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It is not in the Mail
Mar. 28, 2008 Posted in Civic Activity
Playing the “race card” is not an issue in the coming elections. First who will believe the claim? White liberals will not believe that racism exists today in any meaningful quantity. Blacks just need to get over what happen in the past.
I am over what happened in the past. Just harassed by dealing with what is happening in the present!
Read article at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?
That bringing up racism (even with copious documentation) is far from an effective "card" to play in order to garner sympathy, is evidenced by the way in which few people even become aware of the studies confirming its existence. How many Americans do you figure have even heard, for example, that black youth arrested for drug possession for the first time are incarcerated at a rate that is forty-eight times greater than the rate for white youth, even when all other factors surrounding the crime are identical (4)?
How many have heard that persons with "white sounding names," according to a massive national study, are fifty percent more likely to be called back for a job interview than those with "black sounding" names, even when all other credentials are the same (5)?
How many know that white men with a criminal record are slightly more likely to be called back for a job interview than black men without one, even when the men are equally qualified, and present themselves to potential employers in an identical fashion (6)?
How many have heard that according to the Justice Department, Black and Latino males are three times more likely than white males to have their vehicles stopped and searched by police, even though white males are over four times more likely to have illegal contraband in our cars on the occasions when we are searched (7)?
(4) "Young White Offenders get lighter treatment," 2000. The Tennessean. April 26: 8A.
(5) Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment in Labor Market Discrimination." June 20. http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/
mullainathan/papers/emilygreg.pdf.
(6) Pager, Devah. 2003. "The Mark of a Criminal Record." American Journal of Sociology. Volume 108: 5, March: 937-75.
(7) Matthew R. Durose, Erica L. Schmitt and Patrick A. Langan, Contacts Between Police and the Public: Findings from the 2002 National Survey. U.S. Department of Justice, (Bureau of Justice Statistics), April 2005.
Mar. 28, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by BrendaFayBowers
And how many know that a white woman is at the very bottom of the heap in just about any category? Whoever said life was fair?