An Encouraging Piece of News

One of the signs of what a ferociously racist country America is that there are more black men in prison than in college.  Dr. Ivory Toldson at The Root says that this isn't true -- not even close -- nor does it ever appear to have been true.  At best, some of the data on black attendance in colleges was very incomplete some years ago, and a cursory examination of the data might have led someone to believe it-- but it is certainly not the case today.

Today there are approximately 600,000 more black men in college than in jail, and the best research evidence suggests that the line was never true to begin with. In this two-part entry in Show Me the Numbers, the Journal of Negro Education's monthly series for The Root, I examine the dubious origins, widespread use and harmful effects of what is arguably the most frequently quoted statistic about black men in the United States.