An alarming report came out of the New York Times detailing that there are 1.5 million black men missing from everyday life in the United States. Some statistics included that in New York alone there are 120,000 black men from the ages of 25-54 that are no longer around. In Chicago that number is 45,000 and 30,000 in Philadelphia. With the overall number totaling 1.5 million this ensures that this is an epidemic and not a limited occurrence.
These men are missing from everyday life largely due to incarceration and early deaths. To put a better perspective on these numbers, if you take 100 black women from that prime age range of 25-54, only 83 black men are around to compliment them. Compare that to the almost perfect ratio of white men and women which would be 99 free white men for each 100 free white women. An even more jarring figure involving that 25-54 range is for every six black men, one is bound to be missing. The 25-54 age range is important because this gender gap in blacks does not exists in childhood. It is only until the teenage years that it begins to skew into adulthood where it becomes a persistent matter.
The city that has the at least 10,000 black residents and the highest proportion of missing black men is none other than Ferguson, Missouri. The same city where Micheal Brown was gunned down last year by officer Darren Wilson and where unsurprisingly the Justice Department found a vast array of discrimination against their black residents. In Ferguson there are 60 men for every 100 women. The Midwest disproportion rates align with the major northern cities, with the West having a smaller gap. The South is where you will find the largest black gender disproportion gap in the US.
While mortality rates for young black men have lowered over the last two decades, the frequency in which they are incarcerated has risen thus creating an offset. However, the incarceration rate has fallen in recent years but still has not been enough.The number 1.5 million is so staggering that the the number of missing black men is not going to lower overnight. It is so large that it would be impossible for black men to do this entirely to themselves. This phenomenon only known to the black community still, so there are other issues at hand that need to be addressed as to how to scale this 1.5 million back.
Economist Kerwin Charles, at the University of Chicago along with Ming-Ching Luoh research has shown these numbers lead to lower marriage rates and higher childbirths outside of a marriage. For black women finding a mate of the same race now becomes almost daunting while men are around women in abundance and because of this Charles says, “men seem less likely to commit to romantic relationships, or to work hard to maintain them.”
The crisis of the black male in America is never a new subject, but some news is hard to wrap your head around. This study shows how much progress is still needed in the black community and paints a picture of a continuous cycle that needs to be broken once and for all. 1.5 million is not a number that can be reduced by one person, it is going to take a honest collective effort from everyone to cure the nation of what can only be compared to a disease.
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