It’s nice to find another American of African descent on the conservative side of the aisle. I’m going to read a few more of these before I dig in.

-Marty

I can’t help but wonder how many of your “advisors” are writing or writing anything worth reading.

I did not know that Thomas had fisked the NUL .73 statistic so well.

As he repeated in today’s townhall article, the only way that liberals can move their platform forward is on fraud. Cherished liberal planks simply fall apart upon closer scrunity at the numbers behind the lies. Thanks.

Thomas Sowell debunked that. Wages in the South are much lower than in the North. Since the majority of Blacks live in the South the national figures are distorted. If you compare Blacks to Whites in the South and Blacks to Whites in the North the disparity is much smaller. In addition, when you compare marrieds to marrieds, the gap is smaller still. Adding years of education to the mix and the gap nearly disappears. If you compare Whites in the South to Whites in the North or White Singles to White Marrieds, the same income gaps will appear.

The good news is that Black married couples with a good education do well and the wage gap disappears. Wow. Who’d a thunk, eh? Get a good education. Study hard. Work hard. Get married and stay married and your income will be on a par with any other ethnic group that does the same thing.

These stats are often used to manipulate public opinion. The same type of manipulations which continue to show the women earn less than men by comparing apples to oranges. If you compare men with women who have been in the work force the same amount of time (not taking extended maternity leaves or child rearing breaks) with similar education/experience, women actually earn $1.03 to the man’s $1.00. However, when you compare all women (regardless of years of work experience or education) to all men, the 78% (or whatever it is today) will appear.

The Left cannot tolerate good news. Their platform and their agenda only plays on misery. They have no special interest if the interest is doing well.

I am a newly arrived reader, so I’m glad you re-ran the column. It is certainly true that black children are being cheated in our educational system due to the paternalism, “sensitivity”, and just plain laziness of the part those running the system. What is equally true is that ALL American children are being cheated by this system. As long as our professional educators have unrestricted control of education, it will continue to be a gigantic hole in the universe into which we pour more and more money, and get nothing out.

How much closer can America get to achieving equality between blacks and whites, if the quality of black education keeps going downhill. What I glean from all the conflicting statistics, is that no matter how it’s sliced, Black and Latino kids think hitting the books is acting white.

Hello!!! Disparities-schmarities. The so called disparity is self-inflicted, aided and abetted by liberals who insist on removing the yoke of responsibility and self-determination. The kids are churned out by the public schools like ground beef. When these kids trip, it’s no longer the elite’s problem. The blame gets shifted to whitey, employers and ultimately becoming our problem–as in We The Taxpayers.

Aside from the various stats & studies, what I see in the flesh around me are ill-equipped kids growing up to flip burgers, clean out my office, provide wheelchair services at the airport or any number of lower level service jobs that doesn’t require much by the way of the 3 Rs.

The problem is not with employers, it lies with the elites that insist on churning out mediocre students into the workforce. If the liberals don’t start dealing with the basic fundamental truths like rigorus studies of the 3 Rs–as opposed to useless afro-centric studies, organizations like NUL will continue to see null progress towards economic “parity”.

Dare I say that the status of African Americans at .73, or 73%, when compared to their white counterparts is equitably proportionate to the personal resource/capital that the individuals bring to the workforce? Simply put, I’m not going to pay a janitor the same wages as someone who can do cost analysis and technical writing, regardless of skintone. Unfortunately, if schools turn out more blacks that barely can operate a cash register if it weren’t for icons, those kids aren’t going to get very far.

Perhaps NUL should concentrate on telling disadvantaged kids to start acting white so that when they grow up, they can start getting paid like whites.

If NUL is really concerned about the future of blacks in the workforce, then they should also get behind Bush on the various efforts to raise the quality of education, starting with making union teachers compete for their jobs.

It’s puzzling to me that so many black people feel that nothing has improved for them since 1964. In this city there used to be separate drinking fountains and restrooms for white and black people, restaurants wouldn’t serve black people, and they couldn’t use the public swimming pools. One day a week black people were allowed to go to the zoo. I know all that’s so overdone as to be almost cliche, but it’s true. Now all that’s unimaginable for young folks, and I include myself at age 43. We have a black mayor and majority black city council and school board who flaunt court orders to continue minority set-asides in construction contracts. I’m not saying life is wonderful for every black citizen in this city, but can it be true that things really aren’t any better?

LaShawn, great post. It amuses me to see advice given to Pres. Bush on how to attract more of the black vote; advice which if followed, would morph him into a Democrat. Well, he’s not one, so for those folks who want to vote for a Democrat, Kerry’s their man.

I addressed this on my television show last night…if we believe that racism is what caused the disparity between blacks an whites in terms of vitality economic and social indicators, BEFORE the Civil Rights Act…then at what point did racism cease to exist after the act and how were the problems racism produced corrected?

http://www.nul.org/news/2004/soba.html

That is economic and social data gathered and compiled by the Urban League in their national report utilizing census data, and other primary and secondary sources.

Similar to how second hand smoke has not been proven to cause cancer, but actuaries CAN SHOW a highly correlary increase in risk for lung cancer by those who are perpetually around second hand smoke…I submit the same can be said for racism…

Remember we had both Republican & Democratic presidents, Democratic & Republican controlled congresses since the Act was passed…