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The Danger Zone
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by Bob Herbert

March 15th 2007

The New York Times - Opinion

The national unemployment rate came in at 4.5 percent last week and was generally characterized as pretty good. But whatever universe those numbers came from, it was not the universe that black men live in.

Black American males inhabit a universe in which joblessness is frequently the norm, where the idea of getting up each morning and going off to work can seem stranger to a lot of men than the dream of hitting the lottery, where the dignity that comes from supporting oneself and one's family has too often been replaced by a numbing sense of hopelessness.

What I'm talking about is extreme joblessness -- joblessness that is coursing through communities and being passed from one generation to another, like a deadly virus.

Forget, for a moment, the official unemployment numbers. They understate the problem of joblessness for all groups. Far more telling is the actual percentage of people in a given segment of the working-age population that is jobless.

Black men who graduate from a four-year college do reasonably well in terms of employment, compared with other ethnic groups. But most black men do not go to college. In big cities, more than half do not even finish high school.

Their employment histories are gruesome. Over the past few years, the percentage of black male high school graduates in their 20s who were jobless (including those who abandoned all efforts to find a job) has ranged from well over a third to roughly 50 percent. Those are the kinds of statistics you get during a depression.

For dropouts, the rates of joblessness are staggering. For black males who left high school without a diploma, the real jobless rate at various times over the past few years has ranged from 59 percent to a breathtaking 72 percent.

''Seventy-two percent jobless!'' said Senator Charles Schumer, chairman of Congress's Joint Economic Committee, which held a hearing last week on joblessness among black men. ''This compares to 29 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts.''

Senator Schumer described the problem of black male unemployment as ''profound, persistent and perplexing.''

Jobless rates at such sky-high levels don't just destroy lives, they destroy entire communities. They breed all manner of antisocial behavior, including violent crime. One of the main reasons there are so few black marriages is that there are so many black men who are financially incapable of supporting a family.

''These numbers should generate a sense of national alarm,'' said Senator Schumer.

They haven't. However much this epidemic of joblessness may hurt, very little is being done about it. According to the Labor Department, only 97,000 new jobs were created in February. That's not even enough to accommodate new entrants to the work force.

And then there's the question of who's getting the new jobs. According to statistics compiled by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, the only groups that have experienced a growth in jobs since the last recession are older workers and immigrants.

People can howl all they want about how well the economy is doing. The simple truth is that millions of ordinary American workers are in an employment bind. Steady jobs with good benefits are going the way of Ozzie and Harriet. Young workers, especially, are hurting, which diminishes the prospects for the American family. And blacks, particularly black males, are in a deep danger zone.

Instead of addressing this issue constructively, government officials have responded by eviscerating programs that were designed to move young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the labor market.

Robert Carmona, president of Strive, an organization that helps build job skills, told Senator Schumer's committee, ''What we've seen over the last several years is a deliberate disinvestment in programs that do work.''

What's needed are massive programs of job training and job creation, and a sustained national effort to bolster the education backgrounds of disadvantaged youngsters. So far there has been no political will to do any of that.

You get lip service. But when you walk into the neighborhoods and talk to the young people, you find that very little, if anything, is being done. Which is why the real-world employment environment has become so horrendous for so many.

Change to title of the thread.Its near that in a certian age group in New York City, not nationawide.Though its high,its not that damn high.

Try Detroit if you really want to be depressed

We are so cursed.

AlabamaGirl,
No matter how things may seem for Blacks, you should or no other Black person in this world should consider themselves as " cursed" or coming from a " cursed race". God didn't make one race better than the other and in this imperfect world he didn't say that we would be free of our troubles because of it.Yes, I've seen the unemployment rates, the housing markets, wars etc. To say that they they aren't depressing would be a lie, but that's reality. I think about some of our heroes from the past and present how BAD they had it : Black biblical figures( if you're Christian) African/ African American slaves, civil rights heroes and just Black people who made and continue to make the difference for the generations of today. They went throught it far worse than we had it and there were times they probably was discouraged about their struggles, but unless thet said it under their breath , one thing that they wanted future of generations of Blacks to remember as for them to carry a sense of pride in who were are and reminded us to continue a fight for those struggles.

The problem with our society is that we tell people about getting the easy way of life and to feel bad about who we are because of it. When I was a kid, I my mother ordered me a kid-level bible that spoke about the examples of Black people represented in the bible and about other people in there as well. She used to like telling me about God thoughts about race and one of the predominate examples she would use was about Zipporah and Moses and how Zipporah was heckled by her in laws because of her race, but god cursed them for their racist behavior( Numbers 12). My mom would also teach me about other people( In spite of race) who suffered ( eg Daniel, Jesus Christ,) and taught me the Black people that god praised ( eg Ruth)In general, I'm not trying to sound like somebody's evangalist or trying to get religious or anything like that, i'm just trying to be general and my point is that just because we may go throught trials and tribulations doesn't mean that were a cursed race.

Another thing my mom taught me is I shouldn't always take the easy road out of life and she's right as I've learned because when you you settle for it , you will be confronted with the problem again and if you face the problem head on you will overcome it and be a better person. Everytime I look at those statistics of Black people, instead of identifying myself with them( the statistics), I say " says who?" because to me, looking at them is another way for me to feel bad about myself and to surrender my life to it. I also think that just because the news look gloomy doesn't mean that job or what ever isn't out there for me, it's going to be there for me at the right time and day that only god knows and nobody of no race wil take that away from me. I'm Black and society tell me that I'm inferior and treats me as such, but as my mom used to read to me from the bible, and in her own words, God didn't make no one man better than the other . I relate to this as there are people who reminds me who I'am thru racism, but no matter how angry I used to get about it, I reminded myself that that person is no better than me and that hey wil have to pay for their racist sins, not me. It's may hurt, it will make you mad and may discourage you but, I'm not a cursed woman whatsoever and will never be no matter who tell me such. Crazy as it may seem, I would rather deal with the hardships and overcome them, than to take the easy road and making the problem harder for myself.

@CeeCee
Fantastic post ...was thinking on the same lines to @alabamagal
i'm not cursed and i l know numerous people from my famuily for a start who are blessed life its what you make of it.... if you allow your colour to put you down and its the first thing you react to i'm sorry to say this but its going to be a downard slope from here on henceforth
As a person of colour i knew i was fighting from the back so didn't take nothign for granted i have been brought up to not always expect that lesson has served me well not waiting for YT to tell me what to eat-how to act- where to work -where to go..... like them if you want something you have to go get it....
Yes its depressing seeing our people in ghettoes-famine-unemployment e.t.c but there are so many mitigating circumstances that led to people getting trapped in such squalor some self ruin..... some subjected to living under oppressive systems over so many years it has become normal..internalised