Wednesday, December 11, 2013

5 Ways Integration Underdeveloped Black America

FULL ARTICLE


Excerpts

1) Black Wealth Stagnated or Declined After Integration

During segregation, Blacks were forced to start and support the businesses in their own communities. Many of these businesses flourished and even helped made some Black communities, such as the Greenwood community in Tulsa, Okla., (often called Black Wall Street), wealthier than their white neighbors.

In 1865, just after Emancipation, 476,748 free Blacks – 1.5 percent of U.S. population– owned a .005 percent of the total wealth of the United States. Today, a full 135 years after the abolition of slavery, 44.5 million Black Americans – 14.2 percent of the population — possess a meager 1 percent of the national wealth.

2) Black Family Structure Collapsed After Integration

In 1965, only 8 percent of childbirths in the Black community occurred out of wedlock. In 2010, that figure was 41 percent; and today, out-of-wedlock childbirths in the Black community is at an astonishing 72 percent.

3) The Unemployment Rate of Black Men Quadrupled After Integration

Since integration, the unemployment rate of Black men has been spiraling out of control. In 1954, white men had a zero percent unemployment rate, while African-American men experienced about a 4 percent rate. By 2010, it was at 16.7 percent for Black men compared to 7.7 percent for white men.

4) Myth of a Colorblind Society Propagated After Integration

Colorblind policies that treat everyone the same, no exceptions for the historically oppressed and disenfranchised, are often used to argue against corrective policies such as affirmative action. But “colorblindness” today merely bolsters the unfair advantages that color-coded practices enabled white Americans to accumulate over a very long time.

5) Black Community Became Dependent After Integration

African-Americans have appealed to the descendants of our oppressors to right their ancestors’ wrongs, pay us sufficient wages to take care of our families, educate our children and police our neighborhoods.
As a result, only 2 percent of all working Black Americans work for another Black person within their own neighborhood. Because of this, professionally trained Black people provide very little economic benefit to the Black community.

(Atlanta Black Star, 12/6/2103)

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