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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums1.5 Million Missing Black Men
In New York, almost 120,000 black men between the ages of 25 and 54 are missing from everyday life. In Chicago, 45,000 are, and more than 30,000 are missing in Philadelphia. Across the South from North Charleston, S.C., through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and up into Ferguson, Mo. hundreds of thousands more are missing.
They are missing, largely because of early deaths or because they are behind bars. Remarkably, black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis. For every 100 black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 black men. Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity.
African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is nonetheless jarring. It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict black men disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings by the police and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and husbands.
Perhaps the starkest description of the situation is this: More than one out of every six black men who today should be between 25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.
Read More http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?abt=0002&abg=1&_r=0
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)And yes Bill Clinton is partially responsible because of his policies.
But he would admit it has gone the wrong way and needs to be fixed as Hillary has and others
This is nuts
bravenak
(34,648 posts)sheshe2
(83,757 posts)Yes it has bravenak.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)we always felt lucky that although we have had some family in jail or shot, at least nobody dies during the gang wars and stuff. Friends passed, though. All those airbrushed RIP shirts piss me off. It should not be this way. I think we are coming on a change. Look how those kids know EXACTLY what the problem is and are not asking for change, they are demanding it. They'll get it. They know better than to beg. Gotta fight. We fight we win.
Look how disproportionate this is. And it's easy to track down the socioeconomic roots. Take gang violence for example. Here in town we recently had a couple of gang killings. Two young men dead, 5 more arrested for crimes related to the shootings. That's 7 lives gone in the blink of an eye.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)sheshe2
(83,757 posts)I think we are too, yet did not want to voice it. I think we have reached, or have almost reached a tipping point.
Hey, read this. It sunk, yet it is where I got this link. The portion I highlighted. It's what you and others at AA have been saying.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026604596
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)It did NOT just happen.
malaise
(268,993 posts)Shakes head.
sheshe2
(83,757 posts)I just don't know malaise. I don't understand.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)sheshe2
(83,757 posts)that was powerful ... thank you for sharing, sheshe
Vattel
(9,289 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)We really need to reform the laws and the police. They should get rid of those unconscious biases they have.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)It seems like our decades-long mass incarceration fever may have broken.
In the past decade, a number of states have enacted sentencing reforms, and the total number of state prisoners is declining. Slowly. From record high levels.
And, under Obama, we've seen sentencing reforms at the federal level. He is also practically begging prisoners who are eligible for clemency to apply for it. That could effect thousands. It looks like the federal prison population has finally leveled off, if not declined.
But we still imprison people, especially black and brown ones, at an ungodly rate. I bet the biggest growth industry in America since the 1980s is the prison-industrial complex.
This is a harsh country. We are a punisher society (you see it all the time even here on this liberal board), and we all know who we punish the most and the harshest.