Talk:African American contemporary issues

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Contents 1 Is this article too pessimistic or slightly racist? 2 The White Invasion of African-American History 3 Cleanup 4 SATs 5 Ridiculous 6 A different focus? 7 Political Emancipation 8 What problem?

[edit] Is this article too pessimistic or slightly racist?

Is this article too pessimistic or slightly racist? Any way we can improve this? This article only focuses on the African-American lower class, not the middle and upper classes. There also seems to be a slight trend toward describing blacks as "criminals," although most blacks are actually VICTIMS of criminals of their own race and are hard, honest workers being discriminated by society. — Stevey7788 (talk) 00:06, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Victims of criminals of their own race - if you would like to see this story. Teens on Target, an organization founded by black teenagers in Oakland work to make their neighborhoods a gun-free and safe place. — Stevey7788 (talk) 05:42, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I don't see the need for the article. And, yes, I do think it somewhat racist -- not the content (now), but the fact that no other ethnic group of which I am aware has a similar page on Wikipedia. There's nothing about the "contemporary issues" of white folks, or "Latinos," or "Latvians," etc. I don't think people would like to see what I would have to say about a "contemporary issues" page on white folks! :p If I had my druthers, I'd delete this muthaf***** altogether. But this was the alternative to having a main article on African Americans that dealt with some of these issues as though it defined who African Americans are as a people -- which was really offensive/racist. I think each of these issues should be dispersed into their related articles (and I don't at the moment know which of these articles actually exist currently or not: healthcare/health care delivery, public health, crime, policing, etc., etc., etc.) or dropped completely. IMO, this approach sux and is symptomatic illustrative of the way blacks tend to be viewed by outsiders in society -- as a "problem."

Anybody in favor of nominating it for deletion? Count me in. deeceevoice 20:43, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Instead of deleting this, I think this article shouldn't discuss much about the "criminal" and "problem" stereotypes of African Americans. Otherwise, this article could be racist or POV. — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

After carefully reading this, I have decided that some parts of this article are absolutely gross. We need an NPOV cleanup. Please also remove the repeated use of "disproportionately" - we may like to use another word instead. Additionally, the introduction and endings do not need pessimistic touches. Instead, let's do some brush-ups and add some optimism. I've already done that to the Economic concerns section. — Stevey7788 (talk) 23:57, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

This article is extremely skewed in that it appears to treat AA's as a problem population. How on earth can one have an article devoted to "contemporary issues" among African Americans without a section on institutional racism? (It boggles the mind.) At any rate, I've included some suggested topics that could use development (and there are others -- like the plight of black farmers, etc.) I must say for the record, however, that I have some reservations about this entire piece. Where is there an article on "White Americans: contemporary issues"? (Man! I could go on forever about white folks' issues.) :p deeceevoice 03:11, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Don't Change history!!!

Besides, the last thing we mention in this article should not be the Crips, Bloods, and Black Mafia. This leaves readers with a negative impression of African Americans. — Stevey7788 (talk) 19:55, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The White Invasion of African-American History

This article is clearly racist. As both a casual and occasionally paid historian of both African and African-American History I will do my best to contribute more balanced and more importantly, research-based material to this article over the next few months. As a sidebar, it's very disappointing to see yet another topic that concerns African-Americans being hoarded over and manipulated by non-black contributors who are either obsessively paternalistic or transperently bigoted. How come there is no white flight in African-Americans studies? lol

How many African-Americans are doctoring the page of Irish-American history? While we may have some perspective we recognize what white people seem to struggle with - you are in the best position to share your own history. We don't fret over your biases or objectivity, we don't accuse you of being unable or unintelligent when it comes to recounting your own ancestral legacy. We let you recall your history in your words. Perhaps this is a life lesson we can pass along, one ethnicity to another.

--Ifasehun 18:14, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you telling us that outsiders are in no position to objectively describe the history of another people? That's what it sounds like. By your reasoning, only the people themselves have the right to tell their story. If that's the case, then how are we ever going to know anything about long-dead peoples, especially ones who didn't have writing? It means that the only valid history of, for instance, China, is one written by a Chinese person. Do you really believe that no non-Chinese person is able to understand Chinese history? Do you really mean to be pushing such a racist view?

Put more positively, there are insights that outsiders may glean that insiders overlook. Furthermore, insiders may be under pressure not to tell the "truth," but an approved story instead (again, the example of Communist China comes to mind).

It seems to me that the best history combines the experiences of the insider with the neutral observations of the outsider. Shall we work together towards that goal? Godfrey Daniel 22:09, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Godfrey here. Your views, and those of every African American Studies professor I've had at Temple University, seem to be close-minded and racist. We will get no where by being hostile to every opinion from a white person. If we automatically assume whites will have a racist or hostile bias we are generalizing. Don’t be exposed as a hypocrite, it belittles your point every time. Suggesting a person cannot effectively communicate the history of someone other than himself is countered by any American has learned the history of any other country. Our public schools do not hire Mexicans to teach us about Mexico, Italians to teach us about Rome or Iraqis to teach us about Mesopotamia. Further, an objective view is far more acceptable than a sympathetic view for an encyclopedic article. Remember, this is Wikipedia, not Wikiblog. GavinSimmons 21:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I will go ahead and note that any and all blatant racism should be taken care of by people who have pages on their watch list and facts that are simply misstated will eventually be corrected. If want to re-write this article you are free to do so through the power of wiki.GavinSimmons 21:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

We need to:

• Remove POV and racism - blacks are being described as a problem in society
• Not use statistics and percentages to create POV; remove demographic comparisons of blacks to whites if possible
• Cite sources
• Give examples of extraordinary African American accomplishments
• Put optimism in here, not racism and pessimism
• Make this informative and educating, not educate a future generation of racists

You can help too - anyone can help out now by cleaning this up. We need you to get involved.

— Stevey7788 (talk) 20:31, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

To respond to your points:

1. Of course POV and racism should be removed, but I have a question: What if black are a problem in society? (That's not a statement, but a hypothetical question.) According to the Department of Justice, blacks are seven times more like to commit murder than whites, and the absolute number of black murderers exceeds that of whites. (See this: Homicide trends in the U.S.) Is it POV or racist to point this out? Is it wrong to point out that murder is a societal problem?

2. Statistics are a valid method to show group behavior. Would you prefer that we relied on guesses, hunches, and feelings? How would the removal of scientifically-gathered data improve the article? Also, while I agree that the comparison of blacks and whites can be unbalanced, the best method to fix that shortcoming is to add comparisons with other ethnic groups, rather than delete this one.

3. YES. Sources, sources, sources!

4. Why? As an American, I take pride in the extraordinary accomplishments of all Americans, regardless of their ethnicity. I admire Frederick Douglass (African-American), Ming Tsai (Chinese-American), Matthew Calbraith Perry (Irish-American), Thomas Edison (Dutch-American), Eric Shinseki (Japanese-American), Charles Lindbergh (Swedish-American), and more. Why focus? Besides, the Wikipedia standard practice is to have a separate page of prominent X-Americans.

5. How about neutrality, instead of feel-good or feel-bad content?

6. Of course!

Let's work together to create a useful, NPOV, factually-based article! Godfrey Daniel 22:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

U.S. Census sources: Blacks Whites

White POV is decreasing. In order to reach NPOV, however, we don't need black-centered POV, neither do we need white-centered POV. Just neutral POV. Act like you're neither black nor white, but just a curious editor. — Stevey7788 (talk) 20:06, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

What in the world is this doing in the second paragraph anyway? It completely changes the tone of the introduction from being informative and neutral, to aggressive and accusatory. It's a perfectly valid point for another section, but the tone needs to be changed and taken out of the second paragraph. It doesn't feel like it's part of a general overview of AA issues, even though it is one and should be included somewhere in the article.

To make the argument that slavery is responsible for today’s social and economical problems facing poor black people is to take away all of their personal will, diminish their independence, and dismiss their intellect. If slavery is the cause of today’s social problems, why did the people in closer historical proximity to it do better with regard to family, education and staying out of prison?

Roboczar 20:42, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, now that I read it over a couple of times, and checked who made the change (anonymous IP), I'm having second thoughts about this being a valid NPOV argument. Sounds like agenda pushing to me. I'm getting rid of it for now, since it doesn't contribute anything to the article that I can see. Perhaps another editor can clean it up and place it in the article somewhere. Roboczar 20:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with "cleaning up" to remove statistics as this seems to be a prime example of hiding facts that some (even if it might be "mainstream" opinion) regard as unpleasant. Surely we should show the significant facts whether they are pleasant or flattering or not. For example, the article has much coverage of "institutional racism" and mentions that in some states ex-felons cannot vote and hints at the effects on black voting. However it does not give in my view highly significant statistics such as that African Americans are seven times more likely to commit murder and eight times more likely to commit robbery than Americans of other races. This may explain as perfectly rational the "white flight" that appears to be ridiculed here. If this is truly going to be a neutral article it must address all the significant issues and facts and not shy away from some simply because some would not like them mentioned. Booshank (talk) 00:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SATs

The SAT recently changed, however passages regarding African-American culture were not added. Official scores aren't in, only ETS field testing. The sources cited have some info about the race gap, but not to this effect. Jim Apple 08:12, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I have often been made to hear about changes that need to be made to the SAT, but what I do not understand is what problems exist exclusively with the exam and not with the education systems in place throughout rural and urban America. In other words, how is the SAT excluding African Americans in its execution? It currently contains passages which cover black history topics, yet that is an almost insulting way to deal with the issue. The subject matter of the passages on the exam have absolutely no bearing on the test-takers' scores. In fact, the passages selected should be on material with which the test-taker is least familiar so that he or she can focus on comprehending the point of the passage (which is the faculty being tested). Having taken the SAT twice before entering college and having taken the LSAT which also has passages, albeit longer, I can say without a doubt that the way to fix the distance between African American scores and those of other races is to ensure the pupils of our communities know how to read and comprehend what they are reading before they enter high school. A young man or woman who cannot understand messages communicated in non-abstract structures is likely to have trouble in facets of life before, during and far beyond college. The SAT is therefore a good indicator of success in college and is not the item that needs changing. Sorry I kept changing the comments from the user above. I just had to make them more coherent so that my own comments wouldn’t be out of place.GavinSimmons 21:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ridiculous

This article makes vast presumptions and misleads the reader into believing that the black American is actively discrimated against on a daly basis. This is the same lie the Democratic Party has been feeding the African American populace for the past 25 years.

This article does not take into accoutn opposing points of view, like those of conservative minded blacks like Ken Hamblin and Armstrong Williams.

NPOV should continue to stand as long as the article is routinely left in it's grossly misleading and poorly worded state.

[edit] A different focus?

I don't know how useful "contemporary issues" is as an encyclopedia topic; we certainly don't seem to have other articles of this sort. What about putting some of this under African American politics or African American demographics or Racism against African Americans or some other more specific, meaningful titles?--Pharos 10:20, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Political Emancipation

The wiki page Political_emancipation could use some attention. Currently it is only a stub. Particularly the explanation of the term 'political emancipation' entailing 'equal status of individual citizens in relation to the state, equality before the law, regardless of religion, property, or other “private” characteristics of individual persons' is construed to be an 'opinion' and 'not delivering a neutral point of view.' Does anyone have more information on the word 'emancipation' also being used in the political context of establishing (or any step moving towards) equality in light of the law? Inserting the Voting Rights Act as such a step of political emancipation was repeatedly erased.

The question one could pose, is: When there have been only 3 African-American Senators in modern times (out of more than the 1500 Senators in total), would you say that political emancipation has been achieved? Does the political system in place really deliver? See: [[1]] as an example I found online. FredrickS 18:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What problem?

I dont know what you people are complaining, you are clearly seeing only what you want to. There is no racism in that article, I thought it was almost biased in favor OF Blacks. Its a good article that requires no change.

In the areas of Affirmative Action and speaking about problems of racism in the opening, it seems a bit biased. I think it's safe to say that while the country has made strides in dealing with discrimination in recent years, racial tension is still at least a -fairly- significant problem in a lot of places in the United States. I really think that while this isn't necessarily POV-pushing, the article as a whole just needs a quick run-over to find any potential problems with neutrality or accuracy, and then we can go from there.

68.53.121.170 16:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)