And then there is the cultural problem.
Most employers are not going to hire people who can't read well and speak proper English. The unemployment rate among black males ages 16-19 is 57%. It's 25% for white males of that age. Overall, black unemployment stands at 14%, while white unemployment in 6.6%.
The reason? In many poor neighborhoods, there is chaos, violence and little discipline in the public schools. Kids aren't learning. Also, with the African American out-of-wedlock birth rate at 73% many young blacks are unsupervised and prone to imitate bad behavior. Like what Lil Wayne puts out:
Pop a lot of pain pills
Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels
Beat that p**y up like Emmett Till
Yeah....
Two cell phones ringin' at the same time
That's your ho, callin' from two different phones
Tell that b**h "leave me the f** alone!"
See, you f** her wrong, and I f** her long
Now, after hearing that piece of garbage, Mountain Dew pulled a multi-million dollar endorsement deal the company had with Lil Wayne. Guess who intervenes? Does the name Al Sharpton ring a bell? His National Action Network held a meeting with Mountain Dew and the family of Emmett Till, who were outraged by that stupid rap. And by the way, if you want to know what happened to Emmett Till, you should read k**ing Kennedy. We vividly examine why he was murdered.
In a statement, Sharpton said, “National Action Network doesn't want the end result to be the penalization of artists - although they clearly need to be corrected.”
Well, that's kind of holistic, isn't it?
And here's a shocker: the parent company of Lil Wayne, Cash Money Content, which markets vile stuff that hurts children, is a partner in distributing Sharpton's upcoming book. That's right: Al Sharpton is in business with people who put out entertainment harmful to children.
The fact is, Al Sharpton is allowing a company that harms Black children to distribute his book.
The civil rights industry is not addressing the core reason why many African Americans are not succeeding in the marketplace.