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African American Incarceration And The Advancement Of Colored People

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Today, in America there is a disproportionate amount of Black people incarcerated. There are discrepancies in everything from the education they receive to the jobs that are available to them. This growing trend needs to be addressed and changed permanently, otherwise already superfluous statistics will continue to increase. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (n.d.) declared that “One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime.” African American incarceration has become an accepted norm in our society and in order to fix it we need to establish the lack of education, address workplace…show more content…
Petrella (2012) also notes that “The school-to-prison pipeline disproportionally targets youth of color and youth with disabilities for incarceration, as school policies may isolate them from their peer groups through expulsion, suspension, ineffective retention policies, transfers and high-stakes testing requirements.” There is a direct connection between being African American and lack of education because of learning difficulties that are not being addressed or missing school because of suspension or expulsion. The perception of being doomed from the start can directly interfere with motivation and drive towards a better future. Nittle (n.d.) notes that “Racism in the United States would not have thrived if institutions hadn’t perpetuated discrimination.” The despair of defeat at an early age is hard to crawl out of, without the added pressure of race.
Disparities show up in the workplace and not just in the education system. Nesbit (2015) states “In the workplace, black college graduates are twice as likely as whites to struggle to find jobs – the jobless rate for blacks has been double that of whites for decades.” This means that multiple difficulties stand in the way of the average Black person being successful. With few jobs available and when faced with the seemingly impossible pursuit of making a living, an instantaneous income can seem appealing. Instant money through illegal
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