Black Problems Or America's Problems

They Are not Just Black Problems, They Are American Problems

By Dell Gines

One of the common themes in America is to focus exclusively on issues of race and negative statistics to the exclusion of America as a whole and say, “See it is a Black problem!” How often has the press, pundit and politician used the out of wedlock birthrate for Blacks, the incarceration rate for Blacks and other negative statistics or trends for Blacks used to buttress the argument of how bad Blacks are in America?

Some have assigned this obsession of pointing out negative trends amongst Blacks to the age old American phenomenon of identifying Black as bad and everything else as good or at least gets a pass.

Others have assigned this phenomenon to a political ploy by both liberals and conservatives to either maintain Black support, or to scare a conservative base. The problem with the whole phenomenon though is that it attempts to

A) separate Blacks from America

B) ignores or at lease gives little attention to very real American problems that are not exclusively Black problems


Part I – America and Incarceration

An AP report that came out November 30th, 2006 by Kasie Hunt titled, 7 million in prison, probation or parole, we find that:

A record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday.

From 1995 to 2003, inmates in federal prison for drug offenses have accounted for 49 percent of total prison population growth.


A separate article written in 1996 by Mergenhagen and Dickerson titled, The prison population bomb - privately managed prisons brings to light incarceration statistics from 1980 to 1994, a 14 year period that point out:

The number of inmates in state and federal prisons more than tripled, from 319,600 in 1980 to 999,800 in 1994, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The population in local jails–generally those awaiting trial or those with less than a year’s sentence–increased 165 percent over the same time period, from 182,300 to 483,700. Meanwhile, the U.S. population increased just 15 percent.

According a Department of Justice report, in 1980, out of every 100,000 Americans, 139 were in incarcerated. In 2004, 486 out of every 100,000 Americans were incarcerated, a staggering 250% increase (an average of 10% a year) over that 24 year period. The following is a visual chart of the growth from 1980 to 2000 .





America is truly unique in the world in relation to the problem of extreme incarceration rates. According to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s Fact Sheet:

• The US incarcerates the largest number of people in the world.

• The incarceration rate in the US is four times the world average.

• Some individual US states imprison up to six times as many people as do nations of comparable population.

• The US imprisons the most women in the world.

• Crime rates do not account for incarceration rates.

Illuminating this data, the fact sheet goes on to report that:

Compared to the world’s other most populous countries, the 2.2 million people currently incarcerated in the US is 153% higher than Russia, 505% higher than Brazil, 550% higher than India, and over 2,000% higher than Indonesia, Bangladesh, or Nigeria (ICPS, 2006).

Most of us are aware of the fact that Blacks make up a disproportionate amount per their population size of the incarcerate folks in America. This is not a new phenomenon based upon the history of Blacks in America. Throughout American history when the tide was low in America, Blacks sunk lower, and when the tide was high Blacks improved but not at the same rate as whites and other population groups.

However, Blacks are only part of this distinctly American phenomenon, and that is how is should be judged, as an American phenomenon and something that America as a whole needs to address. The burden is not just on the shoulder of Blacks. To identify the increase incarceration rates in America as simply a ‘Black thing’ further plays into the historic patterns of stereotyping the African-American in America but draws attention to a truly American dilemma.

Part II – America and BabiesOne of the particular statistics that is leveled at Blacks is the rate of children born out of wedlock. According to an article in the New York Post, titled Unwed-Birth Boom: Bad News, by Christine B. Whelan:

In 2005, nearly 70 percent of Black children and 48 percent of Hispanic children were born to unwed mothers.

She goes on to report that:

A record 37 percent of all U.S. births were to unmarried women in 2005.

These are truly astounding figures if one puts them in a historical context.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in a 1995 report on this subject to Congress reviewed the statistics of unwed birth rates from 1940 to 1993. What the CDC showed was that during this 53 year period the non-marital birth rate increased from 7.1 per 1000 to 45.3 per 1000 an amazing 538% increase an average of a little over 10% a year.

A 1996 Brookings article, An Analysis of Out-Of-Wedlock Births in the United States,by George A. Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen compares statistics between Blacks and whites. Ironically, the statistics show a surprising trend during certain periods. During the 20 year period target in the report (from 1965 to 1984) the Black birthrate, although still higher per capita, to unwed mothers declined 10% while the white rate increased 5%.

If we break the data further down into a 33 year time period from 1970 to 2003 and focus on unmarried women between the ages of 15 to 44 what we find is that the unwed birth rate per thousand for whites13.9 to 40.4. During this same period the Black unwed birth rate per thousand declined from 95.5 to 66.3.

Although this data by itself is not sufficient to determine the aggregate number of children born to unwed mothers (we would need the marriage rate) it does point out that of the rate of births to unwed mothers, Blacks are on the decline, and whites are increasing at a rapid pace.

The National Center of Health Statistics composed the following Chart showing the rise in America’s unwed birthrate from 1960 to 1999.




If we agree with the commonly made argument that children born into single parent homes are at a much higher risk of being poor we have to consider a few things.

Although Blacks as a minority group still have a much higher rate as a group of unwed births (nearly 70%), the negative disparate impact of unwed births on the nation clearly falls to whites (at 30%) because of sheer numbers. Currently whites, according to census data, compose roughly 75% of American’s population, and Blacks compose only 12.3%. The fact that nearly 40% of ALL children in America are now being born to single mothers means that the majority of children in America born to single mothers are white.

Let us do some basic math extrapolated from 1999 CDC data . In 1999 the CDC reported that 3.96 million children were born. Of those 3.96 million, 3.1 million were white, and 600,000 were Black. During this same year, the CDC reported that respectively, whites had 27% of their children born out of wedlock, and Blacks had 69% of their children born out of wedlock.

If we break down the numbers this means that 837,000 white children were born to single parent homes, more than the number of Blacks born in total. Black children born to unwed mothers comprised a little less than 50% of whites at 414,000. Again, if the argument holds true that children born to single parents have a much higher chance of being poor then from an American perspective, whites are having a much larger negative disparate impact.

In conclusion I want to make one thing perfectly clear, Blacks as a minority group are dealing with many of these issues at a higher rate. This is due to documented historical inequalities that Blacks have never been recovered to attain parity with whites here in America. However, Blacks are Americans and the often intentional concentration on ‘Black issues’ as being exclusively a ‘Black thing’ further perpetuates negative stereotypes.

It also seeks to disassociate Blacks from the things that also are impacting the broader American society. The statistics clearly indicate that many of the growing negative American trends, particularly incarceration rates and unwed birthrates are affecting the whole country of America. Since they are not race specific these failures aren’t intrinsic to the Black condition as the press, the politicians, and the pundits tend to allude to. Until we look at these problems as America problems, and not simply Black problems they will never get properly addressed.

Dell Gines is a contributor at HipHopRepublican.com and is the President of the The Urban Center for Economic