The flight of "the plight"

In my eleven years of navigating and facilitating communications online, few articles to my memory have proliferated more rapidly and broadly than the recent New York Times article, "Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn".

A wake-up call to some, among the social circles I'm in online and offline -- spheres that skew highly educated and Black -- these data are confirmation of realities of which we are already well aware -- either through direct, personal experience or varying social proximity to this population -- and usually far closer, more frequent and more intimate than our white counterparts of the same socio-economic profile.

More interestingly, in these times when the only phrase more pejorative than "liberal" is "Affirmative Action" -- a federal initiative which tripled the Black middle-class in just one generation -- the subtext of the ubiquitous e-mail messages citing this Times article are feelings of vulnerability and rage.

And while I have yet to hear any of my fellow African Americans question the veracity of the data cited in the article, renewed and intensified conversations emerge that focus not so much on if such a crisis exists among poor, young Black men, but how the media choose to frame this issue and what salient omissions and tacit assumptions are being made by journalists, scholars, and commentators. Further, concern abounds about how such media forces abdicate any responsibility to disabuse their largely white audiences of the spurious extrapolations they may make based on their level of ignorance, or worse, malice.

In addressing the plight of the most disadvantaged among my Black brethen in this country, I am particularly concerned about how well -- or is too often the case -- how poorly this crisis is contextualized. Tip-offs of people's perspectives and biases include discussions that start with "these people", "the Blacks" and "what they need to do is . . .".

As my grandmother has always reminded me: "Consider the source." And in so saying, while I have not yet combed through the studies cited by the author of this gripping article in the Times, it is not lost on me that the messenger is the Times and that with every forwarded e-mail, blog post, web link, radio, TV and op/ed in reaction to it validates the writer's and editors' interpretation of this crisis at the expense of perhaps more balanced, progressive analyses of the same studies -- analyses that will not likely have the same acceptance and breadth of readership than they deserve.

As I mentioned in a previous article about the white ownership of nominal Black media, I fear that we will lose sight of the filters, assumptions and political agenda of the interpreters of this undisputed inner-city pandemic and add insult to injury by further victimizing some of our most vulnerable and under-appreciated citizens by laying at their feet responsibility that our country has callously chosen not to shoulder since at least 1865.

While I do not liken the New York Times to the Washington Times, I have little confidence that this publication as a journalistic institution can cover this polemic subject matter with the same level of insight, nuance and sensitivity than more progressive media entities whose imprimaturs do not have the perceived gravitas and respect that they deserve.

Comments

[Pat Rogers]

Another 'must read' on the subject.

Sasha Abramsky's new book Conned
"Conned:How Millions of Americans Went to Prison, Lost the Vote, and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House"

Personally, I think the drug war was created in 1970 by Richard Nixon in collusion with the Wallace wing of the Democrats to neutralize and subvert the electoral empowerment of the Voter Rights Act and the 26st Amendment. Looking at the Jim Crow criminal disenfranchisement effects that the drug war has had on poverty oppressed urban communities Jim Crow is the only real success of the drug war. SEE: Pennsylvania -democracy incarcerated- for the impact in just one state and links to other states.

[TK]

I would also be curious to hear your perspective on the Orlando Patterson op-ed piece in the 3/26 NYT entitled A Poverty of the Mind.

[Mark]

Care to enlighten us, Oh Great Prognasticator -- on which newspaper you favor for putting the correct "spin" on the "b"lack plight?

You know -- the one that says that:
1)the rampant violence,
2)the shortest life expectancy,
3)the highest unwed pregnancy,
4)the highest substance abuse/dependency, 5)the highest incarceration rate in the nation,
6)the lowest IQ levsls,
7)the lowest education achievement,
8)the highest per capita welfare consumption,
9)the highest welfare abuse,
9)the (far and away) highest illiteracy rate...

somehow paints an inaccurate depiction of the woeful state of "b"lack America. I'm very interested, honestly. Because to 'skew' raw data, and do it creatively is no mean feat. My guess? It's gonna be some publication that likewise capitalizes "Black" and lowercases "White". Christ, you're a prick.

[MALCOLM]

MAYBE WE SHOULD DO WHAT THE FRENCH ARE DOING

French Riot Police Try to Quell Paris Protest

[David J. Hudson]

This article is phenominal.... I need to pull out my dictionary though.

[song4assata]

Chris: While you are on this subject, I need you to post a story about 2 African-American young women who were raped,sodomized, and racially terrorized by 3 white members of the nationally ranked Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team. Story link: http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/421799.html

I do not think the media has pressed the fact that the victims were black and that racial slurs were shouted at them by their attackers, during and after the attack as they fled. "Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt." was heard by a neighbor to be shouted at the women as they fled. Yeah. Sounds like 1956 huh? Chris please write about this, if you read the links or go to my sub-blog on this subject http://justice4twosisters.blogspot.com. Looking to hear from you; (your boy Marc Lamont Hill already posted on it.) Will you?