Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Killing of Jonathan Ferrell in Context

[Recursion]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/09/the-killing-of-jonathan-ferrell-in-context/279953/

As always, a great post from T-N C.

If I sounded a bit glum and fatalistic in my post on the killing of Jonathan Ferrell, and if I sounded glum and fatalistic in my postings on Trayvon Martin, and if I generally have sounded glum and fatalistic period, you can blame charts like this one. Again, this is from Patrick Sharkey's research in his book Stuck In Place. I would go so far as to call it essential in understanding the profound lack of progress we've seen, over the last forty years, in our efforts to forge an integrated society.

Much of Sharkey's data is pulled from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The PSID is remarkable in that it allows you to look at people across generations. Or for now, just one generation because the PSID started in the late 60s.

Above you see a chart look at blacks and whites born in poor and affluent neighborhoods, and what happened to them across a generation. The chart then shows what percentage of each group's families remained in poor neighborhoods, and which group' did not. It also shows what percent of each group's families born into affluent neighborhoods were able to remain there, and what percent of each group's families were not.

As you can see the results are glum. Put simply if you are black and grew up around poverty, your children probably grew up the same way. If you are white and grew up around poverty, your children probably did better. If you are black and grew up around affluence, your children probably didn't. If you are white and grew up around affluence, your child probably did.