Black Women Outpace Black Men in Military Recruitment

Image via Wikipedia. I'm only adding this picture because I couldn't find any of black women soldiers on the WordPress photo finder widget. Really.

This is a kind of interesting piece from the great New York Times on how black women are outpacing black men (and just about every other group) in military recruitment and enlistment; because they want to go to college and they recognize early on that enlisting will help stagger (if not cover) college tuition, provide training, and job experience that they may not otherwise get in a Depression-era economy rife with institutionalized racism and little prospects of improving any time soon.

Given those obvious circumstances, it doesn’t really answer why there shouldn’t be more black men enlisting, since the odds are more stacked against them finding decent jobs or finishing college than even black women….unless you take into consideration that fewer black men go on to college as black women (which is not my humble widdle opinion but fact) so the selling point of help with college tuition is not as great a factor.

Can’t blame ‘em for thinking ahead.

Here’s a link to the piece:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/black-women-enlist-at-higher-rates-in-us-military.html

Related articles:

• Blacks far outpace military’s other female recruits (mysanantonio.com)
• Military Enlistment: Blacks Outpace Other Female Recruits (huffingtonpost.com)
• A Shortage of Eligible Black Men (theroot.com)
• Teaching White Boys to Dance and Other Solutions to the Black Marriage Crisis (crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com)

Blacks Need to Reinvent Marriage

Image via Wikipedia. Does Iman know she's ain't supposed to be hanging with Bowie?

Image via Wikipedia. What’s going on here with Bobby D?

According to Dalton Conley, a sociologist and dean of social sciences at New York University, author of “Elsewhere USA,” and writer/blogger for the great New York Times, black people in America need to “reinvent” the institution of marriage.

For many, Mr. Conley is merely stating the obvious, but as a credentialed and professional sociologist repeating what Ralph Richard Banks said in his bestseller “Is Marriage for White People?,” his opinion is just one more in a chorus of informed and educated professors stating that black women remain statistical outliers in terms of turning their backs on interracial marriage as a whole and as a practice while black men leave them en masse.

Of course it’s everyone’s individual right and choice to do with their lives as they please, and if black women in America as a whole wish to remain single that’s fine, as Tracee Ellis Ross said in a previous piece.

Anyway, here’s a direct link to that piece:

• http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/20/black-men-for-black-women/blacks-need-to-reinvent-marriage

And here’s a brief redux of Ralph Richard Banks’ comments from his bestseller that’s ticked off so many people, but his comments nonetheless are fairly straightforward, factual, and devoid of opinion:

• http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/20/black-men-for-black-women/a-definite-shortage-of-marriageable-black-men

So, what is it that ticks off so many people? That Mr. Banks dares to state the obvious and thereby airs some kind of secret dirty laundry the masses shouldn’t talk about? Is it racism, stigma, or just resistance to logical suggestions at helpful change?

Biography Revives Push to Reopen Malcolm X Case

Image via Wikipedia. Malcolm X. One day the man will get the respect, understanding, justice, and movie, he deserves. But I ain't holding my breath. Read the biography review and let us know your take on it.

Brother Malcolm. Just to read those words brings a heaviness to my heart. He is and was and always will be one of the most misunderstood and much-maligned truly individualistic and idiosyncratic civil rights leaders to have fought during the tumultuous 60s.

To say that the Shabazz family has been through Purgatory and back is an understatement of a highest order, but they remain. And Brother Malcolm’s legacy and memory survive, despite (or because of, depending upon your perspective of diminutive film-financier Spike Lee) inaccurate and inflammatory mass media depictions.

In a piece in the great “New York Times” (one of the few newspapers still left standing, although its footing is slippery at best), dated July 22, 2011, Times writer Shaila Dewan carefully reviews a new biography of the great leader and ever-evolving soul Malcolm X.

If you haven’t already guessed, I’m somewhat of a “fan” of Malcolm X, and personally feel that he has yet to be given due respect; but that’s another story for another time.

Here’s a link to the biography review. Please read it and let us know what your thoughts and feelings are on the text:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/nyregion/biography-helps-renew-calls-to-investigate-malcolm-x-assassination.html

Related articles

• Justice Nixes New Malcolm X Murder Probe (theroot.com)
• Malcolm X’s Alleged Killer Has Been Walking Around Free For Years… Will Biography Finally Help Bring Justice??? (bossip.com)
• Malcolm X’s Alleged Killer Has Been Walking Around Free For Years… Will Biography Finally Help Bring Justice??? (via Bossip) (idontmakethenews.com)
• Did Malcolm X Hate Women? (theroot.com)
• City Room: Justice Dept. Declines to Reopen Malcolm X Case (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)
• United States National Databases Show B. H. Obama, Using As Many As 39 Different Social Security Numbers. Why? Is Obama Malcolm X’s Son? (politicalvelcraft.org)
• Book Renews Calls to Reopen Malcolm X Case (newser.com)
• Thomas Powers: Malcolm X (lrb.co.uk)
• The Day the Music Died Malcolm X’s Assassination, Feb. 21, 1965 (moorbey.wordpress.com)
• Book Review: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (threaders.wordpress.com)
• BlackBerry World: Q&A with Malcolm Gladwell (blogs.blackberry.com)
• 5 years’ probation for Malcolm X daughter in theft (sfgate.com)
• 5 years’ probation for Malcolm X daughter in theft (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Malcolm X’s Daughter Sentenced For Identity Theft (mediaanarchist.wordpress.com)
• ‘The Help’ shows good stories have no color barrier (thegrio.com)
• When the Black Panthers Challenged Gun Control (reason.com)
• 100 essays on malcolm x (orgtheory.wordpress.com)
• Justice Dept. will not re-investigate Malcolm X case (thegrio.com)
• MALCOLM X: The Price of Freedom is Death (moorbey.wordpress.com)
• Black Masks: Lee’s Malcolm X (okinawaassault.wordpress.com)

Summer Camp for Jews of Color

Here’s a link to a piece in the great newspaper “The New York Times” about a summer camp program for Jews of Color:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/us/13religion.html

Link to original piece:

• Prayer, and Bug Juice, at a Summer Camp for Jews of Color (nytimes.com)