America’s racial divide is older than the republic itself, a central fault line that has shaped the nation’s history. This month it has manifested itself in sometimes violent protests in Ferguson, Mo., after a police killing of an unarmed young black man. The resonance of that event is related to deeper racial fissures between blacks and whites; that divide is the reason that the events in Ferguson amount to something bigger than a local crime story. What is the state of that larger divide? In what areas has there been meaningful progress toward shared prosperity over the last generation, and in what areas is America as polarized by race as ever — or even more so? Across a broad range of economic and demographic indicators, the data paint a largely depressing picture. Five decades past the era of legal segregation, a chasm remains between black and white Americans – and in some important respects it’s as wide as ever. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Arming the Police: Data on Transfer of Military Gear to Police DepartmentsAUG. 19, 2014 The unemployment gap is virtually unchanged over the last 40 years. The income and wealth gaps have actually widened. So has the gap in educational attainment. There are bright spots, including a rising number of blacks in executive and managerial jobs (not to mention top political jobs) and converging levels of life expectancy. But by most measures, black and white Americans are still living in radically different societies – and there is no reason to believe that will change anytime soon. Many other gaps – between men and women, between non-Hispanics and Hispanics – have shrunk substantially over the last few decades. But the black-white racial divide remains as central to American life as it has been for centuries. Let’s look at the numbers: Through economic booms and busts, the unemployment rate has been persistently higher for African-Americans than for whites across the decades. nytimes/2014/08/20/upshot/americas-racial-divide-charted.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 17:58:23 +0000
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