Race in America

I know I am going to be accused of being racist for this blog post. But here it goes.

I just read an article in Yahoo News that stated Blacks are vastly under-represented in Silicon Valley jobs.  Less than 2% in fact. Are companies in Silicon Valley intentionally refusing to hire Blacks? I doubt that is the case.  Are American schools denying math and science courses to Black children?  I doubt this also.  Is race a factor in one's ability to learn math and science?  Doubtful.  And certainly Asians and Hispanics are not under-represented in Silicon Valley jobs. So what is the cause of this disparity in hiring practices?  Where are the qualified Blacks?

This made me think for a moment about the frustrations of Blacks in America with regard to treatment by the police - which some say is racially biased.  I am not convinced.  But it is true that the high crime neighborhoods in America, where a higher police presence is needed and where more crime takes place, have a disproportionately higher Black population. It should not be news to anyone that the majority of Blacks in America are killed, not by the police, but by other Blacks. That is an undeniable fact.  And the jobless rate among Blacks is higher than any other group in America. Likewise their educational levels are the lowest. Lack of education and having a felony conviction does not improve one's job prospects.

There has been a call to hire more Black police officers.  This would be a good solution to erasing negative attitudes towards policemen. But why are not more Blacks being hired by police forces?  On today's TV news there was a group of new police recruits graduating from the police academy in New York City. The ceremony was held in Madison Square Garden and there were hundreds of new policemen graduating.  Looking across this crowd it was obvious that they were mostly White faces.  Very few Blacks.  In order to apply for a job with the police force in New York City one must be minimally a high school graduate (not a high school drop out) with military training OR a high school graduate with 60 college credits.  The recruit must also have a clean record (no felony or criminal convictions) and pass several standardized physical tests. Therein lies the problem.  A disproportionately high number of Black youth are high school drop outs and have criminal backgrounds.  They simply do not qualify to become policemen.

The solution to this racial disparity in America MUST COME from within the Black community itself. Lowering the qualifying standards for admission to Silicon Valley jobs or entry to police academies, and indeed to any job qualification, only weakens America.  But even after decades of affirmative action programs in America the disparity between Blacks and other races in job hiring is still too wide. This is not the case with Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans.  Blacks need to improve their education level themselves. It cannot be done for them. It cannot be handed to them without their own effort.  Black parents need to take responsibility and take action to make certain their children stay in school and study hard. Black fathers need to take responsibility and action to make certain their sons are supervised, are not killing each other, not joining gangs, not doing drugs. This cannot be done by White people for them.  And since this takes time, indeed generations to repair I am afraid the disparity among job hiring practices in America - and this negative image of Blacks in America as lawless, unskilled and under-educated - will only continue.  It is a sad state of affairs.

Now there are all sorts of solutions possible to help remedy this problem. For instance encouraging more mentoring programs for Black youth, hiring more math and science teachers so that classes are smaller and more attention can be provided individual students, more trade schools and more high school equivalency programs (HEPS) made available, more internship programs made available. But can we really take a Black youth by the hand and sit with him all day long to make sure he is attending school every day, studying hard, completing his homework, preparing for his exams, staying out of trouble and staying away from drugs and gangs and mischief? Only the Black community itself can do this for their own children. It is time for our Black leadership (Sharpton, Obama, Holder, etc.) to stop blaming White Americans exclusively for the disparity in hiring practices and the higher incarceration rate of Black men and start becoming the solution, not part of the problem.

12.29.16 - update - I am re-reading this blog two years after I wrote it and have had some more thoughts about it.  I won't edit what I previously wrote.  But I will add (1) it was presumptuous of me to offer such a strong opinion on this problem since I am neither Black nor a parent, and (2) that I was wrong in stating it was the responsibility of just Black leadership to resolve the problem.  The responsibility belongs to all Americans.  The best solution, I believe, is the development of mentoring programs for ALL youth, regardless of race, religion, income, geography, etc.  To accomplish that goal we must 'level the playing field' by equalizing the tax revenue for education distributed to each public school child and equalize the pay scale for all public school teachers regardless of the geographic school district where the children reside and are taught.  I also need to rethink my opposition to affirmative action programs as discriminatory.  Affirmative action programs are mentoring programs, or at least they should be; Just so long as the intent is to assist the individual and not an intent to improve the EEOC corporate image of the employer.