Reportedly, even though the Franklin,
Massachusetts-born, Horace Mann, an
education reformer and politician in his state
from 1827 to 1837, said that “Education then,
beyond all other devices of human origin, is a
great equalizer of the conditions of men,” it
still doesn’t apply today.
According to Young Invincibles (YI), a
national organization committed to
mobilizing and expanding opportunities for
young Americans, inequality is alive and
well. The group, founded in 2009, claims that
even if a black man has exactly the same
educational attainment as his white
counterpart, his job prospects are well
below.
In their report, YI states that an African-
American male must attain at least two more
educational levels to be almost on par with
his white counterpart. It adds that Black
male college graduates have a similar
employment rate as white men with no
degree (92.8% and 92.5%, respectively),
while white male college graduates are
almost 5% higher, at 97.6%.
The organization, dedicated to helping young
people aged between 18 and 34, continues in
their report that young African-Americans,
even to this day, start on an uneven playing
field, where the odds are stacked against
them, largely because of racial
discrimination.
However, the more educational attainment an
African-American student receives, the more
chances of him finding worthwhile
employment, according to the study. It
continues that obtaining a high school
diploma somewhat increases the chance for
a white male to find employment, but with a
black male, it increases his chances by 50%.
The same two men going on to higher
educational achievement at the professional
level, increases their chances of employment,
but the African-Americans chances have
now improved almost 146%. However, a
black man with a graduate degree still has
around the same chance of being employed
as a white man with just a bachelor’s
degree, in fact, his chance is slightly lower.
SOURCE
Financial Juneteenth lessons from this story:
1) White people run and own most American
corporations, universities and other
organizations. They are not as likely to hire
someone of a different race than they are to
hire someone of their own race. This form of
inequality and inequity is both persistent and
typically immune to legislative remedies.
The only way to fight this discrimination is
to stop complaining about it and find ways to
raise capital to support black-owned
businesses.
2) By giving the bulk of your wealth away to
companies that don’t hire people in your own
community, you are leaving yourself devoid
of any real economic power. An exchange
only makes sense if there is true give and
take. But currently, African Americans are
leading consumers, yet the last to be hired.
For those who insist upon continuing to give
their money to corporations that don’t hire
black employees, you may want to consider
supporting efforts to at least force these
corporations to spend their money hiring
black people and advertising in black
communities.