries a Japanese woman.
- kaa2102 11y agoI'm a Black Man. Growing up there was a realization that being alive and out of trouble over the age of 21 was an accomplishment. This would extend to middle class. Due to a history of American apartheid, there were often just a few degrees of separation between middle class and working/poor class kin.
- javert 11y agoIn the US we had segregation, not apartheid. There is a difference. As a white man living in the South, we still have segregation in practice. I rarely had interaction with blacks because they did different things and took different classes at school. We all went to the same schools---just didn't have the same classes or have the same social circles. Not much shared in the way of culture. I have had some black friends over the years who get berated by other blacks for "acting white." There is nothing white people can do to fix this. Blacks have always decided what kind of culture they want to have and they will continue to do so.
- Taniwha 11y agowell that and slavery
- illumen 11y agoIs it slavery if people are working for almost free in prison because of some absurd crime and a bullshit justice system? Yes. Therefore slavery still exists. It just got sneaky. Well sort of sneaky - the English were calling their white slaves convicts. When people did crimes like steal bread, they could be sent all the way across the oceans on six month voyages to work. Yeah, they could eventually be free... but even if they managed that; then getting back was near impossible for most.
- Taniwha 11y agothe point I was trying to make was that there are actually things worse than apartheid
- chaostheory 11y agoI wonder what the stats are for other ethnicities?
- Mikeb85 11y agoI wonder what the stats are for blacks in say, Canada (my guess, much different)?
- stevenmays 11y agoAnd these "missing men" are only the ones currently incarcerated. After incarceration many men have difficulties securing employment, which further destabilizes relationships.
- 2mur 11y agoUnbelievably sad. This is your drug war success.
- brudgers 11y agoNixon declared drugs public enemy #1 in 1971. Also in 1971 the US Supreme Court ruled that Brown required active desegregation and mandated busing as a means of achieving it. [1] That's more the 100 years after the Reconstruction Amendments. [2] Racism is the weft upon which much of US history has been woven. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swann_v._Charlotte-Mecklenburg_Board_of_Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swann_v._Charlotte-Mecklenburg... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Amendments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Amendments
- Alex3917 11y agoThat's a good point. Everyone always blames this on conservative policies like the war on drugs, but in reality liberal policies like school integration have also contributed to the issue, e.g. by creating gangs and balkanizing communities.
- hn_ 11y agoDid I read that right? School integration creates gangs? http://www.nber.org/digest/may11/w16664.html http://www.nber.org/digest/may11/w16664.html >Rucker estimates that each additional year of exposure to desegregated schools increased black mens annual earnings by roughly 5 percent, increased their wages by 2.9 percent, and led to an annual work effort that was 39 hours higher. At the same time, for these black male adults the probability of poverty decreased by between 1.6 and 1.9 percentage points. Overall, five years spent in desegregated schools yielded an estimated 25 percent increase in annual earnings and increased annual work effort of 195 hours. Desegregation also resulted in significant long-run improvements in blacks' adult health, as measured by self-assessed general health status; the effect of a five-year exposure to school desegregation is equivalent to being seven years younger. Some of the first American gangs were Irish (Forty Thieves, Dead Rabbits) and integration of the Irish in American society certainly didn't cause an increase in Irish street gangs.
- ars 11y agoHistorically this was solved by polygamy. (The cause of the missing men back then was usually war and travel danger on business expeditions.) Polygamy is still occurring, except without the official status of wife. Makes me wonder if the benefits of outlawing polygamy in the US might not outweigh the harm - especially because it happens anyway.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoOne thing that has always bothered me is that almost any argument against polygamy works just as well as an argument against banning extra-marital sexual relationships. As you said, polygamy already exists, just without the legal framework calling it a marriage.
- PopsiclePete 11y agoI know a few happily married couples in "open" relationships. Poly or whatever you wanna call it. And I know a few unhappy, obviously sexless couples in traditional marriages as well. For me, marriage is both an outdated and terrifying prospect. The thought of being with one woman for the rest of my life, sexually, is off-putting. So instead of doing what many others do - cheat, get caught, divorce, repeat - I just choose not to marry. Unless I find someone of a similar mind-set. Dating sites are filled to the brim with women/men who want a "discreet" relationship. Instead of being open about our needs and communicating and accepting those needs, we choose to hide/vilify those who are brave enough to do. So as a society we keep up this fake appearance of "proper" when increasingly more and more are cheating, getting divorced, being miserable...why? Why is this necessary? I don't get it. Sorry for ranting. It's just what you said struck a chord with me.
- meric 11y agoThe problem with polygamy in a peaceful and prosperous society is there will be huge inequality between the most attractive and the least attractive in terms of the ability to find sexual partners, which will be a strong factor in social unrest. Potentially there is a correlation between countries permitting polygamy and terrorism. Monogamy and polygamy are two sides of the same coin. I think over time society will choose the one best suited to its current circumstance, but it can take a while.
- omonra 11y agoSorry to be the voice of Bill Cosby but my read of this is that black men are killing each other and then going to prison for it (drug charges are responsible for maybe 20% of people in prison - ie stats would still be largely same without the drug war). And somehow that's everybody else's fault?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- steveeq1 11y agoagreed.
- picks_at_nits 11y agoWhenever I ready “Sorry to ____, but...” I wonder to myself: 1. Is the speaker truly appalled at saying the thing that follows, but it's a radical, earth-shattering insight will cut through the Gordian Knot, e.g. “I’m really sorry to question the Bible, but maybe the Earth actually is older than 6,000 years?” Or: 2. Someone’s warning detection is working, but the connection to the brake has been severed, and the speaker wants to charge ahead and say it without any real concern for tone. If what follows the disclaimer needs to be said, just say it. If you get backlash, deal with it. The faux-pology up front undermines your sincerity rather than reinforcing it.
- omonra 11y agoThe 'sorry' part referred to my comment sticking out like a sore thumb. Every other comment goes on about racism, etc - while I see a problem inherent in the subset of individuals themselves. It's a social thing - to prepare the reader for what may strike them as an unpleasant (yet I believe is true) perspective.
- RodericDay 11y agoWow you are really brave
- picks_at_nits 11y ago
- zoner 11y agoBlack women are unapproachable. Not sure why is that. Are white males not attractive in black women eyes? The effect is the reverse with white women as they tend to flirt with black man, hence the interracial children are mostly from black males and white females. I don't have a study to support this, but I do have personal experience.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- steveeq1 11y agohttp://www.reddit.com/r/blackladies http://www.reddit.com/r/blackladies might provide a perspective on that. The general "feel" of this subreddit is that they're concerned about racism in an interracial date. The whole subreddit comes across as very anti-white.
- southphillyman 11y agoThink about the historical relationship between white males and the black population.
- AlisdairO 11y agoCounterpoint: OK Cupid ratings appear to show that black men suffer rather less in the attractiveness stakes vs black women. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-attraction-2009-2014/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-attraction-2009-2014/ . If you see more black men + white women combos, those statistics would seem to suggest that it's because (for whatever reason) white men aren't as interested in black women as white women are in black men.
- javert 11y agoThere are a lot of reasons for this, perhaps even more important reasons, but yes, black women are unapprochable as a white man. While other people interpret my normal social awkwardness/aloofness as just what it is, black women tend to take offense and think it's racist. There's nothing I can do to change that aspect of myself. I don't know why this doesn't happen with black men, it just doesn't really seem to, though. However, I am concerned that my sample size may be too small to draw any valid conclusions.
- SovietDissident 11y agoMoynihan in 1965, writing at the Labor Dept.: "The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_... The welfare state and the drug war have had devastating effects on the U.S. black population. To take just one statistic, when Moynihan published his report, the black out-of-wedlock birth rate was 25%. Now, it's over 70% (and almost 30% among the white population). Complete tragedy.
- dothething 11y agoCorrelation vs causation issues? Welfare is available to everyone, why would you say this is only affecting a certain race? Seems more appropriate to look at other trends rather than a 1965 article.
- _dark_matter_ 11y agoThe other reply is completely correct. You are misinterpreting what Moynihan meant when he wrote: >"The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States." What he meant was that, as we see a crumbling of black family structure, they will require greater help, which came through welfare. Here is the heart and soul of his argument: "at the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family" I don't think he would have argued that reducing welfare would help these people, and to imply that is disingenuous at best.
- stickfigure 11y agoI didn't read that implication in the GP's statement.
- hackuser 11y agoThe country's response to a crisis of the black American family was to imprison a large number of black males, adding another crisis to the situation. Considering that and other forms of discrimination, it's amazing that the black middle-class has expanded so much.
- ck2 11y agoWant some interesting perspective - in 1968 Jim Crow laws were still in effect (aka separate but "equal") until they were finally made illegal. But you can be positive that just making it illegal in 1968 didn't end the practice, it most certainly went on into the 70s That's only a couple of generations ago. It's crazy that some people don't understand why it take so long to recover from hundreds of years of that, people of color were literally second class citizens.
- Balgair 11y agoTo be clear, you are talking about the post-civil war period to the civil rights act period as when blacks in most of the USA were second class, correct? Because, before that, blacks were not second class citizens in any way, they were property in many areas.
- ck2 11y agoRight of course. What I am trying to point out is how some naive people look around and say well I got myself a job and got myself stable without assistance so why shouldn't everyone have to do it on their own? But the thing is, if you are white in the USA, your great grandfather probably came to this country as an immigrant and lived very simply while making a little progress and making a little money. Then your grandfather took that momentum of stability and went a little further, then your father went a little further. People of color don't have that momentum unless they were very fortunate. There are exceptions of course but their great-grandfathers, while not slaves were very held down in society. Even when that weight is suddenly lifted in the 70s, it didn't magically give them generational momentum. So some teenager looks around today and says, gee what is the problem, I can do it, why does anyone of color need special preference. It's dangerous ignorance.
- happyscrappy 11y agoExcept that doesn't happen with recent immigrants who do very well, some of them Africans.
- DanBC 11y agoThe numbers are boggling. I don't understand how Americans tolerate such a blatantly racist prison system. http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoTrouble is, it got that way one arrest at a time. Each one may seem defensible in isolation. Its only by looking at the statistics that the problem leaps out at you. So you noticed, and wrote a blog entry. What actionable plan can we suggest? Or will we just make more blog entries. I honestly don't have any answer.
- pyrocat 11y agoWriting congress, writing your rep, fighting for police and justice reform, donating to the southern poverty law center http://www.splcenter.org/ http://www.splcenter.org/ and the ACLU.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoWriting politicians: and what solution do THEY have? Isn't that more blogging? If we're to believe social and economic forces are to blame, then justice reform is way too late to be effective. What, we stop arresting criminals because 'its society's fault'? That's the hole we've gotten ourselves into.
- mwerd 11y agoI don't think the SPLC is really in the same league as the ACLU. SPLC is entirely politically motivated. The SPLC is famous for their "hate group" list. The problem is, a hate group is whatever the SPLC says it is. Their criteria are quite loose and their application of that criteria is quite loose as well. You won't find eco-terror and animal rights groups on the SPLC hate group list because it doesn't align with SPLC's political ideology. One might try to rationalize the hypocrisy by pointing out that the SPLC says it applies hate speech based on hate for "immutable characteristics" but SPLC seems fine to bend that rule to denounce anti-religious hate. I hope anyone reading your comment and feeling generous donates to the ACLU instead of the SPLC.
- AhrowTway 11y agoThey aren't missing. We all know where they are. You also need to factor in how outsourcing and globalization gutted Detroit (Motown). Poorly educated blacks from the delta came up to urban areas to engage in technological manufacturing jobs and were paid very well for it. The model was so successful that company owners eventually outsourced the entire operation to freshly-destroyed post-Cultural Revolution China and paid them a bowl of rice to do the same work instead. Blacks went from lower middle class to wards of the state in less than a generation because of that. But hey, at least you have hundreds of millions of Chinese employed and less than twenty million blacks impoverished instead of the other way around. Someone has to pay the price for industrial wonder, folks.
- dcposch 11y agoMany of us learned a short, sanitized history of human rights in school. The story tends to focus on progress. We once had Inquisitions and witch burnings, and then the Enlightenment put an end to that. We had slavery and Jim Crow, and then the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights movement fixed those. The unspoken implication is that the problems are now solved. Schools teach children the injustices of history, but rarely talk about the injustice of the status quo. The message is that the evil is past, and that present authority is legitimate and benevolent. So, what injustices will students learn about in 2100? I think that today's mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and unequal education will be towards the top of the list. Students will learn how we once had 5% of the world's population, but 50% of the world's inmates. They'll learn how many of those inmates were in jail for nonviolent offenses, especially drug offenses. One of the root causes for the cycle of poverty, crime, and jail time is unequal education. It manifests in the many communities and schools that simply don't teach children the skills necessary to succeed or make a legitimate living. Students of the future will probably learn how some of the worst schools in the industrialized world in the early 21st century were sometimes a few miles away from the best, separated by a certain road or a set of train tracks. "Schools" with fifteen year olds that were barely literate, with armed police officers on staff, with metal detectors at the entrance. Then, they'll learn how those injustices were fixed. --- I'm sure at some point we'll shift from punishing the poor to trying harder to empower them--or at least empower their children--to live better. What can we do today to be part of that?
- foolinaround 11y agothe numbers would look a lot starker if abortion figures are added into the mix. Abortion rates among the black population are higher than the whole.
- Sleaker 11y agoI noticed that quite a few city areas have 55%+ Black Men to 45%- Black Women. If births are relatively equal, that means that the 'Missing' numerics from some of the cities can't necessarily be 100% due to incarceration or death. Now the total # is still accurate as it takes national totals (if we're assuming that Black Men and Women leave the country in equal numbers). You can't just count an imbalance in a city/state as 'missing' otherwise we could reverse this and say that Oregon/Washington have lots of missing Black women in equally appalling percentages.