Some see the protesters and their eyes fill with tears. Others, however, only see the looters and their hearts fill with rage.
The looters are opportunists taking advantage of a storm raised by the protesters. Some protesters are the thunder released by the guilt of being silent too long. And those of us who do not rise up in protest, who allowed decades of injustice to pass, we wait out the storm, knowing without our efforts the clouds will never disperse. Whether we protest now or not, by our prior silence, we have been complicit in an injustice.
No matter how sophisticated the analysis of the data, one simple fact summarizes the result of many factors contributing to the conditions faced by African Americans: The median income of African American households in the Unites States was 33% below that of all households in 2018. Indiana’s African American households were 38% below all Hoosier households.
(I will not apologize for all the numbers; the data provides a basis for measuring progress over time.)
The median is the number that separates the top half of a population from the bottom half. In dollars, those figures are astounding. Nationally, the median income of African American households was $41,511, $20,426 below the median of $61,937 for all households. Here, in the Hoosier Holyland, the median for African American households was $34,290, $21,456 below the median income $55,746 of all Indiana households.
It’s a triple whammy. The difference between the median income of all U.S. households and that of African American households in Indiana was $27,647. Of that amount, 74% results from being African American in America. Another 22% is the result of being a Hoosier household, with an additional 4% for being Black in Indiana.
This breakdown of the numbers doesn’t suggest racism is a trivial issue in Indiana; it clearly indicates the problem is a national one, exacerbated by being both African American and a Hoosier.
You may easily explain these results by citing single parent households with children under age 18 and the education levels of the parents. Occupation is a contributor to the observed differential. Fault may be laid at the door of the schoolhouse, or decades of imprisonment in that other school, the penitentiary.
Outrage and other forms of emoting will not eliminate the causal factors of this income inequality nor create the outcomes being sought. The egregious behavior of some police officers and their departments are but a distillation of pervasive bigotry. Remedies have abounded for decades. Yet without dealing with the larger picture, we’ll not be able to eliminate the offence of DWB (Driving while Black) or being a young Black man running.
“How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?”
