5 Misleading Statistics Used by Media to Fuel

Negative Stereotypes About Black People

By
Lynn Brown
April 7, 2014
23
569

1. Black-on-Black Crime Statistics

Black-on-Black crime was a term coined in the 80s to describe the rise in gang
violence in urban areas in the United States. Since then, the phrase has been used

to perpetuate the idea that there is an epidemic of in-group violence in the AfricanAmerican community that is not seen in other communities.
But is this really true?
While it is true that 93 percent of African-American deaths are at the hands of
African-Americans, however, this is by no means only true in Black communities. A
similar percentage of all deaths can be attributed to a perpetrator who is the same
race as the victim. There is no evidence that Black people kill each other at a higher
rate than whites do, or anyone else for that matter.

2 Welfare statistics
Too often when we hear statistics about welfare recipients, we picture a young,
unemployed Black woman with multiple children. That stereotype has become
known as the welfare queen.
In fact, there is only a 1 percent difference between the number of AfricanAmericans and whites receiving welfare.
Another statistic indicates that nearly half of all food-stamp recipients are employed
full time, but still qualify for assistance because of impossibly low wages.

A hardworking person who cant make ends meet because her salary is below the
poverty level, is hardly the same as a lazy person who spends all her money on nonessentials. The reality is almost half of people on welfare fall into the former
category.

3. Teen Pregnancy Rate Statistics

The second part of the welfare queen stereotype corrupts birth-rate statistics,
specifically Black teen pregnancies. While it is true that the rates for young women
of color are significantly higher than that for white women, we also have had the
most significant drop in teen pregnancy in the last few years, a decline of 51 percent
between 1990 and 2009.
One factor that is often overlooked in discussion of teen pregnancy is the lack of
access to health care and sex education in disadvantaged communities, which has
been shown to have a substantial affect.

4. Incarceration Rates For Young Black Males

The Crime and Delinquency Journal recently released a study that estimated that 50
percent of Black men had at least one arrest by the age 18, feeding into the
stereotype of young Black men as inherently violent.
However, upon further examination, the conditions under which this study was
conducted turned out to be questionable at best.
In an article for The Root, Dr. Ivory Toldson of Howard University, stated: The study
used self-reported data on a group of black males that would not quite fill a
gymnasium, when direct data from court records are available.
He also noted that the research team that conducted the study was distinctly lacking
in both racial and gender diversity, despite the importance of the dynamics of both
of these issues in the study they were undertaking.

5. Youth Suspension Statistics

A recent study released by the Department of Education found that Black children,
in as early as preschool, were being suspended three times the rate of their white
counterparts.
However, what is not mentioned is that most of these suspensions were for vague
and subjective infractions, such as willful defiance.
Obviously, a misbehaving preschooler is by no means a danger to teachers or their
fellow students, and yet teachers increasingly feel justified in removing Black
children from schools, even at a young age.
Its clear that the stereotypes and misleading statistics are having a negative affect
on our children as well. Whats even more frightening is that this imbalanced way of
looking at even the youngest of our community, teaches them they are doomed to
live out these negative portrayals.
Sources:

http://www.bjs.gov
http://newsone.com
http://www.theroot.com
http://www.hhs.gov
http://www.cdc.gov
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://charlotte.cbslocal.com
http://www.blackyouthproject.com
http://www.publicintegrity.org