HOW BLACK PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS ARE FAILING BLACK AMERICA

Thora Institute LLC
Social Science Serving Black America
P.O. Box 367
New Haven, CT 06513
contact@thorainstitute.com
203-776-5421

New Haven, CT (BlackNews.com) - Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals Are Failing Black America is now available from BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com. In Getting It Wrong, Algernon Austin reveals the errors and distortions of more than a dozen of America's leading black public intellectuals about the state of black America.

Black public intellectuals are claiming that black America has declined since the Civil Rights movement. Henry Louis Gates Jr. states that there are more blacks in poverty today than in the 1960s. The U.S. Census Bureau, however, informs us that 42 percent of blacks were in poverty in 1966 and 25 percent of blacks were in poverty in 2004. The black poverty rate has declined significantly since the 1960s. Gates is getting it wrong.

John McWhorter claims that blacks are doing worse educationally today than in the 1960s. The long-term trends of the Department of Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress tests show that black students have made significant improvements in their educational achievement over the last 30 years. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education's Higher Education Equality Index also shows that blacks have made considerable advances in higher education over the last 30 years. McWhorter is getting it wrong.

Bill Cosby suggests that the black teenage pregnancy rate has increased greatly since the 1960s. The National Center for Health Statistics shows that the black teenage pregnancy rate was 156.1 births per 1,000 teenage girls in 1960. By 2003, the black teenage pregnancy rate had declined nearly 60 percent to 63.8 births per 1,000. Cosby is getting it wrong.

Getting It Wrong shows that many of America's leading black public intellectuals have been spreading false stereotypes about blacks. Blacks have made significant positive progress since the Civil Rights movement. Getting It Wrong challenges black public intellectuals to get their facts right.

Algernon Austin has taught sociology at Wesleyan University. He is currently the Director of the Thora Institute LLC and editor of the Institute's Black Directions reports on the state of black America.


-END-

 

1. Well, at least SOMEONE (other than our *cough* leaders) has gotten it RIGHT

2. This proves us all of the mentioned posters right once again:

you, J

flaminghetero

malachi

TheChosenOne

and, ME.