Customer Reviews

Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African Americans

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Chideya's book dispells many popular myths about African Americans that are rampant in the media, literature, etc. She paints a vivid picture of how people perceive "others" and the misconceptions that are created and perpetuated by ignorance. I have been told that this book is no longer in print because of its content...probably because some people do not want the truth to be known! Farai Chideya's book is am important and enlightening one that should be read by anyone who is in search of the "real" truth! This is probably the most informative book I have come across in years...

If you are a human being living in a society where equality matters, you must read this book. It focuses on several aspects of the African-American in our modern society, that are the main cause for injustice and stereotypes. Chideya tries to break these stereotypes by giving cold figures from the 1990 census. If you are interested in being a less stereotypical person, don't leave home without this master-piece

I found the information enlightening when I purchased the book so many years ago. Today, my children(ages 18 through 34) are reading this book and finding the information relevant and important. I would appreciate an update on the orginal information.

Throughout much of this book, Chideya uses a very quantitative approach -with plenty of statistics- to prove her arguments. In my opinon though, she often doesn't supply all the pertinent stats, and occasionally draws conclusions that are either too simplistic or not suggested by the figures she uses. In all, I didn't feel like my own opinions were firmly challenged while reading this book.

I've Followed Farai Chideya from the times she was Speaking on CNN.She is a Very Intelligent SISTER with a Way Of Putting Her Point Across On TIme.THis Book breaks Down ALot OF Things About Race&Stereotypes.Her Intelligent way Of Wording Knocks The Ignorance on it's Backs.Very Informative&Important.more Books Such as This are Needed.

An excellent book. It smashes the political lies and rhetoric and presents a staggeringly different side of things. I recommend this book for African Americans who think that we're all doomed or "can't do right". I recommend this book to Caucasians who think that black people are dreaming up racism, and who think that we're all welfare junkies. Chideya also presents statistics that should make everyone ask more questions. If this book doesn't make you want to take political action, read it again, because you missed something!

The data is pure fact and can be referenced by anyone who cares to validate Farai's claims. The logic is clear and concise, and anyone other than the most hardened bigot could not deny the conclusions reached. There are those who didn't want to believe the earth was round at one point. And those type of people will not be swayed by the facts delivered in this book. For the rest of us, it is a great education in fact vs. fiction.

Having watched her even-handed reporting on TV, I assumed I would--in light of the title--get a fair-minded, non-hypey exploration of the complicated issues related to African-Americans. Instead, I got a simplistic, incredibly biased polemic. She distorts numbers and contorts and withholds facts to prove her points. Don't waste your money.

I was so happy that a gen Xer took the time out and wrote down and analyzed the current available data regarding various social statistics to come up with something totally different than what is always presented by the media. Farai Chideya took information and simplified it for her generational group, to see and interpret for themselves...the informaiton is very easy to read for those on the go. For those gen Xer's who are frustrated with the negative imagery presented, surely this one will do the job at dispelling the BS.

The complaints in this book are old, for which no proof has ever been offered. The usual evidence in support of the charge that the criminal laws discriminate against blacks is the far stiffer sentences for selling and possessing crack cocaine compared with powdered cocaine. But that colorblind sentencing regimen, which dates from 1986, was a heartfelt effort to protect the overwhelmingly black victims of crack, not to penalize them. Black liberals such as Congressman Charles Rangel were loudest in sounding the alarm about the effects of crack in the black ghetto. Not even the most deluded racial apologists have ever explicitly suggested that racial bias motivated Congress's efforts to combat a drug that results in much higher rates of violence among dealers and users, quicker and more onerous addiction, and more emergency room visits than its powdered cousin.

The reason that the black incarceration rate is the highest in the country is that blacks have the highest crime rate--by a long shot. Don't trust the police, prosecutors, or judges to give a fair picture of black crime? Then go where the bodies are. Los Angeles is representative. In the first seven months of 2007, blacks in Los Angeles were murdered at a rate ten times that of whites and Asians. Who's killing them? It's not whites and Asians. While a minor proportion of the assailants of blacks are Hispanic, the vast majority are black themselves. Nationally, blacks commit murder at about eight times the frequency of whites. In New York, any given violent crime is 13 times more likely to have been committed by a black person than by a white person, according to the reports of victims and witnesses. Though they are only 24 percent of the city's population, blacks committed 68.5 percent of all murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults in New York last year. Whites, who make up 34.5 percent of New Yorkers, committed only 5.3 percent of violent crimes. These ratios are similar across the country. In Los Angeles, blacks committed 41 percent of all robberies in 2001, according to victims' descriptions, though they constitute only 11 percent of the city's population. Robbery victims identified whites, who make up 30 percent of the Los Angeles population, just 4 percent of the time.

When attacking the justice system, racial agitators work mightily to change the subject from violence to drugs, using their flimsy argument that crack cocaine penalties are too high. But the vast preponderance of prisoners are in the pen for violence and property crime. In 2003, 52 percent of inmates in state prisons were serving time for violent offenses, 21 percent for property offenses, and only 20 percent for drug offenses. To be sure, black incarceration rates are off the charts. Black men were 41 percent of the more than 2 million men in federal, state, and local prisons at midyear 2006. At the end of 2005, there were 3,145 prison inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared with 1,244 inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 471 inmates per 100,000 white males. Is that because violent and property crime is overpenalized, as race advocates sometimes argue? No. Despite the advocates' constant complaints about three-strikes laws, the criminal justice system actually underpenalizes crime because of inadequate prison space. Prosecutors cut deals to lessen sentences; sheriffs overseeing local jails regularly devise new schemes for dumping offenders back on the street to make room for the next batch. And in any case, even if penalties for particular offenses were too draconian, the punishments affect all offenders the same.

No one in the left wing community dares whisper a word about black crime, because it undercuts the portrait of a victimized race. You can listen to every protest across the country glorifying the "Jena Six" and you will never hear an acknowledgement of the massive social breakdown that is the black crime rate: no mention of the violence in inner-city schools that black students commit overwhelmingly; no mention of the rising homicides in midsize cities that young black males commit when they feel "disrespected." It is not racism that is putting black men in jail; it's their own behavior.

The authors claim that modern day America is still very racist, but all the evidence points to the contrary. There is not a single elite institution in the country that is not twisting itself into knots in favor of African-Americans. Every minimally selective college is desperately seeking to enroll more black students. Boosting black enrollment requires drastically lowering a college's admissions criteria to overcome the intractable 200-point SAT gap between black and white high school students, but every college institutes such double standards for the sake of "diversity." Any black student who graduates from high school with decent grades and respectable SATs will leapfrog over thousands of more qualified white and Asian students right into the Ivy League. Blacks are also the hottest commodity for exclusive private schools that serve as training grounds for the Ivies. Andover, Exeter, Choate, and every other fancy prep and day school practice the same double standards in their eagerness to admit African-American students. After college, law schools, business schools, medical schools, engineering schools, and others accept black students whose test scores would disqualify them if they were white or Asian.

The preferences continue into the professions. Wall Street law firms annually flagellate themselves over their lack of proportional representation of black associates and partners, even though the number of blacks who graduate from law school with grades and bar-exam scores comparable with the firms' white hires is negligible. The lack of comparably qualified black candidates does not stop the law partnerships from hiring black associates, though. Corporations have saddled themselves with massive "diversity" bureaucracies whose only function is to justify hiring and promoting less qualified African-Americans and Hispanics. Newspapers, TV stations, and advertisers put enormous pressure on themselves to have blacks on their staffs and to show black faces to the world.

In short, the opportunities for blacks to roar ahead in the economy if they stay out of trouble, study, and apply themselves are legion, but the numbers taking advantage of these opportunities are not. California's state superintendent of public instruction broke a longstanding taboo this August by pointing out that middle-class black students in the state score worse on math and English than poor white and Asian students--a disparity that applies across the country. The usual poverty excuse for black underachievement does not hold up.

They're in denial of these truths. In fact, what they're trying to do, is to make sure that attention stays far away from the actual problems holding blacks back. Astronomical rates of black criminality are not the only topic that the Jena rallies have obscured. No one wallowing in Jena promotion has had the courage to speak about an even more important crisis, the breakdown of marriage. The nearly 70 percent national illegitimacy rate for blacks--a number that can approach 90 percent in inner cities--is a cataclysm. Its consequences go far beyond the harm to individual black children--especially boys--who grow up without fathers. The real poison of the marriage crisis is the message it sends to young men about personal responsibility. The first duty in civil society is toward one's own children; everything else is built around it. But when boys are raised without any expectations that they will have to support their children and marry the mother of those children, they fail to learn the most basic lesson about responsibility. They also are freed from the civilizing force of the marriage requirement, which pressures young men to become attractive mates. With enough support, individuals can overcome the moral perils of the illegitimacy culture, but given the prevalence of black crime and disaffiliation from the working world, it's clear that not enough young men are finding ways to do so.

These authors are members of the race industry. And their goal is to reinforce the notion that this episode exemplifies blacks' situation in America. But if there were many other instances of (arguable) overcharging for black crime, we would have heard about them by now.