african-american

The Issue: Who lives in America’s suburbs now? How are they changing? These are questions that, in recent years, might have seemed increasingly marginal, as so much media attention focused on the surprising revitalization of, and movement toward, cities. But the latest trends characterizing the U.S. suburbs are also fascinating, nuanced and in many ways as important as urban trends.

A clear and persistent legacy of the Great Recession is the country’s high national unemployment rate, which has hovered at 9 percent or greater since May 2009. It has been less clear, however, how the economic downturn has impacted the collective wealth of U.S. households.

In 2010 and 2011, the rate of poverty in the United States stayed roughly constant at 15% — some 46.2 million people, according to Census Bureau figures issued in September 2012. This represents the greatest total number of people designated as poor since the government began the count more than a half-century ago.

Certain demographic transformations now underway are poised to change the nature of human communities and how they function. These trends are vital context for reporting and research of all kinds.

A May 2014 White House report on “big data” notes that the ability to determine the demographic traits of individuals through algorithms and aggregation of online data has a potential downside beyond just privacy concerns: Systematic discrimination.

Corporations often claim to be meritocracies where advancement is based strictly on performance. However, subtle barriers can block advancement for minorities in some settings. One framework of understanding proposed by academics is the “minority vulnerability thesis,” which suggests that meritocratic “ideologies” can mask workplace decisions that — intentionally or not — reinforce historical patterns of discrimination.

Racial profiling and discrimination against African-American youth by police are problems that periodically grab national attention. Yet there is seldom subtle discussion of whether such discrimination is more prevalent in predominantly black or white neighborhoods, or in mixed racial settings. Moreover, data from black adolescents themselves who may face these realities are infrequently collected, analyzed and cited.