Black In America

I thought that the Black In America documentary really helped me get closer to understanding how the problems of racism in America are affecting people. I never thought that racism was this much of a problem anymore but I guess that it still is. The fact that only 3% of management jobs were given to African Americans really surprised and bothered me. It never really comes to my mind that black skin could be a deal breaker for getting a job. I do understand that the amount of African American graduates is a pretty low number but I didn’t think that it was low enough to cause the amount of African American managers to be as low as 3 %.
Another statistic that really bothered me was the one about the amount of African Americans that will grow up with no father. This statistic doesn’t deal with racism but is still a big problem that needs to be fixed. It’s hard believing that 60% of African American children will grow up with no father. The father that was in the video seemed like he didn’t care about his child at all. I didn’t feel bad for him at all I more felt anger towards him for acting the way he was. He showed no care at all towards his child and you could tell that he didn’t. The way that he responded to the reporter made it seem like he wasn’t even bothering listening to her. It just frustrated me how someone could just abandoned two human beings like that and only go into their lives when they feel like it. It’s hard to even imagine what growing up like that would be like; thinking that your own father left because of your birth.
60% of African American high school dropouts was another fact that disturbed me. I can’t believe that that number could be so high because not all dropouts are going to end up being criminals. The fact that the video brought up about African Americans being suspected of doing crimes does seem to explain part of why that number would be so high. I don’t think that that many cops go through the trouble of planting evidence on African Americans just because they don’t like their skin color. The video did make another point that explains why the number of dropouts is so high. The media is depicting African Americans in a negative way whether it be through music videos or the news. It was surprising seeing that the news would rather do a story on an African American doing one crime rather a Caucasian doing the same exact crime.