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African American contemporary issues discusses social concerns as they pertain to African Americans. These issues area also of concern to the general population. African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ...
Economics and employment Economically, blacks also have benefited from the advances made during the Civil Rights era. The racial disparity in poverty rates has narrowed slightly. The black middle class has grown substantially. In 2000, some 47 percent of African Americans owned their homes. However, African Americans are still underrepresented in government and employment. In 1999, median income of African American households was $27,910 compared to $44,366 of non-Hispanic whites.
There is, however, a growing African-American underclass, undereducated, unemployed and marginalized. In times of economic hardship for the nation, African-Americans suffer disproportionately from job loss and underemployment, with the black underclass being hardest hit. The phrase "last hired and first fired" is reflected in the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment figures. Nationwide, the September 2004 unemployment rate for blacks was 10.3 percent, more than twice that of their white counterparts, who were unemployed at the rate of 4.7 percent. In early 2004, black male unemployment in New York City soared to 48.2 percent. At the time of this writing, that figure is slightly higher at approximately 50 percent. Nearly one-fourth of the African-American population lives in poverty, a rate three times that of white Americans. In 2000, 19.1 percent of blacks lived below poverty level, as compared to 6.9 percent of whites. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is the unit of the United States Department of Labor which is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the field of labor economics and statistics. ...
The income gap between black and white families also continues to widen. Employed blacks earn only 77 percent of the wages of whites in comparable jobs, down from 82 percent in 1975. In 2000, only 16.6 percent of blacks 25 years and older earned bachelor’s or higher degrees, in contrast to 28.1 percent of whites. Although rates of births to unwed mothers among both blacks and whites have risen since the 1950s, the rate of such births among African Americans is three times the rate of whites.
Health Black Americans have shorter life expectancies than the national average and often higher mortality rates for certain disease conditions. They suffer disproportionately from heart disease, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), hypertension, stroke, sickle cell anemia, and diabetes. Blacks also require a disproportionately higher number of organ and tissue transplants, but the black donor rate is lower than that for whites. Lower-income blacks’ lack of access to quality health care; a general and well-documented pattern of race-based discrimination in health care delivery; as well as deep-seated distrust of the medical establishment occasioned, in part, by the Tuskegee syphilis study all are contributing factors to these trends. AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, sometimes written Aids) is a global, human epidemic. ...
In medicine, hypertension refers to the problem of abnormally high blood pressure. ...
Sickle-shaped red blood cells Sickle cell anemia (American English), sickle cell anaemia (British English) or sickle cell disease is a genetic disease in which red blood cells may change shape under certain circumstances. ...
This article is about the disease that features high blood sugar. ...
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932-1972) was a medical experiment, conducted around Tuskegee, Alabama, where 400 poor, mostly illiterate black American sharecroppers became part of a study on the treatment of syphilis without their full knowledge. ...
The criminal justice system Black experiences with and attitudes towards the criminal justice system differ markedly from whites. Although the of violent crime is dropping among blacks, more than one million African American men are currently in jail or prison. Homicide remains the leading cause of death among black men between the ages of 15 and 34. African Americans distrust the criminal justice system much more than do whites. In 1991, the brutal beating of an unarmed black motorist, Rodney King, by four Los Angeles police officers was captured on videotape. An all-white jury later acquitted the police officers, sparking riots in Los Angeles and protests around the country. Ten years later in June 2001, a series of killings of black males in confrontations with police, and deaths in police custody, provoking rioting in in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine community. This article is about homicide, the killing of a human being. ...
Rodney Glen King (born April 2, 1965 in Sacramento, California) was an African-American motorist who, while videotaped by a bystander, was struck repeatedly by Los Angeles police officers (LAPD) during a police stop on March 3, 1991. ...
Truck driver Reginald Denny lies beaten in an intersection as his assailant celebrates The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the LA riots or the Rodney King uprising, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a mostly white jury acquitted four police officers accused in the beating of black...
Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio experienced the worst rioting (often referred to as revolts by supporters and sympathizers) from April 10, 2001 through April 12, 2001 since the 1960s. ...
Issues of unnecessary or excessive force, police harassment, police corruption, racial profiling, suspicious deaths of black detainees while in police custody, and illegal detainment and interrogation are common problems that perpetuate black distrust of, and antipathy toward, public law enforcement.
As in low-income, urban white communities, there are disproportionately high rates of street crime in low-income African American urban communities. Street crimes are not only inherently problematic, but often undermine already fragile, economically depressed communities. The higher profile of street crimes compared to white-collar crime, and the attention given them by the media and law enforcement, contribute to a general perception by society that black males and particularly black youth are a "problem population." This mentality among some members of the police and society at large contributes to antagonisms between the collective black community and law enforcement. It is also regarded as a major factor in the kind of afrophobia which causes white flight and which, studies have shown, often causes nonblacks to assume criminal intent or activity on the part of blacks when there is none. Common stereotype of a criminal A crime in a broad sense is an act that violates a political or moral law. ...
The Gollywog, an iconic 19th century caricature of Black Africans Afrophobia is an fear of or hostility toward people of indigenous West African or Sub-Saharan African origin, their culture or ideas. ...
White flight is a colloquial term for the demographic trend of whites moving away from areas with large non-white populations. ...
The persistent culture of poverty, alienation and despair among some members of the black underclass has led to the rise in a number of African-American gangs, among them the Bloods, Crips, and the Black Mafia. A gang is a group of individuals who share a common identity and, in current usage, engage in illegal activities. ...
The Bloods are one of the many Los Angeles, California gangs, and are also one of a number of gangs operating on a worldwide level. ...
The Crips are one of the Los Angeles, California gangs. ...
The Black Mafia is a New York City based African-American street gang headed by Walter King Tut Johnson. ...
See also
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