Tell Them It's A Lie!

I know you have heard that there are more black men in jail and prison than in college before.

There are NOT more black men in this nation's jails and prisons than in college...not if you compare like groups. According to the American Council on Education, in 2004, there were 470,000 black men between the ages of 18 to 24 in college. That's the group against which the comparison is made with black men who are in jail and prison.

Those who make this comparison count black men of ALL ages who are incarcerated, not just those who are in the 18 to 24 college age group. If you compare black men of the same age group, you will find that there were more than twice as many black men in college in 2004, than in jails and prisons.

Have you heard that blacks are more violent than whites?

According to the FBI's annual "Crime in the United States" report, whites were approximately 69 percent of all people arrested in the country between 1996 and 2004. Blacks were roughly 29 percent of the people arrested during this time. At the end of this 9 year period, blacks were 43 percent of the 1,948,000 people in this nation's jails and prisons.

The interesting thing about this is that while whites were arrested more than blacks, blacks were convicted more often than whites. So maybe it's not the police that have the problem but the Judicial System. (duh) I wonder how many blacks Clarence Thomas has convicted?

So when you hear someone saying these things about you. Tell them it's a Lie. Ya see any freshman in college can tell you that, one can say whatever they want to say with statistics. If you're smart you'll ask questions and examine the groups to ensure that the results are using like groups.