Sociology of Race and Ethic Relations

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Chapter 8

African Americans Today

Education

African Americans place special importance on acquiring education
Racial and ethnic groups realize that formal schooling is key to social mobility
Documented inadequacy of quality and quantity of education

Education

Educational gap between Blacks and Whites
Always been present
Gap is narrowing in recent years
Many students would not drop out of school were it not for inadequacies noted:
Insensitive teachers

Education

Poor counseling
Unresponsive administrators
Overcrowded classes
Irrelevant curricula
Dilapidated school facilities
Several can be addressed with more funding
Some are stalemated by disagreements

School Segregation

De jure patterns of segregation
According to policy or law children were assigned to schools on the basis of race
U.S Supreme Court decision in 1954 - Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas.
De facto Segregation
Results from residential patterns

School Segregation

Apartheid Schools
Refers to schools that are all Black
1 of 6 of the nation’s Black students are in attendance
Tracking
Placing students in specific curriculum groups on the basis of test scores and other criteria

School Segregation

African American children disproportionately assigned to
General classes and more White children placed in college preparatory classes
Integration is not one of the successes of public education

Acting White, Acting Black, or Neither

“Acting White”
Shifts responsibility of low school attainment from school to the individual
Overemphasizes personal responsibility, not structural features –
Quality of schools, curriculum, and teachers

Higher Education

An increase in African American students going to college and graduating
Upward trend to higher education has declined and in part is a function of:
Decline in educational financial aid

Higher Education

Push for higher standards
Employment opportunities
Negative publicity and a decline in enforcement of affirmative action
Racial incidents on college campuses

The Economic Picture

Income and Wealth
Two measures of overall economic situation of an individual or household
Income
Refers to salaries, wages, and other money received

The Economic Picture

Wealth
Encompass all of a person’s material assets, including land & other types of property
In 2009
Median income of Black families was $32,584
Compared with $54,461 for White non-Hispanic households

The Economic Picture

Black income today resembles that of Whites more than 10 years ago
25.8% of Black people lived below poverty level & 9.4% of non-Hispanic Whites
Wealth demonstrates greater disparity
Generations of social inequity left Blacks unable to accumulate the wealth of Whites

Employment

Factors explaining official unemployment rate of young African American males
Many live in depressed economy of central cities
Immigrants and illegal aliens present increased competition

Employment

White middle-class women entered the labor force
Illegal activities youth find they can make more money have become more prevalent
Official unemployment rate
Unemployed people are only people actively seeking employment

Employment

Leaves out millions of Americans, Black & White
Underemployment
Refers to working at a job for which one is overqualified, involuntarily working part-time,
Or being employed only intermittently

Family Life

Challenges to Family Stability
Female-headed household
Economic status of African-American male has been deteriorating
Extended family & augmented members as a means of emotional, social & physical support

Family Life

Sociologists attribute rapid expansion of single-parent households to shifts in the
Economy that keep Black men, especially in urban areas, out of work
Phenomenon not limited to African Americans

Strengths of African American Families

Robert Hill (1999)
1. Strong kinship bonds
2. Strong work orientation
3. Adaptability of family roles
4. Strong achievement orientation
5. A strong religious orientation

Strengths of African American Families

Most consistently documented strength
Presence of an extended family household
Most common feature
Having grandparents residing in the home
Extended living arrangements more common among Black households than White ones

The African American Middle Class

Migration of middle-class African Americans from ghetto in 1970s & 1980s
No longer present as role models
African American middle-class do not
Automatically accept all aspects of White middle-class

The African American Middle Class

W.E.B. DuBois (1952)
When racism decreases, class issues become more important
Class
Sociologist Max Weber
Sociologist William J. Wilson
The Declining Significance of Race (1980)

Housing

Plays a major role in determining quality of a person’s life
For African Americans, housing has been restricted through discrimination
President Kennedy Executive Order
1968 Federal Fair Housing Law and U.S. Supreme Court decision of Jones v. Mayer

Residential Segregation

Factors that create residential segregation in the United States
Private prejudice and discrimination
Prejudicial policies of real estate companies
Ineffective enforcement of anti-bias legislation
Public housing policies and past construction patterns reinforce housing for the poor

Residential Segregation

Banks & other lenders create barriers based on race to financing home purchasing
Redlining
Discrimination against people trying to:
Buy homes in minority/racially changing neighborhoods

Residential Segregation

Zoning Laws
Enacted to ensure specific standards of housing construction
Can also separate industrial and commercial enterprises from residential areas
Some appear to curb development of low and moderate-income housing

Criminal Justice

Blacks constitute (2010):
4.7% of the lawyers
14.1% of police
14.9% of detectives
28.6% of security guards
39% of jail inmates

Criminal Justice

FBI’s Uniform Crime Report
Black’s account for 28% of arrests
Even though they represent only about 12% of the nation’s population
Conflict Theory
UCR focuses on index crimes most often committed by low-income people

Criminal Justice

Victimization Surveys
Annual systematic interviews of ordinary people to reveal how much crime occurs
Show that African-Americans are 35% more likely to be victims of violent crime than Whites
Differential Justice
Whites dealt with more leniently than Blacks

Criminal Justice

Whether at the time of
Investigation, arrest, indictment, conviction, sentencing, incarceration, or parole
Application of differential justice to the harshest judgment that can be made:
In the legal system
The Death Penalty

Health Care

Black men are much more likely to fall victim to:
Unrelenting stress
Heart disease
Cancer
Death from hypertension twice as high as Whites

Health Care

Blacks’ high mortality rates from heart disease, kidney disease, and strokes
Conflict Perspective
Howard Waitzkin (1986)
Racial tensions contribute to the medical problems of African Americans

Health Care

Stress from racial prejudice and discrimination help to explain high rates of hypertension
Blacks represent 6% of practicing physicians
Issues of environmental justice

Politics

Barack Obama entered the White House as president in 2009
Only 42 African American congressional representatives
Locally elected Black officials have difficulty jumping to statewide office

Politics

African Americans have not received an equal share of the political pie
Non-Black voters are concerned that view of Whites and non-Blacks:
Will not be represented by an African American

Politics

Gerrymandering
Dated from 1810
The bizarre outlining of districts to create politically advantageous outcomes