1 out of every 5 Minnesota blacks is unemployed, why is that? (Minneapolis: upper-class, lawyer)
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I don't like being a racist, but the facts speak for themselves about racial/cultural differences. Black MALES have a far greater propensity towards violent behavior just about everywhere you go... less so in some smaller southern communities but still just look at the crime rate of any given city on city-data and then look at the population racial breakdown. Case closed.
The town I live in has no crime.
There is very little crime in Marshall, MN, a town very similar to Brookings, and there are plenty of black males there. The important factor is concentrated poverty -- you see violent crime in MPLS because there are densely-populated impoverished ghettos, which breed crime. You see the same effect on South Dakota's Native reservations, where people live in concentrated poverty conditions. There is nothing in the black or Native genetic codes that breed crime, crime is due to poverty, lack of parenting and a culture of violence.
There is very little crime in Marshall, MN, a town very similar to Brookings, and there are plenty of black males there. The important factor is concentrated poverty -- you see violent crime in MPLS because there are densely-populated impoverished ghettos, which breed crime. You see the same effect on South Dakota's Native reservations, where people live in concentrated poverty conditions. There is nothing in the black or Native genetic codes that breed crime, crime is due to poverty, lack of parenting and a culture of violence.
I agree--I think people are taking a lot of this tread out of context because the original question was about 1 in 5 blacks being unemployed-thus the focus on black males. I think you will find similar crime and unemployment statistics in ANY area where there is a concentration of low income people, white, black, whatever.
Marshall does have very low crime-however, it follows the same pattern, low income individuals committing the crimes-which in the case of Marshall tends to be the Hispanic males. The Somali population there is actually, for the most part, gainfully employed and pretty well educated. Since Marshall has a pretty low cost of living, the factory jobs many of the Somali people have offer a fairly good standard of living. Many of the Somali people in Marshall were highly educated before coming to the US-language barriers prevent them from getting better jobs, for the time being. One family we knew quite well, the father is a physicist, but because he could not speak English, was working at a factory job. He made DARN SURE his boys got a good education and was working on his English skills as well.
Take this a step further and you see very little crime in the Morton/Redwood Falls area as well--high concentration of Am. Indians there as well--BUT, with Jackpot Junction, most of those families are very upper middle class/upper class families.
I agree--I think people are taking a lot of this tread out of context because the original question was about 1 in 5 blacks being unemployed-thus the focus on black males. I think you will find similar crime and unemployment statistics in ANY area where there is a concentration of low income people, white, black, whatever.
Marshall does have very low crime-however, it follows the same pattern, low income individuals committing the crimes-which in the case of Marshall tends to be the Hispanic males. The Somali population there is actually, for the most part, gainfully employed and pretty well educated. Since Marshall has a pretty low cost of living, the factory jobs many of the Somali people have offer a fairly good standard of living. Many of the Somali people in Marshall were highly educated before coming to the US-language barriers prevent them from getting better jobs, for the time being. One family we knew quite well, the father is a physicist, but because he could not speak English, was working at a factory job. He made DARN SURE his boys got a good education and was working on his English skills as well.
Take this a step further and you see very little crime in the Morton/Redwood Falls area as well--high concentration of Am. Indians there as well--BUT, with Jackpot Junction, most of those families are very upper middle class/upper class families.
Very true. Also, in addition to Marshall's Somali community, there are a fair number of African-Americans and Asians in the town as well. Good call on Redwood Falls-Morton, too, I didn't think of that. Diversity DOES NOT equal crime, as long as there is ample employment, education and opportunities for economic advancement.
Then, you are getting into a slippery slope, as this getting government completely out of the way thing can get into student loans, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other governmental involved forms of "entitlements".
I'm all for personal responsibility, but even the most responsible fall on hard times, as this recession has shown. So, we can't have our cake and eat it too in terms of government involvement.
Well...the libertarian in me is also in favor of getting government out of Medicare, Social Security and other governmental involved forms of entitlements - for a great many reasons that include them being extra-constitutional, bankrupting the country, not the proper role of government, and corruption. However, this is well outside of the forum question...
I was speaking of the city as a whole, and even more specifically, of its school district. MPS has never lost its white middle class residents. That's very different from many other cities this size. Some specific schools or neighborhoods (and yes, parts of North Minneapolis) have changed and did experience white flight, but the school district as a whole has always had a significant core of white middle class families -- something that is, I think, fairly unusual for cities of its size.
Uptown, i'm sorry but this is not true. If you look back in the late 70's, all MPS schools do not resemble what we see today. The 3 on the Northside was close to......North High 50% , Henry 90% , Edison 99% , White residents.
The rest...Central,Vocational,West,Roosevelt,South,Was hburn,Marshall U, were always above 75% White, & Southwest...Easily 95% White.
Maybe some of us are just a tad older than you, and remember what the city used to look like, back in the day.
Uptown, i'm sorry but this is not true. If you look back in the late 70's, all MPS schools do not resemble what we see today. The 3 on the Northside was close to......North High 50% , Henry 90% , Edison 99% , White residents.
The rest...Central,Vocational,West,Roosevelt,South,Was hburn,Marshall U, were always above 75% White, & Southwest...Easily 95% White.
Maybe some of us are just a tad older than you, and remember what the city used to look like, back in the day.
That does not prove white flight. What it does show, however, is that the city as a whole did add a great deal of students of other races. I'm not suggesting that the demographics are the same as they were then, but the district as a whole DID retain a white middle class. It wasn't exclusively a white middle class, but there was never the wholesale white middle class flight that you found in so many other cities. I attended MPS in the '80s into the '90s, and my schools were still majority white. Maybe it's a matter of degree; I've spent a great deal of my professional career in cities where there was significant white flight, as in almost ALL of the white kids left the district. That did not happen in Minneapolis. In the late '70s white students still made up 75% of the student body; I think by the time I was in junior high the number had fallen quite a bit, but it was still over 50%. That does show diversification and does undoubtedly reflect some movement out, as well as movement of non-white students in, but I think it still counts as retaining its white, mostly middle-class students. That said, the pattern looks different when looking at individual neighborhoods or schools versus looking at the city or the district as a whole. Certainly some neighborhoods DID have white flight, and the city as a whole has been, and still is, fairly segregated, particularly along economic lines. I guess to clarify my argument I agree that it's not fair to say that there was NO white flight, but rather that unlike many urban school districts, MPS (at least as a whole) has historically never totally lost its white middle class students. The number went down (and I know many parents did not like the forced busing and loss of community schools that was an issue when I was a child), but it was still nothing like what you saw happen in so many other cities. The district DID transition from nearly all-white (but then, the city -- and state -- as a whole also got a lot less white), but there was still a sizable percentage of white kids who remained. Perhaps it's just that my experiences elsewhere have colored my view, and perhaps admittedly it's just all relative, but I think it's only been in more recent years that the percentage of white kids in MPS have hit below the one-third of the student body mark -- MPS is now only 32% white-- but at the same time the percentage of white kids in the local suburbs is also falling, as our metro area is getting more diverse overall. I certainly agree that the city's schools look vastly different today than they did 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. But then again, our metro area as a whole also looks vastly different.
There are several issues at the core of the black unemployment rate, some of which have already been mentioned, but not all:
1) Disparities in criminal justice system: Minnesota is one of the nation's leaders in disparities in our criminal justice system- a black person is much more likely (actually, I think it's about 5 times more likely in certain age/gender demographics) to be arrested, convicted, and incarcerated here than a white person. This should not be interpreted as "local black people commit more crime"- drive around SW Mpls and see if you see any police officers out 'cracking down' and 'busting heads' there, then drive around the city's most impoverished neighborhoods for a day or two. I'm not saying that there aren't great officers on the MPD, but there are a lot of issues with their community policing, discrimination complaints, and internal affairs (not to mention some known corruption)- all of which are VERY well documented and known to people that take the time to do a minor amount of research. Granted, Mpls is just one example, but a lot of biases exist about persons of color in the state, and this is separate from the already-mentioned issue of the higher likelihood of persons living in poverty, where similar disparities exist, to commit crimes (which is a no-brainer).
2) Barriers to employment experienced by ex-offenders/ persons of color (connected to point #1) Persons with criminal records, a large number in MN which is very disproportionately black/persons of color (although it should be noted that collectively more white people are involved with our criminal justice system than persons of color, which has been increasing with the meth epidemic), have an extraordinarily difficult time getting a company/employer to take a shot on them- local/national studies confirm that persons w/criminal histories (and esp. felony records) have the most barriers to employment than any other disadvantaged group. The criminal background issue is compounded when it's a person of color, and especially a black person (am going off of research I've read in the past)- one study conducted by Devah Pager (not local) found that, statistically speaking- white ex-offenders with the same skills, background, experience were more likely to get a job offer than black persons without a criminal record. Since 9/11, Minnesota employers have become insane about criminal background checks and (very misinformed) perceived risk aversion related to it.
And people really need to open their eyes up to the possibility that, irregardless of someone's background/skills/education, etc.- discrimination still exists here and elsewhere in our country, to say otherwise is pretty naive.
3) African-born population: Minnesota, and the metro area specifically, has one of the larger African-born populations in the nation, which are included in "black unemployment rates". Locally, there are a number of persons in this demographic with limited English and other barriers to employment, which in recent years has been compounded by the fact that a large percentage of our African-born population is Muslim. From personal experience (but not an acutal member of this group) I can definitively say that, like ex-offenders, this group has seen more discrimination from employers in recent years.
4) Loss/outsourcing of manufacturing and other positions and socioeconomic status: A lot of people really focus on the socioeconomic status of transplants to the area, and I think this is fairly overhyped (and the whole stereotype about coming to take advantage of benefits is REALLY overhyped). However, there is a decent percentage of black migration that has occurred here (as in other cities) where persons were looking for new opportunities in cities that had strong employment rates, of which MSP was once considered a leading option. Persons migrating for better job prospects are of course not going to be of the solidly middle class category. Minnesota has lost a lot of manufacturing/production jobs in recent years, similar to the rest of the country, and this has had a big impact on people of all backgrounds including a good number of persons of color.
Regarding the "there isn't a large enough black middle class or population of hiring managers here" theory- there may be a grain of truth to this, but I'm not sure it's so much the fact that there isn't a black middle class here, but possibly moreso the fact that the black middle class is scattered throughout the metro area, making up small chunks of the overall population in dozens of suburbs and city neighborhoods, often times being the small minority of areas where they are on the same socioeconomic plane as their neighbors. There aren't many neighborhood or suburban areas known for having a large black middle class (although there are a few where this is somewhat the case). This isn't bad in and of itself, but I think there is something to be said of the fact that when socioeconomic classes are segregated (no matter what race someone is), it's harder for poor persons to network/connect with people in positions of influence/resources, not to mention the fact that there often aren't many local businesses/jobs in one's immediate vicinity.
The majority of the above represent big issues needing to be addressed at an institutional level here in MN, not an attempt to explain these massive disparities away...
Last edited by Camden Northsider; 06-16-2011 at 03:56 PM..
What better use of public resources can you make than education? More ball parks for billionaires? More prisons for black men?
I'm proud to live in a state that values education so highly, and puts money where its mouth is.
I don't know, maybe bridges, roads, healthcare or lower taxes so that businesses like 3M don't leave.
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