
1.5 Million Missing Black Men - kiddz
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1
======
dmix
> The black women left behind find that potential partners of the same race
> are scarce, while men, who face an abundant supply of potential mates, don’t
> need to compete as hard to find one. As a result, Mr. Charles said, “men
> seem less likely to commit to romantic relationships, or to work hard to
> maintain them.”

Interesting, I never thought about this side-effect of mass incarceration.
Another aggravating factor in a repeating cycle?

I remember reading a hypothesis of why many middle eastern countries generate
so many young angry jihadists is that most of the young men had never had a
stable interactions with women in their youth. Most grew up in socially
conservative environments and missed out on the stabilizing effect of having
relationships with women, not having a sexual output, not having reasons to
stay alive for a girl at home, or even missing out on having a female
perspective on things (women are arguably less war-prone than men).

Middle eastern young males obviously experience a different social environment
than black men do but I'm curious if stable relationships with women really do
lead to less violence/crime by males? Or is that merely hopeful thinking by
social conservatives?

~~~
Mizza
> women are arguably less war-prone than men

I don't think are actually any studies that support this, unfortunately. War
simply isn't a consequence of gender, it is a consequence of ideology and
fear.

~~~
subsection1h
All of the relevant poll results that I could find at PollingReport.com[1][2]
indicate that women are less likely than men to support war.

[1]
[http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq17.htm](http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq17.htm)

[2]
[http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq18.htm](http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq18.htm)

------
kaa2102
I'm a Black Man. Growing up there was a realization that being alive and out
of trouble over the age of 21 was an accomplishment. This would extend to
middle class. Due to a history of American apartheid, there were often just a
few degrees of separation between middle class and working/poor class kin.

~~~
javert
In the US we had segregation, not apartheid. There is a difference.

As a white man living in the South, we still have segregation in practice. I
rarely had interaction with blacks because they did different things and took
different classes at school. We all went to the same schools---just didn't
have the same classes or have the same social circles. Not much shared in the
way of culture. I have had some black friends over the years who get berated
by other blacks for "acting white."

There is nothing white people can do to fix this. Blacks have always decided
what kind of culture they want to have and they will continue to do so.

~~~
pyrocat
> There is nothing white people can do to fix this.

Well, except confronting our own biases, encouraging diverse hiring practices,
confronting both overt and covert racism when we see it, educating ourselves
on racial privilege, fighting racial profiling and sentencing in our justice
system, and just in general fighting for racial equality.

~~~
innguest
You're a Cultural Marxism peddler.

I am white and I think I am in the _very same_ group as blacks and all other
races, namely the group called "individuals". All we need to do is fight for
individual rights and teach people respect is earned on an individual basis.
Nothing can be assumed from group membership in real life; every leftist would
agree with this statement, yet you want to make laws based on group
membership. _Nothing can be assumed based on group membership_. Whoever does
is the true racist. Stop peddling your divisive ideologies. Stop drawing lines
around people. We drew lines around places in maps and today we have wars over
those lines. Your lines around people create the same kind of conflicts on a
smaller scale. Please stop it. There's only one kind of person, the
individual. Let's protect individual rights and everyone will be OK, and by
that I mean _everyone_ , not just the groups your crony leftists select to be
privileged to the detriment of some other group's disadvantage.

You can try and create "race", "religion", "gender" labels all you want but to
me there's only one sort of person, the individual, and nothing can be said
about an individual a priori.

Stop propagating divisiveness.

~~~
burkaman
> Nothing can be assumed based on group membership. Whoever does is the true
> racist.

Yeah exactly, and there are tons of these people, and at the moment they tend
to have a lot more money and power than the people they make assumptions
about.

Promoting individual rights doesn't do enough, because we've had such a long
history of not promoting them. You have to acknowledge race in order to fight
the racists of the world.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>You have to acknowledge race in order to fight the racists of the world. //

Can you give a solid example? I can't see how labelling someone "race X"
allows you to fight against unequal opportunities or other discrimination or
prejudice.

~~~
burkaman
I mean that you need to acknowledge the concept of race. Say you're facing a
10% unemployment rate in some city. If you treat everyone as an equal
individual, the solution will be some combination of economic changes,
lowering taxes, increasing subsidies, whatever.

Now imagine 90% of the unemployed are black, in a city where blacks are the
minority. Clearly there is more than an economic problem here. Promoting
individual rights is not going to help, because all races have identical
rights in this scenario, and businesses should always have the right to not
hire someone.

The solution would depend on the underlying problem, but it might very well
involve giving some sort of temporary advantage based on race. The parent
comment advocated forgetting all race, religion, gender labels, but we can't
do that until everybody agrees to let those labels go. Until then, we need to
acknowledge race and gender so that we can recognize when a problem exists,
and address it.

From a colorblind perspective, race is already solved, right? All races have
equal rights, discrimination based on race is illegal, legally we're all good.

~~~
innguest
You seem to only be able to think from the perspective of central planning. I
invite you to stop invoking this earthly "god" and give people a chance.

Can you give me an example of how a town where 90% of the unemployed are black
could possibly come into being in the free market where voluntary trade and
contracts are enforced by the governments courts (and there are no group-
membership based laws)?

I'll give you the beginning. Once upon a time there was a town where all sorts
of races lived in (no one bothered to count because these people learned the
lessons of Nazis using Dutch records to kill Jews and they didn't want that
again). Then you fill in the blanks, then all of a sudden _without government
interference in the market_ , 90% of the unemployed are black.

I eagerly await your reply.

~~~
dragonwriter
Without granting that your premise is either meaningful or coherent, racism in
the population could easily explain it. The absence of group membership based
_laws_ doesn't impy the absence of group membership based _attitudes_ that are
implemented through individual decisions.

------
stevenmays
And these "missing men" are only the ones currently incarcerated. After
incarceration many men have difficulties securing employment, which further
destabilizes relationships.

------
SovietDissident
Moynihan in 1965, writing at the Labor Dept.: "The steady expansion of welfare
programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro
family structure over the past generation in the United States."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action)

The welfare state and the drug war have had devastating effects on the U.S.
black population. To take just one statistic, when Moynihan published his
report, the black out-of-wedlock birth rate was 25%. Now, it's over 70% (and
almost 30% among the white population). Complete tragedy.

~~~
_dark_matter_
The other reply is completely correct. You are misinterpreting what Moynihan
meant when he wrote:

>"The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the
steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation
in the United States."

What he meant was that, as we see a crumbling of black family structure, they
will require greater help, which came through welfare. Here is the heart and
soul of his argument: "at the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of
Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family"

I don't think he would have argued that reducing welfare would help these
people, and to imply that is disingenuous at best.

~~~
hackuser
The country's response to a crisis of the black American family was to
imprison a large number of black males, adding another crisis to the
situation.

Considering that and other forms of discrimination, it's amazing that the
black middle-class has expanded so much.

~~~
Snesker
Imprisoning someone isn't a response to anything but crime.

Imprisonment for a crime is not discrimination. You're insane.

~~~
hackuser
> Imprisonment for a crime is not discrimination.

I wish it was so. Consider however:

* Many laws are and have been discriminatory. For example, laws banning minority activites such as homosexual sex or interracial marriage; laws imprisoning Japanese in WWII or banning forms of political speech in many eras; laws banning peaceful protest during political conventions; laws that penalize poor people's vices (crack, dope) much more harshly than rich people's vices (cocaine, prescription drugs).

* Police enforcement is sometimes discriminatory: Much research supports that some minorities are harassed by law enforcement (e.g., 'driving while black', or stop-and-frisk in major cities). What might be overlooked from a middle-class white can result in jail time for a poor black.

* Prosecutor enforcement is sometimes discriminatory: Research supports that some minorties are charged with harsher crimes than other citizens, for the same behavior. The powerful and connected get a pass.

* Judicial enforcement is sometimes discriminatory: Research supports that convictions and sentencing are harsher for minorities. Also consider the long history of blacks facing all-white juries. Also, the poor have much less access to judicial resources, such as a good lawyer.

There is a long history of blacks, for example, being defenseless against all-
white police forces, governments and judicial systems. You can see it today;
consider Eric Garner and other recent cases, where people even can be killed
with no reprocussions.

------
DanBC
The numbers are boggling. I don't understand how Americans tolerate such a
blatantly racist prison system.

[http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-
sheet](http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet)

~~~
random_pr
because it isn't obviously racist. you can't just say "more african americans
and hispanics are arrested than whites or asians, therefore, police are
targeting african americans and hispanics unfairly." that's not how it works.

wrt. drug-related crimes, sure, there seems to be a weird disparity (does it
take into account 'casual' drug users vs. 'hardcore' drug users?).

wrt. violent crime, however, the percent of arrestees who are black matches
very closely with the percent of victims who say their assailant was black.
and this has been constant throughout thirty years of crime victimization
surveys. see here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_St...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#National_Crime_Victimization_Survey_.28NCVS.29)
and
[https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=2560...](https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=256035)

you can't say that african americans are arrested at unfair rates. it's more
nuanced than that: african americans are probably arrested unfairly for drug-
related crimes, but they probably aren't for violent crimes.

unfortunately, I think this is a compounding problem: more african american
men in prison means more single-parent households (that are probably also in
poverty), which means more crime, which means more african american men in
prison.

~~~
DanBC
i would agree with you if most prisoners were not there on drug charges, or if
black Americans didn't spend as much time in prison as violent criminals.

[http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/prisons_and_drugs#sthash.OPr...](http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/prisons_and_drugs#sthash.OPrPd10k.dpbs)

It is _blatantly_ , _flagrantly_ institutionally racist.

> (Number Of People Serving Time For Drug Offenses In US Prisons)

> Federal: "Between 2001 and 2013, more than half of prisoners serving
> sentences of more than a year in federal facilities were convicted of drug
> offenses (table 15 and table 16). On September 30, 2013 (the end of the most
> recent fiscal year for which federal offense data were available), 98,200
> inmates (51% of the federal prison population) were imprisoned for
> possession, trafficking, or other drug crimes."

The US imprisons more people than any other country; many of those prisoners
are there for drug crime; white people and black people take drugs in roughly
similar proportions yet black people are far more likely to be imprisoned for
similar drug offences.

> (US Drug Prisoners) "The United States leads the world in the number of
> people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are
> currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails.
> Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have
> been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people
> for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million
> Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison
> population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug
> offenses."

Edit: changed first sentence which was attacky to this which I think is less
so.

~~~
rayiner
The vast majority of people in prison for drug offenses are in there for
dealing, not using. So the point about blacks and whites using at the same
rate is a red herring.

~~~
thatswrong0
Whites seem to deal at a higher rate:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/30/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/30/white-
people-are-more-likely-to-deal-drugs-but-black-people-are-more-likely-to-get-
arrested-for-it/)

And that's not a red herring at all. Correlating use with dealing is pretty
logical.

~~~
Crito
From your link:

> _" This partly reflects racial differences in the drug markets in black and
> white communities. In poor black neighborhoods, drugs tend to be sold
> outdoors, in the open. In white neighborhoods, by contrast, drug
> transactions typically happen indoors, often between friends and
> acquaintances. If you sell drugs outside, you're much more likely to get
> caught."_

Makes sense to me. I cannot recall _ever_ being offered drugs by a white
person while I was walking down the sidewalk. _(While hanging out on the beach
is another story...)_

------
ck2
Want some interesting perspective - in 1968 Jim Crow laws were still in effect
(aka separate but "equal") until they were finally made illegal.

But you can be positive that just making it illegal in 1968 didn't end the
practice, it most certainly went on into the 70s

That's only a couple of generations ago.

It's crazy that some people don't understand why it take so long to recover
from hundreds of years of that, people of color were literally second class
citizens.

~~~
Balgair
To be clear, you are talking about the post-civil war period to the civil
rights act period as when blacks in most of the USA were second class,
correct? Because, before that, blacks were not second class citizens in any
way, they were property in many areas.

~~~
ck2
Right of course.

What I am trying to point out is how some naive people look around and say
well I got myself a job and got myself stable without assistance so why
shouldn't everyone have to do it on their own?

But the thing is, if you are white in the USA, your great grandfather probably
came to this country as an immigrant and lived very simply while making a
little progress and making a little money. Then your grandfather took that
momentum of stability and went a little further, then your father went a
little further.

People of color don't have that momentum unless they were very fortunate.
There are exceptions of course but their great-grandfathers, while not slaves
were very held down in society.

Even when that weight is suddenly lifted in the 70s, it didn't magically give
them generational momentum.

So some teenager looks around today and says, gee what is the problem, I can
do it, why does anyone of color need special preference. It's dangerous
ignorance.

~~~
happyscrappy
Except that doesn't happen with recent immigrants who do very well, some of
them Africans.

~~~
itsybitsy
The self-selected groups of recent immigrants are not a random sampling of
their countries of origin [1]. 1\.
[http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1814529?uid=2&uid=4&si...](http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1814529?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21106528464243)

~~~
Balgair
Interesting! Great link, thank you.

------
ars
Historically this was solved by polygamy. (The cause of the missing men back
then was usually war and travel danger on business expeditions.)

Polygamy is still occurring, except without the official status of wife.

Makes me wonder if the benefits of outlawing polygamy in the US might not
outweigh the harm - especially because it happens anyway.

~~~
PopsiclePete
I know a few happily married couples in "open" relationships. Poly or whatever
you wanna call it. And I know a few unhappy, obviously sexless couples in
traditional marriages as well.

For me, marriage is both an outdated and terrifying prospect. The thought of
being with _one_ woman for the rest of my life, sexually, is off-putting. So
instead of doing what many others do - cheat, get caught, divorce, repeat - I
just choose not to marry. Unless I find someone of a similar mind-set.

Dating sites are filled to the brim with women/men who want a "discreet"
relationship. Instead of being open about our needs and communicating and
_accepting_ those needs, we choose to hide/vilify those who are brave enough
to do. So as a society we keep up this fake appearance of "proper" when
increasingly more and more are cheating, getting divorced, being
miserable...why? Why is this necessary? I don't get it.

Sorry for ranting. It's just what you said struck a chord with me.

~~~
Snesker
Sex isn't a 'need', get over yourself.

~~~
PopsiclePete
Sex has been one of the major driving forces behind every decision I've made
since I turned 13 or so. How I dress, how I talk, why I buy the things I buy
and 50% of why I wake up at 5 am to go to the gym, why I go out to obnoxious
bars and clubs... how is that not a 'need'? In the hunter-gatherer sense I
guess it's not since I won't die if I don't have it but the _want_ to have it
as much as possible controls a huge percent of my daily actions. So maybe an
'addiction' then? Fine but now we're splitting hairs.

I would ague that marriage is not a need. It's an artificial construct that we
impose on ourselves in a time when we don't _need_ to do it. Women don't
_need_ you to survive, they can be their own providers now.

And why do you _need_ to be betrothed to one woman for all eternity? Nature
would love for you to spread your seed amongst many more women - larger bio-
diversity.

But nobody is stopping you if traditional marriage is what you want to do, of
course, more power to you.

------
dcposch
Many of us learned a short, sanitized history of human rights in school. The
story tends to focus on progress. We once had Inquisitions and witch burnings,
and then the Enlightenment put an end to that. We had slavery and Jim Crow,
and then the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights movement fixed
those.

The unspoken implication is that the problems are now solved. Schools teach
children the injustices of history, but rarely talk about the injustice of the
status quo. The message is that the evil is past, and that _present_ authority
is legitimate and benevolent.

So, what injustices will students learn about in 2100?

I think that today's mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and unequal
education will be towards the top of the list. Students will learn how we once
had 5% of the world's population, but 50% of the world's inmates. They'll
learn how many of those inmates were in jail for nonviolent offenses,
especially drug offenses. One of the root causes for the cycle of poverty,
crime, and jail time is unequal education. It manifests in the many
communities and schools that simply don't teach children the skills necessary
to succeed or make a legitimate living. Students of the future will probably
learn how some of the worst schools in the industrialized world in the early
21st century were sometimes a few miles away from the best, separated by a
certain road or a set of train tracks. "Schools" with fifteen year olds that
were barely literate, with armed police officers on staff, with metal
detectors at the entrance.

Then, they'll learn how those injustices were fixed.

\---

I'm sure at some point we'll shift from punishing the poor to trying harder to
empower them--or at least empower their children--to live better.

What can we do today to be part of that?

------
dataker
Will this have an effect on U.S diversity ? In a way, it may foster more
interracial relationships on affected areas

~~~
chaostheory
I can't find the study to cite, but if I remember correctly an old study found
that while most males of all ethnicities are open to relationships with
females of different ethnicities given attractive qualities are sufficient (I
could be wrong but only physical attraction was measured in this study); they
found that most females tend to only go for males within their own ethnic
group. The exception was Asian women with Caucasian men. Maybe if this trend
continues, it will change for African American women as well (though for that
past several years, there have been similar articles like this concerning
African American relationships)?

~~~
chrischen
In Asian culture Asian woman always have a strong preference for other Asians
(this is of course generalizing across the different Asian cultures),
especially from the same Asian race. But there's a strong fetishizing of Asian
women by certain non-Asian men so there's a disproportionate amount of Asian-
women-chasing by white men that gets misconstrued as preference by Asian
women. If everyone preferred blue M&Ms, you'll simply see more blue M&Ms in
everyone's mouths, regardless of their race.

The Asian women fetish is quite unique in that there's really nothing else
like it for women of another race present in American culture. You'll find it
in pop culture such as Weezer's album "Pinkerton," named after the character
from Madame butterfly who marries a Japanese woman.

~~~
dataker
>The Asian women fetish is quite unique in that there's really nothing else
like it for women of another race present in American culture

I wouldn't say it's a fetish for Asian girls(physical traits and sexuality).
What attracts many white males is the fact many Asian women are usually more
mature, intelligent and feminine than others.

~~~
chrischen
Also imagine what ran through Hitler's mind when he decided to formulate his
opinions on Jews. It probably started with some limited interaction with or
exposure to them, and it probably turned out negative (in your case regarding
Asian women, it turned out positive). He then extrapolated that into a
generalization... and then some unimportant things happened next. A negative
fetish, if you will.

A wrong idea is bad, regardless of if it is a positive idea or negative one.
It makes you disregard other Asian women, or other people, who _actually_ hold
those qualities, and it makes you think less of them when they fail to satisfy
those qualities. I hope that helps you understand why such generalizations,
even if positive, are racially insensitive.

------
2mur
Unbelievably sad.

This is your drug war success.

~~~
brudgers
Nixon declared drugs public enemy #1 in 1971. Also in 1971 the US Supreme
Court ruled that _Brown_ required active desegregation and mandated busing as
a means of achieving it. [1]

That's more the 100 years after the Reconstruction Amendments. [2] Racism is
the weft upon which much of US history has been woven.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swann_v._Charlotte-
Mecklenburg...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swann_v._Charlotte-
Mecklenburg_Board_of_Education)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Amendments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Amendments)

~~~
Alex3917
That's a good point. Everyone always blames this on conservative policies like
the war on drugs, but in reality liberal policies like school integration have
also contributed to the issue, e.g. by creating gangs and balkanizing
communities.

~~~
hn_
Did I read that right? School integration creates gangs?

[http://www.nber.org/digest/may11/w16664.html](http://www.nber.org/digest/may11/w16664.html)

>Rucker estimates that each additional year of exposure to desegregated
schools increased black mens annual earnings by roughly 5 percent, increased
their wages by 2.9 percent, and led to an annual work effort that was 39 hours
higher. At the same time, for these black male adults the probability of
poverty decreased by between 1.6 and 1.9 percentage points. Overall, five
years spent in desegregated schools yielded an estimated 25 percent increase
in annual earnings and increased annual work effort of 195 hours.
Desegregation also resulted in significant long-run improvements in blacks'
adult health, as measured by self-assessed general health status; the effect
of a five-year exposure to school desegregation is equivalent to being seven
years younger.

Some of the first American gangs were Irish (Forty Thieves, Dead Rabbits) and
integration of the Irish in American society certainly didn't cause an
increase in Irish street gangs.

~~~
Alex3917
> School integration creates gangs?

C.f. [http://www.amazon.com/World-We-Created-Hamilton-
High/dp/0674...](http://www.amazon.com/World-We-Created-Hamilton-
High/dp/067496201X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429561946&sr=8-1&keywords=the+world+we+created+at+hamilton+high)

> Rucker estimates that each additional year of exposure to desegregated
> schools increased black mens annual earnings by roughly 5 percent,
> increased their wages by 2.9 percent, and led to an annual work effort that
> was 39 hours higher.

Also, what exactly does that mean? E.g. a person going from an all black
school to a school that's 90% white is going to have almost nothing in common
with someone going from an all black school to a school that's still 90%
black. I skimmed over the study, but I'm having trouble understanding how they
are controlling for demographics and what they call the 'black-white exposure
index'.

------
santaclaus
"The gaps tend to be smallest in the West."

Well, except for LA and Oakland. I wonder why the other west coast cities have
the opposite trend?

~~~
maxerickson
It's probably excessively naive, but my first guess is some sort of
demographic velocity.

My expectation is that the gap will be the smallest in the places that have
the most mobile populations.

~~~
happyscrappy
More likely it correlates to gang activity.

~~~
maxerickson
I would expect higher rates of gang activity in populations with lower
mobility.

------
omonra
Sorry to be the voice of Bill Cosby but my read of this is that black men are
killing each other and then going to prison for it (drug charges are
responsible for maybe 20% of people in prison - ie stats would still be
largely same without the drug war).

And somehow that's everybody else's fault?

~~~
haberman
It drives me crazy how many people see a problem like this and are determined
to conclude that that problem has only one cause.

So one side decides that the (only) cause is that black people wantonly decide
to choose a life of crime when they could just as easily have been upstanding
members of society. Ergo, it is all black peoples' fault.

And the other side decides that the (only) cause is that the criminal justice
system incarcerates black people disproportionately, _exclusively_ out of
racism and bias. Ergo, it is all white peoples' fault.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge that both of these are extreme positions?
Both groups of people need to look inward, challenge themselves to fix what is
broken, and work together to improve the situation.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
On the one hand you can argue there are "systemic" forces which are apparently
unquantifiable driving blacks to elevated rates of criminality even after
controlling for socio-economic factors. Presumably large, racially
discriminatory social programs and cultural programming such as have been
tried for the last 40 years are called for to remedy the problem.

On the other hand you can take at face value the reams of data spanning over
80 years showing that across all categories of crime blacks have well over
double the white rate. And this pattern holds up internationally, not just in
America. We can just accept it as a fact of life and deal with it in a sane
way that doesn't waste too much money or wrongly penalize innocent
individuals.

~~~
haberman
> Presumably large, racially discriminatory social programs and cultural
> programming such as have been tried for the last 40 years are called for to
> remedy the problem.

There are plenty of obvious things that need fixing, even if you don't believe
at all in affirmative action-like programs:

1\. Clear conflicts of interest in the criminal justice system, like regular
prosecutors being responsible for bringing charges against police, with whom
they have close professional and often personal relationships.

2\. The unjustifiable war on drugs, which disproportionately affects black
communities.

3\. Bad behavior by police officers, which likewise disproportionately affects
black communities. This is pretty hard to measure because the offenders are
the same people who are counting the stats. But we frequently get to see it in
shocking display, like when a police officer is caught on video shooting a man
who is running away and then planting evidence on him.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
> The unjustifiable war on drugs, which disproportionately affects black
> communities.

See, this gets to the heart of the matter. I personally think the war on drugs
is very stupid, but the data indicates that it does not disproportionately
affect blacks. Blacks use drugs at much higher rates than whites and blacks
distribute drugs at even higher rates than whites. The prosecutions for
narcotics crimes are by all indications commensurate with rates of criminal
offense.

It may be dumb law, but it's not racist. Cops and prosecutors are simply doing
their jobs. If you think there's a racist conspiracy I dare you to prove it.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Blacks use drugs at much higher rates than whites and blacks distribute drugs
at even higher rates than whites._

Most studies suggest the exact opposite to be true.

[http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-
like...](http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-
abuse-drugs-than-blacks/)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/30/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/30/white-
people-are-more-likely-to-deal-drugs-but-black-people-are-more-likely-to-get-
arrested-for-it/)

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
The studies where they simply poll or ask indicate equivalent or lower black
narcotics usage. Every piece of research that uses drug testing reveals well
over double the rate of white drugs usage.

This is a lie that needs to die. Blacks get arrested for drugs because they
have and use drugs, relative to white people.

It was the same with a huge mess of headlines about blacks getting pulled over
on north east highways disproportionately. Finally some work was done with
hidef cameras that could show the race of drivers that showed blacks speed at
well over double the rate of whites. Black drivers get pulled over
disproportionately for dangerous driving because, wait for it, they drive
dangerously disproportionately.

~~~
tsotha
I'm also skeptical of the "whites take more drugs" argument. The ratio of
black to white drug arrests is roughly the same as the ratio for those of
violent crimes, and you can't explain away the violent crime ratio by assuming
whites don't get arrested for committing them.

------
Sleaker
I noticed that quite a few city areas have 55%+ Black Men to 45%- Black Women.
If births are relatively equal, that means that the 'Missing' numerics from
some of the cities can't necessarily be 100% due to incarceration or death.
Now the total # is still accurate as it takes national totals (if we're
assuming that Black Men and Women leave the country in equal numbers). You
can't just count an imbalance in a city/state as 'missing' otherwise we could
reverse this and say that Oregon/Washington have lots of missing Black women
in equally appalling percentages.

------
chaostheory
I wonder what the stats are for other ethnicities?

~~~
Mikeb85
I wonder what the stats are for blacks in say, Canada (my guess, much
different)?

------
yummyfajitas
_The black women left behind find that potential partners of the same race are
scarce,...The imbalance has also forced women to rely on themselves — often
alone..._

There is a pretty obvious solution to this problem which has been legal since
1967. It works well and the babies come out really cute. Weird how the NYT
glosses that over...

~~~
Someone1234
Interracial marriage only works as a "solution" if there were an inverse
imbalance in other racial communities to supply the men needed to fulfil the
shortfall.

It also completely ignores the fact that people in the black communities may
not wish to date people from other races. it isn't a breading farm after all,
people's choices matter a lot. If black woman want to date a black man, that
is completely normal/understandable/a valid choice.

~~~
infruset
You are starting from the assumption that it is normal that people date inside
of their "race". This is an assumption that is very often made by Hollywood
movies and which I find offensive, all the more because it is self-fulfilling:
if you only see people of the same skin color dating one another, you're
probably less likely to imagine yourself outside of the norm you perceive.

~~~
Someone1234
Your offense is of no concern to me.

The stats back up that people prefer to date within their own race when they
can. Ultimately I am just arguing that people's choice is important to the
whole topic, if black women would prefer to date black men, pointing out that
they could date white or asian men won't help the situation.

~~~
tomjen3
Actually you are wrong in this specific case. Okcupid has the data
([http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-
whether-...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-race-affects-whether-
people-write-you-back/)) which shows that black women are more likely to reply
to men now of her own race (and white men are almost at the top).

~~~
Someone1234
Let me remind you what I said verbatim:

> The stats back up that people prefer to date within their own race when they
> can.

That's exactly what your data shows. If you look across all races, there is a
clear bias towards people dating their own race. You can find exceptions, but
those are within one or two data points, and the trend overall remains true.

> which shows that black women are more likely to reply to men now of her own
> race (and white men are almost at the top).

By just 2 points. And black men prefer black women. You did find an exception,
but keep looking and the trend maintains.

Also, quick reminder that my original post focused on personal choice being
important. Nobody suggesting forcing people to date a certain race, just that
personal choice might get in the way of the "solution" to the problem the OP
suggested (inter-racial marriage).

------
novacole
This is sad

~~~
novacole
Down votes why? As a black man I find this sad.

------
foolinaround
the numbers would look a lot starker if abortion figures are added into the
mix. Abortion rates among the black population are higher than the whole.

------
justizin
The title is actually, "1.5 Million Missing Black Men"

~~~
dragonwriter
Like six orders of magnitude matters...

~~~
InclinedPlane
I've spotted the physicist.

[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2679](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2679)

------
zoner
Black women are unapproachable. Not sure why is that. Are white males not
attractive in black women eyes?

The effect is the reverse with white women as they tend to flirt with black
man, hence the interracial children are mostly from black males and white
females. I don't have a study to support this, but I do have personal
experience.

~~~
javert
There are a lot of reasons for this, perhaps even more important reasons, but
yes, black women are unapprochable as a white man. While other people
interpret my normal social awkwardness/aloofness as just what it is, black
women tend to take offense and think it's racist. There's nothing I can do to
change that aspect of myself. I don't know why this doesn't happen with black
men, it just doesn't really seem to, though.

However, I am concerned that my sample size may be too small to draw any valid
conclusions.

~~~
selimthegrim
Where are you approaching them? Have you even bothered trying, say, bars in
black neighborhoods (I have) instead of palace where they're in the minority
and in the defensive? Think about that for a second and ask yourself why not.

~~~
javert
I'm not trying to approach them for dating.

