Nasty Statistics

I had a pretty quiet day today.  We went out to breakfast then came home and did a few chores; not the stuff of good posts!  However something I read got me to thinking about some of the statistical differences between black guys and white guys here in the good old U.S.A.

The first thing that got my attention was that blacks, especially guys, are quite a lot more likely to get HIV/AIDS.  I'm giving you the URL if you want to check it out yourself.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/us.htm
Blacks continue to experience the most severe burden of HIV.
 1.  Blacks represent approximately 14% of the US population, but accounted for an estimated 44% of new HIV infections in 2009.
 2.  At some point in their life, approximately 1 in 16 black men will be diagnosed with HIV infection, as will 1 in 32 black women.
 3.  In 2009, the estimated rate of new HIV infections among black men was six and a half times as high as that of white men, and more than two and a half times as high as that of Latino men and of black women. In the same year, the estimated rate of new HIV infections among black women was 15 times that of white women and over three times that of Latina women.

Then I got to wondering about the prison population.  First surprise is that we have by far the largest prison population of any country.  Apparently this is in large part due to the long sentences that are mandated.  However, again, there's a lot of black guys in prison.

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/factsheets.html
Facts about prisons and Prisoners
1.  One in ten (10.4%) black males aged 25-29 was in prison or jail in 2007 as were 1 in 28 (3.6%) Hispanic males and 1 in 59 (1.7%) white males in the same age group.
2.  40% of persons in prison or jail in 2006 were black and 20% were Hispanic.
3.  Black males have a 32% chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives; Hispanic males have a 17% chance; white males have a 6% chance.

What's with this?  Discrimination does not really seem to be dead; hell, it doesn't even have a cough!  Of course ALL these guys can't be innocent but you've got to figure some were picked up because of their color.


Then there is this story about how successful black women aren't getting married; the number of black men in jail is part of the story; their educational failure is another part. 
An Interracial Fix for Black Marriage
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903454504576486492588283556.html

He's written a book on the subject as well.  Here's a plug.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/ralph-richard-banks-black-women-marriage-book_n_1070310.html

Gotta tell you, there's 15% of our population that is really going to waste.  I'm not sure anyone is coming up with any fixes.  Having a black president MAY encourage some children in the future to stay out of trouble and in school but I'm not sure I'm that much of an optimist.

Have a good one