Associated Press
By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer – 16 hours ago
With black unemployment reaching historic levels, banks laying off tens of thousands and law school graduates waiting tables, why aren't more African-Americans looking toward science, technology, engineering and math — the still-hiring careers known as STEM?
The answer turns out to be a complex equation of self-doubt, stereotypes, discouragement and economics — and sometimes just wrong perceptions of what math and science are all about.
The percentage of African-Americans earning STEM degrees has fallen during the last decade. It may seem far-fetched for an undereducated black population to aspire to become chemists or computer scientists, but the door is wide open, colleges say, and the shortfall has created opportunities for those who choose this path.
Full Story: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ja9P9ONQI85BmkNNrOFlDKIzVl_Q?docId=8d61edfa9d3f4d9183bb3d574a432cbe
Showing posts with label blacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blacks. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Friday, October 24, 2008
Study Shows Brain’s Reaction Racial Stress
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
Current News
Study Shows Brain’s Reaction Racial Stress
By Robin Chen Delos
Oct 24, 2008, 00:36
Racial mistrust affects the brain of Whites and Blacks differently. A new University of South Carolina study finds Black peoples’ brains register stress in response to neutral facial expressions of Whites.
Study researchers Dr. Tawanda Greer and Dr. Jennifer Vendemia used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain’s response to stimuli. They specifically targeted areas of the brain that process emotional reactions and decisions.
Researchers showed their participants a series of White and Black adult faces with happy, hostile or neutral expressions. The question for the participants for each photo: can you trust this person to give you directions? Researchers monitored brain activity as they waited for the response from their participants, 11 Blacks and nine Whites.
Blacks and Whites had no major differences in their reactions to happy and hostile faces. But Black participants showed a very high level of stress in the brain when they looked at Whites’ neutral facial expressions.
“The African-American participants pored over the photos of neutral White faces looking for visual cues that would suggest that they could trust the person,” Greer says. “The more intently they looked, the more their stress level increased.”
Greer says “ambiguous” situations involving Whites has been associated with race-related distress for Blacks. [To read the entire story, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11874.shtml ]
Current News
Study Shows Brain’s Reaction Racial Stress
By Robin Chen Delos
Oct 24, 2008, 00:36
Racial mistrust affects the brain of Whites and Blacks differently. A new University of South Carolina study finds Black peoples’ brains register stress in response to neutral facial expressions of Whites.
Study researchers Dr. Tawanda Greer and Dr. Jennifer Vendemia used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain’s response to stimuli. They specifically targeted areas of the brain that process emotional reactions and decisions.
Researchers showed their participants a series of White and Black adult faces with happy, hostile or neutral expressions. The question for the participants for each photo: can you trust this person to give you directions? Researchers monitored brain activity as they waited for the response from their participants, 11 Blacks and nine Whites.
Blacks and Whites had no major differences in their reactions to happy and hostile faces. But Black participants showed a very high level of stress in the brain when they looked at Whites’ neutral facial expressions.
“The African-American participants pored over the photos of neutral White faces looking for visual cues that would suggest that they could trust the person,” Greer says. “The more intently they looked, the more their stress level increased.”
Greer says “ambiguous” situations involving Whites has been associated with race-related distress for Blacks. [To read the entire story, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_11874.shtml ]
Monday, September 22, 2008
Poll shows gap between blacks and whites over racial discrimination
Yahoo News
By CHARLES BABBINGTON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the nation's birth, Americans have discussed race and avoided it, organized neighborhoods and political movements around it, and used it to divide and hurt people even as relations have improved dramatically since the days of slavery, Reconstruction and legal segregation.
Now, in what could be a historic year for a black presidential candidate, a new Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll, conducted with Stanford University, shows just how wide a gap remains between whites and blacks. It shows that a substantial portion of white Americans still harbor negative feelings toward blacks. It shows that blacks and whites disagree tremendously on how much racial prejudice exists, whose fault it is and how much influence blacks have in politics.
One result is that Barack Obama's path to the presidency is steeper than it would be if he were white.
Until now, social scientists have not closely examined racial sentiments on a nationwide scale at a moment when race is central to choosing the next president. The poll, which featured a large sample of Americans — more than 2,200 — and sophisticated survey techniques rarely used in media surveys, reflected the complexity, change and occasional contradictions of race relations.
More whites apply positive attributes to blacks than negative ones, and blacks are even more generous in their descriptions of whites. Racial prejudice is lower among college-educated whites living outside the South. And many whites who think most blacks are somewhat lazy, violent or boastful are willing or even eager to vote for Obama over Republican John McCain, who is white.
The poll, however, shows that blacks and whites see racial discrimination in starkly different terms. When asked "how much discrimination against blacks" exists, 10 percent of whites said "a lot" and 45 percent said "some."
Among blacks, 57 percent said "a lot" and all but a fraction of the rest said "some."
Asked how much of America's existing racial tension is created by blacks, more than one-third of white respondents said "most" or "all," and 9 percent said "not much." Only 3 percent of blacks said "most" or "all," while half said "not much at all."
Nearly three-fourths of blacks said white people have too much influence in American politics. Only 12 percent of whites agreed. Almost three times as many blacks as whites said blacks have too little influence. [ To read the complete story, go to: http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-race-in-america;_ylt=AmLbC7oTeEEaTPaN7zje456s0NUE ]
By CHARLES BABBINGTON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the nation's birth, Americans have discussed race and avoided it, organized neighborhoods and political movements around it, and used it to divide and hurt people even as relations have improved dramatically since the days of slavery, Reconstruction and legal segregation.
Now, in what could be a historic year for a black presidential candidate, a new Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll, conducted with Stanford University, shows just how wide a gap remains between whites and blacks. It shows that a substantial portion of white Americans still harbor negative feelings toward blacks. It shows that blacks and whites disagree tremendously on how much racial prejudice exists, whose fault it is and how much influence blacks have in politics.
One result is that Barack Obama's path to the presidency is steeper than it would be if he were white.
Until now, social scientists have not closely examined racial sentiments on a nationwide scale at a moment when race is central to choosing the next president. The poll, which featured a large sample of Americans — more than 2,200 — and sophisticated survey techniques rarely used in media surveys, reflected the complexity, change and occasional contradictions of race relations.
More whites apply positive attributes to blacks than negative ones, and blacks are even more generous in their descriptions of whites. Racial prejudice is lower among college-educated whites living outside the South. And many whites who think most blacks are somewhat lazy, violent or boastful are willing or even eager to vote for Obama over Republican John McCain, who is white.
The poll, however, shows that blacks and whites see racial discrimination in starkly different terms. When asked "how much discrimination against blacks" exists, 10 percent of whites said "a lot" and 45 percent said "some."
Among blacks, 57 percent said "a lot" and all but a fraction of the rest said "some."
Asked how much of America's existing racial tension is created by blacks, more than one-third of white respondents said "most" or "all," and 9 percent said "not much." Only 3 percent of blacks said "most" or "all," while half said "not much at all."
Nearly three-fourths of blacks said white people have too much influence in American politics. Only 12 percent of whites agreed. Almost three times as many blacks as whites said blacks have too little influence. [ To read the complete story, go to: http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-race-in-america;_ylt=AmLbC7oTeEEaTPaN7zje456s0NUE ]
Friday, April 4, 2008
Two Black Americas
The Washington Post
By Eugene Robinson
Friday,
April 4, 2008; A23
Forty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, we sometimes talk about race in America as if nothing has changed. The truth is that everything has changed -- mostly for the better -- and that if we're ever going to see King's dream fulfilled, first we have to acknowledge that this is not an America he would have recognized.
On April 4, 1968, it was possible to make the generalization that being black in this country meant being poor; fully 40 percent of black Americans lived below the poverty line, according to census data, with another 20 percent barely keeping their heads above water. African Americans were heavily concentrated in the inner cities and the rural South. We were far less likely than whites to go to college, and our presence in the corporate world was minimal.
Today, about 25 percent of African Americans are mired in poverty. In many ways, being black and poor is a more desperate and hopeless condition now than it was 40 years ago. For those who managed to enter the middle class, however, most of the old generalizations no longer apply.
There remains a significant income gap between whites and blacks in this country, although it shrinks when educational level is factored in. But the gap in wealth, or net worth, is huge, even when you control for education, age, family size and whatever else you want to throw in. Still, African Americans control an estimated $800 billion in purchasing power. If that were translated into gross domestic product, a sovereign "Black America" would be the 15th- or 16th-richest nation on earth.
Forty years ago, not even 2 percent of black households earned the equivalent of $100,000 a year in today's dollars. Now, about 10 percent of black households have crossed that threshold. George and Louise Jefferson aren't so lonely anymore in that "deluxe apartment in the sky."
Then again, if "The Jeffersons" were being produced today, George and Louise probably wouldn't live in an apartment at all. More realistically, they'd be on a cul-de-sac in a suburban community. In Washington and a growing number of cities, more African Americans now live in the suburbs than within the city limits.
In a sense, then, the most striking measure of how far African Americans have come since 1968 isn't the rise of Barack Obama. It's the story of Stanley O'Neal.
That's not to minimize the prospect that a nation midwifed by slavery could soon have its first black president. But O'Neal did something that would have been equally unimaginable 40 years ago. He rose to become chief executive of Merrill Lynch, one of Wall Street's biggest firms; by all accounts, he was a taskmaster of a boss who cared less about whether subordinates liked him than he did about the bottom line. He placed big bets on mortgage-backed securities, generating record profits for the firm. When he got caught in the mortgage crisis several months ago and was forced to write off billions in losses, he resigned -- and floated back to earth with the help of one of the loveliest golden parachutes Wall Street has seen.
Oh, and his grandfather was born a slave. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040303122.html?wpisrc=newsletter ]
By Eugene Robinson
Friday,
April 4, 2008; A23
Forty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, we sometimes talk about race in America as if nothing has changed. The truth is that everything has changed -- mostly for the better -- and that if we're ever going to see King's dream fulfilled, first we have to acknowledge that this is not an America he would have recognized.
On April 4, 1968, it was possible to make the generalization that being black in this country meant being poor; fully 40 percent of black Americans lived below the poverty line, according to census data, with another 20 percent barely keeping their heads above water. African Americans were heavily concentrated in the inner cities and the rural South. We were far less likely than whites to go to college, and our presence in the corporate world was minimal.
Today, about 25 percent of African Americans are mired in poverty. In many ways, being black and poor is a more desperate and hopeless condition now than it was 40 years ago. For those who managed to enter the middle class, however, most of the old generalizations no longer apply.
There remains a significant income gap between whites and blacks in this country, although it shrinks when educational level is factored in. But the gap in wealth, or net worth, is huge, even when you control for education, age, family size and whatever else you want to throw in. Still, African Americans control an estimated $800 billion in purchasing power. If that were translated into gross domestic product, a sovereign "Black America" would be the 15th- or 16th-richest nation on earth.
Forty years ago, not even 2 percent of black households earned the equivalent of $100,000 a year in today's dollars. Now, about 10 percent of black households have crossed that threshold. George and Louise Jefferson aren't so lonely anymore in that "deluxe apartment in the sky."
Then again, if "The Jeffersons" were being produced today, George and Louise probably wouldn't live in an apartment at all. More realistically, they'd be on a cul-de-sac in a suburban community. In Washington and a growing number of cities, more African Americans now live in the suburbs than within the city limits.
In a sense, then, the most striking measure of how far African Americans have come since 1968 isn't the rise of Barack Obama. It's the story of Stanley O'Neal.
That's not to minimize the prospect that a nation midwifed by slavery could soon have its first black president. But O'Neal did something that would have been equally unimaginable 40 years ago. He rose to become chief executive of Merrill Lynch, one of Wall Street's biggest firms; by all accounts, he was a taskmaster of a boss who cared less about whether subordinates liked him than he did about the bottom line. He placed big bets on mortgage-backed securities, generating record profits for the firm. When he got caught in the mortgage crisis several months ago and was forced to write off billions in losses, he resigned -- and floated back to earth with the help of one of the loveliest golden parachutes Wall Street has seen.
Oh, and his grandfather was born a slave. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040303122.html?wpisrc=newsletter ]
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The American Dream, or a Nightmare for Black America?
AlterNet
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted December 17, 2007.
Thirty years after the civil rights era, middle-class African-American families face a grim reality: their kids are far more likely to experience downward mobility in today's economy than they are to move up.
For both black and white families, America's vaunted upward mobility is largely a myth, and research suggests that Americans actually enjoy less upward mobility than people in many other wealthy countries. (I discussed this phenomenon at some length in a recent article.) But the outlook is different for white and black families.
A new study by Julia Isaacs, a Fellow with the Brookings Institution, paints a dark picture for black families, and especially for the large group of African-Americans who moved up and into the middle class following the hard-fought gains of the 1950s and 1960s.
Isaacs looked at a unique set of data, one that allowed her to compare the incomes of people in their 30s in 2004 with their parents' generation in the mid-'70s (this allowed her to compare people at the same general stage in their careers -- apples and apples).
While white men's incomes have been stagnant for the past three decades -- for both white and black families, most of the increase in family income was a result of women entering the workforce rather than wages increasing -- the current generation of 30-something black men actually earn, on average, 12 percent less than their fathers did in the mid-1970s.
That trend toward downward mobility has an enormous impact on the black middle class. While children of middle-class whites tend to do better than their parents did at the same age, a majority of middle-class African American children do worse than theirs, both in income and in terms of their position on the nation's economic ladder. According to Isaacs, "only 31 percent of black children born to parents in the middle of the income distribution have family income greater than their parents, compared to 68 percent of white children from the same income bracket."
The key findings from the study are truly eye-opening:
Startlingly, almost half (45 percent) of black children whose parents were solidly middle class end up falling to the bottom of the income distribution, compared to only 16 percent of white children.
Achieving middle-income status does not appear to protect black children from future economic adversity the same way it protects white children.
Black children from poor families have poorer prospects than white children from such families. More than half (54 percent) of black children born to parents in the bottom quintile stay in the bottom, compared to 31 percent of white children.
Given these dynamics, it should come as no surprise that the black/white income gap has risen, not fallen, in the decades since legal, institutional racism ended in America. In 1974, black families earned, on average, almost two-thirds of what whites did; by 2004, that number had fallen to 58 percent.
But looking at income alone misses a crucial part of the story. The differences in accumulated wealth -- in net worth -- are far greater than the differences in income, and that impacts black families' prospects of moving up in a big way. In Being Black, Living in the Red, Dalton Conley, Director of NYU's Center for Advanced Social Science Research, showed that white families, on average, had eight times the accumulated wealth of black families who earned the same, and that remained true even when you adjust for education levels and savings rates. It is, as Conley told me in an interview last year, "the legacy of racial inequality from generations past."
Crucial to understanding how that impacts economic mobility is the concept of "intergenerational assistance." That's just a fancy way of saying that your chances to advance economically are very much impacted by whether your family can help with tuition payments, or a down payment on a house or with seed-money to start a business. Conley compares two hypothetical kids -- one from a family with some money and the other without. Both are born with the same level of intelligence, both are ambitious and both work hard in school. In a true meritocracy, the two would enjoy the same opportunity to get ahead. But the fact that one might graduate from college free and clear while the other is burdened with $50,000 in debt makes a huge difference in terms of their long-term earnings prospects.
[To read the entire story, go to: http://www.alternet.org/stories/70694/]
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted December 17, 2007.
Thirty years after the civil rights era, middle-class African-American families face a grim reality: their kids are far more likely to experience downward mobility in today's economy than they are to move up.
For both black and white families, America's vaunted upward mobility is largely a myth, and research suggests that Americans actually enjoy less upward mobility than people in many other wealthy countries. (I discussed this phenomenon at some length in a recent article.) But the outlook is different for white and black families.
A new study by Julia Isaacs, a Fellow with the Brookings Institution, paints a dark picture for black families, and especially for the large group of African-Americans who moved up and into the middle class following the hard-fought gains of the 1950s and 1960s.
Isaacs looked at a unique set of data, one that allowed her to compare the incomes of people in their 30s in 2004 with their parents' generation in the mid-'70s (this allowed her to compare people at the same general stage in their careers -- apples and apples).
While white men's incomes have been stagnant for the past three decades -- for both white and black families, most of the increase in family income was a result of women entering the workforce rather than wages increasing -- the current generation of 30-something black men actually earn, on average, 12 percent less than their fathers did in the mid-1970s.
That trend toward downward mobility has an enormous impact on the black middle class. While children of middle-class whites tend to do better than their parents did at the same age, a majority of middle-class African American children do worse than theirs, both in income and in terms of their position on the nation's economic ladder. According to Isaacs, "only 31 percent of black children born to parents in the middle of the income distribution have family income greater than their parents, compared to 68 percent of white children from the same income bracket."
The key findings from the study are truly eye-opening:
Startlingly, almost half (45 percent) of black children whose parents were solidly middle class end up falling to the bottom of the income distribution, compared to only 16 percent of white children.
Achieving middle-income status does not appear to protect black children from future economic adversity the same way it protects white children.
Black children from poor families have poorer prospects than white children from such families. More than half (54 percent) of black children born to parents in the bottom quintile stay in the bottom, compared to 31 percent of white children.
Given these dynamics, it should come as no surprise that the black/white income gap has risen, not fallen, in the decades since legal, institutional racism ended in America. In 1974, black families earned, on average, almost two-thirds of what whites did; by 2004, that number had fallen to 58 percent.
But looking at income alone misses a crucial part of the story. The differences in accumulated wealth -- in net worth -- are far greater than the differences in income, and that impacts black families' prospects of moving up in a big way. In Being Black, Living in the Red, Dalton Conley, Director of NYU's Center for Advanced Social Science Research, showed that white families, on average, had eight times the accumulated wealth of black families who earned the same, and that remained true even when you adjust for education levels and savings rates. It is, as Conley told me in an interview last year, "the legacy of racial inequality from generations past."
Crucial to understanding how that impacts economic mobility is the concept of "intergenerational assistance." That's just a fancy way of saying that your chances to advance economically are very much impacted by whether your family can help with tuition payments, or a down payment on a house or with seed-money to start a business. Conley compares two hypothetical kids -- one from a family with some money and the other without. Both are born with the same level of intelligence, both are ambitious and both work hard in school. In a true meritocracy, the two would enjoy the same opportunity to get ahead. But the fact that one might graduate from college free and clear while the other is burdened with $50,000 in debt makes a huge difference in terms of their long-term earnings prospects.
[To read the entire story, go to: http://www.alternet.org/stories/70694/]
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Blacks More Pessimistic About Racial Progress, Study Finds
Diverse Online
WASHINGTON
by Associated Press
Nov 13, 2007, 21:02
Growing numbers of Blacks say they’re worse off than five years ago and don’t expect their lives to improve, a study released Tuesday shows. Black pessimism about racial progress in America, according to the study, is the worst it’s been in more than two decades.
The survey by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based research organization, paints a mixed picture of race relations following Hurricane Katrina and the Jena Six case, in which six Black teens were charged with beating a White student at a high school in the town of Jena, La.
It found that just one in five Blacks, or 20 percent, said things were better off for Blacks compared with five years ago; that is the smallest percentage since 1983, when 20 percent also made that claim. In-between, the percentage of Blacks who said things had gotten better had grown, only to drop back to 20 percent.
Another 29 percent of Blacks said things had gotten worse as opposed to staying the same, the largest number since 32 percent made that claim in 1990.
In addition, fewer than half of all Blacks, or 44 percent, said they expected their prospects to brighten in the future. That’s down from 57 percent in 1986, during the height of the Reagan administration when the Justice Department actively sought to curtail affirmative action in favor of race-neutral policies.
Whites have a different view about Black progress, according to the survey. Whites were nearly twice as likely as Blacks to see Black gains in the past five years. A majority of Whites polled, or 56 percent, also said they believed prospects for Blacks would improve in the future.
“As disturbing as these findings are, in one sense it’s surprising they are not actually worse,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of 200 groups including the NAACP and National Urban League. “Most African-Americans believe the government response to problems is one of benign neglect rather than forceful action.”
Since the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision more than 50 years ago that outlawed segregation in public schools, Blacks have seen substantial civil rights gains including the passage of laws in the 1960s and 1970s that sought, in part, to deter discrimination in housing and employment.
Decades later, Blacks and Whites are now at a crossroads, with the nation and even the Black community itself divided over the best approach to achieve racial equality, whether by affirmative action to foster integration or more race-neutral policies to promote ideals of a colorblind society.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_10162.shtml ]
WASHINGTON
by Associated Press
Nov 13, 2007, 21:02
Growing numbers of Blacks say they’re worse off than five years ago and don’t expect their lives to improve, a study released Tuesday shows. Black pessimism about racial progress in America, according to the study, is the worst it’s been in more than two decades.
The survey by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based research organization, paints a mixed picture of race relations following Hurricane Katrina and the Jena Six case, in which six Black teens were charged with beating a White student at a high school in the town of Jena, La.
It found that just one in five Blacks, or 20 percent, said things were better off for Blacks compared with five years ago; that is the smallest percentage since 1983, when 20 percent also made that claim. In-between, the percentage of Blacks who said things had gotten better had grown, only to drop back to 20 percent.
Another 29 percent of Blacks said things had gotten worse as opposed to staying the same, the largest number since 32 percent made that claim in 1990.
In addition, fewer than half of all Blacks, or 44 percent, said they expected their prospects to brighten in the future. That’s down from 57 percent in 1986, during the height of the Reagan administration when the Justice Department actively sought to curtail affirmative action in favor of race-neutral policies.
Whites have a different view about Black progress, according to the survey. Whites were nearly twice as likely as Blacks to see Black gains in the past five years. A majority of Whites polled, or 56 percent, also said they believed prospects for Blacks would improve in the future.
“As disturbing as these findings are, in one sense it’s surprising they are not actually worse,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of 200 groups including the NAACP and National Urban League. “Most African-Americans believe the government response to problems is one of benign neglect rather than forceful action.”
Since the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision more than 50 years ago that outlawed segregation in public schools, Blacks have seen substantial civil rights gains including the passage of laws in the 1960s and 1970s that sought, in part, to deter discrimination in housing and employment.
Decades later, Blacks and Whites are now at a crossroads, with the nation and even the Black community itself divided over the best approach to achieve racial equality, whether by affirmative action to foster integration or more race-neutral policies to promote ideals of a colorblind society.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_10162.shtml ]
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