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When we look at some of the facts, most blacks live in relative harsh conditions, irrespective of income. In a September issue of The Atlantic, Emily Badger looks at the racial segregation in America since the 1960s. And guess what, ain’t shit changed.

According to the “Chartist” feature, racism causes adverse outcomes for children and generally coarsens poverty to point of indifference. Honestly, no one cares if blacks die in their own neighborhoods or we would be having Congressional hearings over how to deal with genocidal gang violence in highly segregated cities such as Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, and Los Angeles.

Either way, the numbers are startling:

  • On average, affluent blacks and Hispanics live in neighborhoods with fewer resources than poor whites do.
  • Census data from 2000, for example, showed that the average black household making more than $60,000 lived in a neighborhood with a higher poverty rate than the average white household earning less than $20,000.
  • A longitudinal study run from 1968-2005 found that the average black child spent one-quarter of his or her childhood living in a high-poverty neighborhood. For the average white child, that number is 3 percent.
  • The black child poverty rate in 1968 was 35 percent; it is the same today.
  • Minorities make up 56 percent of the population living in neighborhoods within two miles of the nation’s commercial hazardous waste facilities.
  • Middle-income blacks (with household incomes between $50,000-$60,000) live in neighborhoods that are on average more polluted than the average neighborhood where white households making less than $10,000 live.

Now that these facts illustrate that eliminating poverty won’t solely help raise the prospects of black and brown folks, we will hopefully examine and interrogate the systemic issues that keep Americans from embracing one another with compassion and understanding.

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2 Comments

  1. “Compassion and understanding”? Only in an alternate reality.

  2. Must be the lower black IQ leading to disparities, maybe some laziness and violence encoded in their DNA also
    Blame it on the white man , of course

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