AF AMER M5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Queen Latifah, U.N.I.T.Y., Black Kids
15 May 2018
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1. Brain Lotion: “Don’t Believe the Hype” by Public Enemy & “U.N.I.T.Y” by Queen Latifah
a. What are the key ideas?
i. Violence within the black community
b. What are your thoughts on their commentary and music?
c. How do they overlap and where do they differ?
i. Both talk about violence and struggle within the black community, but
u.n.i.t.y. deals specifically with violence against women
ii. Prof: black boys and girls are all at a disadvantage, and get into the same
institutions (often for different reasons) with the same outcomes, black kids
have to put on an armor to get through this world
2. The simple fact(s)
a. 70% of black children are poor
b. Half of black americans born poor stay poor
c. Less than 80% of black people nationally graduate college
d. Parental education attainment is not at parity either with white parents
e. Black children (boys and girls) are suspended at disproportionately high rates
f. Family Literacy activities are proportionately the same, but literacy outcomes are not
3. Documentary: “i am a promise”
a. Black children are overdiagnosed as having add/adhd
b. White principal of a chocolate city school in a chocolate city neighborhood
c. Black children are a promise, and whatever is not fulfilled is on us (as a society)
4. Black people are disproportionately incarcerated (prison, not counting jail) in every state
a. 3% of black people in CA are in prison
b. So are native people
c. In every state, black people are at least double the next closest population (even
hawaii and alaska)
d. California incarceration rates by race/ethnicity, 2010: for every 100,000 Black
people 3,036 are incarcerated
e. Illinois incarceration rates by rate/ethnicity, 2010: for every 100,000 Black people
2,128 are incarcerated
f. Pennsylvania incarceration rates by race/ethnicity, 2010: for every 100,000 Black
people, 3,269 are incarcerated
g. Across every state, deep overrepresentation of Black (and Hispanic) people in
disciplinary institutions
h. Even in Hawaii and Alaska, which became states no more than 60 years ago, the
same trend can be seen
5. Numbers from the NAACP
a. African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million
incarcerated population
b. African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
c. Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in
2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one
quarter of the US population
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