Stop with the lies

Look at the thug

Byron Williams
Black Culture has Taken a Wrong Turn

As I began to read my Christmas present to myself, a two volume set of "American Speeches," political oratory that spans from the Revolutionary War to Bill Clinton, I was reminded of a haunting, but chilling realization as I read a speech by Frederick Douglass: Black culture today, for all intents and purposes, is thug culture.

While not a blanket statement, we would be fooling ourselves if we did not acknowledge that this is the reality for too many young African Americans, regardless of economic status. For every African-American parent who spends painstaking hours trying to invoke messages of responsibility and hard work, there are larger, more influential forces overtly and covertly saying such things are reserved for "whites only."

How did we go from aspiring to excellence to glorifying debased and otherwise degrading behavior? Can this all be blamed on racism or the lack of affirmative action?

Today's so-called black culture finds its roots in prison behavior. The "sagging" of one's pants, the thick cornrows have gone from an inmate ethos to one that is now part of the status quo on the streets.
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What is certain is that prisons are doing a better job at recruiting African-American males, in particular, than institutions of higher learning, which brings me back to Douglass.

ONE Google hit disproves this bullshit

Item: 'There are more Black men of college age in jail than in college.' It ain't necessarily so - popular myths about African Americans
Essence, March, 1995 by George E. Jordan

Take the one about there being more Black men of college age in jail than in college. The truth is that there are more African-American men in college--517,000 as recently as 1991 in undergraduate, graduate and professional schools--than Black men and women combined in state and federal jails. In fact, the proportion of Black male high-school graduates enrolling in college, about 30 percent, has held steady for at least three decades.

In 1991 about 478,100 of all Black male college students were undergraduates attending four-year college. On the other hand, federal statistics show there were 395,245 Black males and females in state and federal prisons in 1991. Even if you include the number of Black men in custody--that is, free on bond awaiting trial or on probation--it probably would not exceed the number of brothers enrolled in institutions of higher learning. So the next time you hear somebody share that piece of misinformation, set her straight.

IN 2000, it was 476k to 179,000

Byron Williams needs to either do his research better or stop playing sociologist. Because it's clear he doesn't have a fucking clue as to what black people really do. Most graduate high school, most do not go to jail, most work for a living. But once again, another negative, uniformed article about the problems with black men gets a hearing.