1.5 Million Missing Black Men

From the New York Times:

African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is nonetheless jarring. It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict black men — disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings by the police — and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and husbands.

Perhaps the starkest description of the situation is this: More than one out of every six black men who today should be between 25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.

“The numbers are staggering,” said Becky Pettit, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas.

More here.

White conservatives, you really want to know why so many people are so constantly pissed off at you when it comes to talking about race in this country?

It's because you treat fact as though it was opinion. You also treat your opinions as though they are facts. Then you run with those "facts" coming to false conclusions which often verge on racism, if not going into straight up racist territory. When challenged on these false conclusions, these "facts," you inexplicably act like YOU'RE the victim, even though your rhetoric makes you the obvious oppressor.

And it pisses people off.

You want to make every racist incident in the news all about that incident and only that incident, always divorcing it from context, always trying to blame the victim, or calling it a one-off or a "bad apple." You'll say anything you can to deny the reality. You'll drone on forever about single mothers, or the "culture of poverty," or the "black criminal element," whatever it takes to get you and the white power structure off the hook.

Well, you're wrong. Obviously wrong. And it pisses everybody off.

Because when we're able to get away from your word games, your stupid f'ing sophistry, your love for white supremacy, that's when the REAL conversation about race happens. That's when we can see the devastating numbers. That's when we can see that the American black community, historically oppressed, CONTINUES to be oppressed, obviously oppressed, even while I write these words. That's when we can see just how racist, how insulting, how UTTERLY WRONG your bullshit criticism of black people is.

When you tell people that the solution to black poverty is that black women need to get married, it's, like, fuck you, man. When you tell black people to just go out and get a job, it's a racist slap to the face. When you react to the totally justified outrage when unarmed black man after unarmed black man is killed in the streets by police, as though all cops are just like the friendly harmless cops in Norman Rockwell paintings, you might as well be pissing on our faces.

You're wrong. Dead wrong. And when you expect us just to agree with your totally racist bullshit, it pisses us off. You need to pull your heads out of your asses and look at the data.

I'm sick of this shit.

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