Here's today's episode of NBC's series on Black women.
You tell me...is this about Black women or Black men?
Brian Williams led with the "achievement gap that's hard not to notice," saying almost 2/3rds of Black college undergraduates are women. I decided to look into that claim.
I'm not going to claim I've run across the Population Reference Bureau before today, but it's in my personal reference link collection now. The Crossover in Female-Male College Enrollment Rates, which reviews college enrollment data through 2005, is currently under discussion. Let's go right at it. I need you to get a sense of the proportions of the problem.
Gender differences in enrollment are more pronounced for racial and ethnic minorities, especially for blacks and Hispanics. Nationwide, there is a 7 percentage-point gap between men and women's college enrollment rates. For blacks and Latinos, the gender gap is 9 percentage points.
Here's my problem. Nine percent gap...yes, that's large. But it's only two percent more than the national difference. The question now becomes, WHY ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME?? This is a national problem...a two percent variance between the national and Black/Latino rates proves that.
And let me piss a LOT of people off here...given the extra weight we have to carry, I think that the variance is so small says Black males are doing better than white males.
And let's look at how that gap is treated in the media when you're talking about white males. You'll also see why John Tierney is writing science articles (pretty well, actually) instead of op-eds.
John Tierney takes the argument to its logical extreme
Once more in defense of lazy boys
American Intrapolitics: That's it, just American Intrapolitics
You see? Straight ego protection. The schools are maladapted. Not the boys. Meanwhile "[t]here's something very different happening with young black men."
None of this is to say guys shouldn't step up our game. If we don't, we'll be left out again to make room for more "gentlemen's Cs." It is to say I'm pretty damn tired of seeing Black men catch it in the neck. Black women have accomplished a lot; they have much to be proud of. Why can't they just SAY that?
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This is good stuff. I'm jackin' it.
This report ignores the fact
This report ignores the fact that black women have routinely outnumbered black men in higher education since the 19th century but have been well behind back men in attaining advanced degrees and advancing professionally within academia. Black women's larger numerical presence in colleges and universities in relation to black men is rooted in the feminization of education whereby women carry the inordinate burden of educating the masses while men garner all the credit for producing knowledge and constructing pedagogical paradigms. I had the feeling that NBC's "look at black women" would be a cleverly disguised indictment of black men. Dividing black people by gender seems to be a sure way of preserving the nightmare image of the out-of-control black male.
For a good history of black women's participation in higher education before Brown vs Board, I recommend Black Women in the Ivory Tower by Stephanie Evans. http://www.professorevans.com/bwit.asp
I thought it was going to be a Black male bash
i suspected it.