I live in a town that is roughly 50% Black.Of these Blacks - only 6.8% have at least an Associates Degree, and I'm sure the percentage with a Bachelors is much lower.
But even with only an AA, it is possible to earn over 100k yr. in one of our country's cheapest (cost of living) markets.
Cities With The Highest Percentage of Blacks With At Least A Bachelors Degree
(Sources; Census Bureau & Infoplease)
Washington D.C. - 29.5 (4th most literate American City, *9th Blackest City)
Atlanta, Georgia - 25.4 (3rd most literate, *7th Blackest City)
Phoenix, Arizona - 23.6 (59th most literate)
Boston, Massachusetts - 23.0 (11th most literate)
Los Angeles, California - 22.8 (57th most literate)
Seattle, Washington - 22.6 (Most literate)
New York City, NY - 21.8 (42nd most literate)
San Francisco, CA - 21.1 (9th most literate)
Dallas, Texas 21.1 (49th most literate)
Riverside, California - 20.8 - (56th most literate, the only city on this list with a higher percentage of educated Blacks than the the city's overall population (20.8-19.1))
But most Blacks in my town complain that their failure is tied to their Blackness - when in reality, most of their failures are tied to their lack of education, practice and preparation.
This lack of education keeps many Blacks from even being qualified to experience discrimination.
My town funds African American students and schools better than any others.
But the town lacks a City or Junior College.
Why is a J.C. important?
Because in cities that have them, the "dumb" kids go to City College - city colleges do much of the remediation that is needed to augment an often insufficient high school education.
But what do these stats say?
Only that if D.C and Atlanta can fail - what can we expect for most of the rest of the Blacks in America?
13 comments:
How does your town fund public schools?
What makes your town so unique is there is a industry there. DC is stable for Blacks because of government jobs and thus education has to be attained and maintained to just qualify. Atlanta has been a Blacktopia for the past 60 years but the high amount of Black colleges almost makes sure to crank out another 3000 educated Blacks per year.
I have to go with the JC argument. Most of everyone I knew at least tried to go to school or some JC. Now they didn't graduate but they attempted to go so it was very rare to find someone who just said F it after high school. The bridge from bad high schools to that government/city job had a path. If your city doesn't have the JC path I wonder how many people are being left out because they go straight to the university.
I hate statistics, they lie. Well, they are only as good as the messenger and the message. We all know "messengers" generally are trying to promote "their" message. In the case of these statistics, Nothing speaks to the type of degrees that are walking out the door. I believe only a small percentage of graduates actually work in their field of study.
In the case of Atlanta I am riding with Freeman.Simply put, big bank takes little bank.
I believe the root of a larger problem is the lack of black male mentors/role models (teachers etc,) at the lower levels of education. We can't fix the babies momma problem but we can plant a seed when they come to school. Personally, I've always paid more attention to black men. I respected them because they "knew" me. I didn't have to wade through the mixed signals of white men.
Less than 2% of teachers in the US are black. Yet the US school systems non-white population is close to 45%. Something is rotten in the old school yard.
author Nathan McCall called Atlanta the black Mecca, and said every black person should try to live in the ATL for some part of their life.
In all the cities I've lived, that is the one where, far beyond the rest, people arent just black but black and proud.
Ironically DC/MD also has one of the largest AIDS/HIV rates in the country...and the largest percentage of foreclosures among African-Americans...
@fungke - Freedom has it's costs. Those percentage of foreclosures should be a sign of how many Blacks actually were home owners. Just because they lost is not a negative the bigger question is why there aren't more in Baltimore, New York, Oakland, Opa Locka, Little Rock and the like.
It just goes to show me the cats in DC and the A are more intelligent and enterprising.
Now the AIDS issue can be seen as a part of where the Black Gay population is higher. More down low brothers are in the A and DC. Now I'm not saying they are the cause I'm saying it parallels higher gay populations.
@ curly - With our high property taxes.
(But the houses are so inexpensive that it kind of balances out.)
@ Between the port, oil and the prisons - there used to be plenty of decent paying jobs that required little education.
Now these same jobs require at least an AA - which fewer and fewer Blacks here are getting.
When I try to explain this to our mostly Black school board and our highly paid (435k yr.) superintendent - they dismiss this thinking that things will remain the same as they always have been.
@ Carey - It depends on the teacher.
While I was in elementary school, we had two Male Black teachers.
One (a short middle class dude) would always say, "I'll give you slack, because you're Black."
I hated that.
The other was a tall Black as night brotha' who made Joe Clark seem like Mr. Kotter.
This man did not play.
Every Black kid (Well... actually every kid regarless of race or gender.) knew that they were expected to excell when he was around.
I'm not overly influenced by BLack - but more so by QUALITY Black.
@ fbc - Yeah... It's odd that both these towns are both the best and the worst places to be.
Much like L.A.'s South Central v. Baldwin Hills.
But at least there are counterparts to the underperforming demographics.
@ brohammas - Are the RHOA included in that statement?
The odd thing is, I read Black Bloggers complaining about how ghetto so many people are in the ATL.
Which is MORE true?
Uncle Black, I agree, yet, the facts remain the same...we need more "blacks"... at that level. 2 minus 1 = 1.
5 minus 2 = 3.
3 is the trump card in this deck. Right now, the deck seems to be stacked against us.
Again, BIG BANK takes little bank.
@ Carey Carey - Yep.
I have been putting together a post about the very same subject, however from a different perspective. I have often noticed when blacks become the majority in any city and suddenly blacks assume leadership in any city, it is a sure sign that the city is on the decline. Usually it means most whites have abandoned the city for the suburbs or surrounding counties, thereby diluting the tax base and making it even harder for the city to raise revenue.
So the question then becomes is a Chocolate City even desirable? And what are the advantages for blacks in Chocolate Cities?
@Max - The advantages are the ability to create a economy of our own. Now the infrastructure is still there. The trains still run through the city, the highways still carry goods, the water is still drinkable.
We are missing a generation of Black businessman to fill the void. Walmart is just a supplier of goods and we can supply the same goods. If we fill the void with everything that has left we will find out those who left will rush back in and call it a growth area.
So the advantages are for the Big Thinking entrepreneurs. If you took all the Black businesses in the USA and relocated them to Atlanta then when everyone else left you would have a economy that is still supported by the group there. We are just missing the Black Business person who thinks they can create their own. So for now we have people who hitch their Black dreams to White acceptance and Capital.
@john We fund by property taxes too, but there is such a wide disparity in property values between the districts in Scottsdale or Ahwautukee and the "mega district" in South Phoenix that the funding of the schools is totally skewed. In my (black) neighborhood are woefully short on technology and resources, with maybe one or two computers in a kindergarten classroom with 28 kids and no teacher's aide. I wound up sending my kids to another district because the middle school my son was supposed to attend was stuck in 1980. The middle school my son attends now has a state of the art computer lab, offers electronics band (keyboard, guitar, etc).
@max I was thinking about this tonight as I was talking with several other parents in the community who have children attending primary school out of district... how can we expect kids to be invested in and education system that isn't invested in them.
Don't believe the hype.
I have been living in Metro-Atlanta for over 20 years.
It should be looked at as having "MORE" {Fillin in the blank} Blacks
* MORE Blacks with degrees
* MORE Black Home Owners
* MORE Blacks in management positions
BUT ALSO
* MORE Black homeless people
* MORE Black Street Pirates
* MORE Black on Black crime
Whereas I do credit Atlanta for having an abundance of brand new subdivisions that have Blacks as their first owners (as opposed to the neighborhood swinging Black) there is no magic in this world and thus there are also a whole lost of struggling Black folks as well.
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