Educational holocaust for black men in america

[Raha]

These statistics were compiled from various sources by The Black Star Project. You may email us to request sources at blackstar1000@ameritech.net.

The Educational Holocaust
for Black Men In America


Over the past 20 years, the plight of Black men in America has consistently gotten worse, but over this last year, it has become catastrophic! By virtually any measure -- education, family matters, economics, employment, health, incarceration -- the life spirit of Black men in America is being crushed! Now is the time for action and change or it will be too late.

The latest education completion rate data from the National Student Clearinghouse and the Schott Foundation for Public Education show that only 2.5% of Black male freshman students from Chicago public high schools graduated from college by the time they were 25 years old; nationally, only 41% of Black male students graduated from high school; and of the too few Black males who enrolled in college, only 22% graduated after six years. This is an educational holocaust that guarantees utter and complete devastation in Black communities across America in coming decades! As Black men have little success in education and less access to the economic mainstream of America, many Black communities will not be able to survive.

Recently, staff at The Black Star Project was told there should be no more reporting of the facts about the sorrowful plight of Black men in America. Unfortunately, it is not the reporting of the facts that is the problem. The problem is the “hellish� factual reality that millions of Black boys and men live through everyday in America. This outrage must be reported until the Black community and America rise to the level of action required to solve this problem. Simply reporting or not reporting the news will not improve the lives of Black men, the lives of their children or the communities in which they live. We must have positive, concerted and coordinated action from the Black community and from America.

Growing our awareness and understanding of the problem helps to raise the consciousness of the community enough to design, implement and complete a successful action plan. To solve this problem, we must organize, plan, act and evaluate, and then continuously act again and evaluate again until the problem is solved. The Black Star Project needs your help for an historic and accelerated movement to lift up the Black “invisible� and suffering men in America whose plight is inextricably linked to that of us all.

During the months of May and June in 2006, throughout America, organizers of hundreds of “leaderless,� grassroots, town hall meetings will host sessions (in Wisconsin, California, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and in other states) to align on the solutions to the problems of Black men. Solutions and next steps outlined in these highly structured meetings will be shared in communities throughout America. We need people to host meetings in cities, towns, universities, churches and community centers across America.
Pass the word that we must make the change. This is not only a Black male problem—this is an American problem. Black men need to lead the effort to educate, organize and mobilize to lift up Black men, but all of America has a powerful role to play in solving this ongoing, deepening plight of Black men. Black men must become the change that they seek.

For more information on how to sponsor a town hall meeting in your community, please call 312/842-3527, email blackstar1000@ameritech.net or visit www.blackstarproject.org.

By Phillip Jackson, Executive Director,
The Black Star Project,
1333 South Wabash, Box 20, Chicago, Illinois 60605
312/842-3527 or email at blackstar1000@ameritech.net
May 3, 2006

Facts about the Deepening Plight of Black Men in America

In Education/Family
• For every 100 Black male Chicago high school freshman students, only 2.5% obtain a bachelor's degree by the time they're 25.
• Only 41% of Black men graduate from high school in the United States.
• Just 22 % of Black males who began at a four-year college graduated within six years.
• 69% of Black children in America cannot read at grade level in the 4th grade, compared with 29% among White children.
• 32% of all suspended students are Black. Black students (mostly Black males) are twice as likely as Whites to be suspended or expelled.
• 67% of Black children are born out of wedlock.



In Employment/Economics
• At comparable educational levels, Black men earn 67% of what White men make.
• White males with a high-school diploma are just as likely to have a job and tend to earn just as much as Black males with college degrees.
• Blacks make up only 3.2% of lawyers, 3% of doctors, and less than 1% of architects in America. Many of these are Black women.
• 53% of Black men aged 25-34 are either unemployed or earn too little to lift a family of four from poverty.
• Light-skinned Blacks have a 50% better chance of getting a job than dark-skinned Blacks.
• While constituting roughly 12% of the total population, Black America represents nearly 30% of America's poor.
• 45% of Black children live below the poverty line, compared with 16% of White children.
• The net worth of a Black family in America is $6,100 versus $67,000 for a White family.
• In New York City in 2003 only 51.8% of Black men ages 16 to 64 were employed vs. 75.7% for White men and 65.7% for Latino men.



In Incarceration/Crime:
• In 2001, the chances of going to prison were highest among Black males (32.2%) and Hispanic males (17.2%) and lowest among White males (5.9%).
• Blacks account for only 12% of the U.S. population, but 44 % of all prisoners in the United States are Black.
• Blacks, who comprise only 12% of the population and account for about 13% of drug users, constitute 35% of all arrests for drug possession, 55% of all convictions on those charges, and 74% of all those sentenced to prison for possession.
• In at least fifteen states, Black men were sent to prison on drug charges at rates ranging from twenty to fifty-seven times those of White men.
• In 1986, before mandatory minimums for crack offenses became effective, the average federal drug offense sentence for Blacks was 11% higher than for Whites. Four years later following the implementation of harsher drug sentencing laws, the average federal drug offense sentence was 49% higher for Blacks.
• The Black male homicide rate is seven times the White male rate.
• A young Black male in America is more likely to die from gunfire than was any soldier in Vietnam.
• The Justice Department estimates that one out of every 21 Black men can expect to be murdered, a death rate double that of U. S. soldiers in World War II.
• 1.46 million Black men out of a total voting population of 10.4 million have lost their right to vote due to felony convictions.

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These statistics were compiled from various sources by The Black Star Project. You may email us to request sources at blackstar1000@ameritech.net. To join the movement to save young Black men and to educate Black children, call us at 312/842-3527, email us at blackstar1000@ameritech.net or visit our website at www.blackstarproject.org.


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