{"id":5144,"date":"2015-02-13T20:54:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T20:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/?p=5144"},"modified":"2015-02-13T20:54:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T20:54:23","slug":"part-2-blacks-and-education-the-effect-on-career-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/2015\/02\/13\/part-2-blacks-and-education-the-effect-on-career-opportunities\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 2: Blacks and Education: The effect on career opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Jeremy Anderson
\n<\/strong>MC301 Contributor\/Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a special feature during the month of February, the Blue & White Flash will present a special four-part series focusing on African-Americans and related issues in honor of Black History Month. These perspectives may contain the opinion of the writer and do not represent the views of The Blue & White Flash.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Long gone are the days of the Jim Crow laws. The job market cannot, at least not openly, discriminate against anyone of any race, creed or color.<\/p>\n

Back in the days of Reconstruction, the country faced the phenomena of black people, en masse, in the job market for the first time in American history. Now, although these jobs and conditions were similar to slavery, this began the progression towards the equality that blacks supposedly have today.<\/p>\n

Yet, numbers suggest that equality laws that have been put in place have not brought forth actual equality.<\/p>\n

According to Pew Research Center, the black unemployment rate has consistently been twice that of whites.<\/p>\n

Also, a 2014 report by Young Invincibles finds that:<\/p>\n

\u2022 African-American males without a high school diploma are approximately 15 percentage points less likely than white male high school dropouts to have a job<\/p>\n

\u2022 African-American females with no high school diploma are about 12 percentage points less likely than similarly educated white females to have a job<\/p>\n

\u2022 An African-American male needs some college credit to have a similar probability of employment as a white male high school dropout. Similar trends exist for women.<\/p>\n

Although these statistics may be alarming, higher education drastically closes the gap between employment probabilities between black and white people.<\/p>\n

But, even with college education, a considerable gap is still present. In fact, according to the Center for Economic Policy and Research, the 2013 unemployment rate for college graduates who are black is almost twice that of college graduates who are white. And even the black college graduates that do find a job are likely to be underemployed.<\/p>\n

According to the Huffington Post, the underemployment rate for black college graduates is 41.8 percent, as opposed 34.6 for all college graduates. The underemployment rate for recent college graduates who are black is 55.9 percent as opposed to 45 percent for all recent college graduates.<\/p>\n

Even with these statistics, many believe that the education of more black people can serve as an equalizer. But, in order to achieve that education, black people must value education.<\/p>\n

Rakia Law, an educator and current JSU graduate student said, \u201cI think collectively (black people) used to (value education) \u2026 But now, we\u2019ve gotten complacent and unappreciative and ungrateful for our opportunity to even have the education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law, who graduated from Alabama A&M University, believes the reason behind some black people\u2019s apathy for education is \u201ca lack of awareness of what it took for us to even be able to read.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a performance on the Late Night with David Letterman Show, rapper J. Cole rapped a verse on a small part of his perception of education and black people. In the song \u201cBe Free,\u201d Cole writes, \u201cAnd since all the ballers leaving college early, I turn on the TV and don\u2019t see no brothers with degrees lately.\u201d<\/p>\n

The North Carolina-born rapper is alluding to poor graduation rate of black male athletes playing revenue-generating sports at schools that generate the most money.<\/p>\n

The same can be said for much of the hip-hop music industry. Although most rappers are black, their checks come from people who do not look like them.<\/p>\n

With all of these truths being evident, one can\u2019t help but wonder why these stats exist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Anderson MC301 Contributor\/Staff As a special feature during the month of February, the Blue & White Flash will present a special four-part series focusing on African-Americans and related issues in honor of Black History Month. These perspectives may contain the opinion of the writer and do not represent the views of The Blue & […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-campus-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/theflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}