It is clear that from the early 1980s onward, African-American society has experienced a kind of two-tier bifurcation of its social class pattern. Within this bifurcated class pattern entailing a “static-stratum” sector (e.g., weak working-class and poor families) and a “mobile-stratum” sector (e.g., middle-class and professional-class families), what might be termed a “troubled Black America dynamic” can be found. For example, while middle-class and professional-class African-Americans inhabiting the “mobile-stratum” (around 60% of Black Americans) have advanced up the American social mobility ladder, those African-Americans inhabiting the “static-stratum” (weak- working-class and poverty-level ranks) seem to dwell in a “vegetated state-of-social-crises”, so to speak. What the articles by the African-American columnist for The New York Times have uniquely provided over the past decade is a cogent and sharp vista on the “troubled Black America dynamics”.

Bob Herbert’s cogent and sharp vista on contemporary Black American social crises can be found especially in his New York Times columns that appeared March 5 and March 15, 2007. These articles (one titled “Education, Education, Education" — March 5 — the other “The Danger Zone” — March 15) discuss the nitty-gritty details of contemporary Black American social crises, especially the Black-youth social crises. The Black-youth social crises probed by Bob Herbert are:

1. The crisis in education opportunities and thus in education performance and outcomes.
2. The job-market and job-opportunity crisis.

For males in each of the three race-ethnic groups (blacks, Hispanics and whites), employment rates in 2005 increased steadily and strongly with their educational attainment. This was especially true for black males, for whom employment rates rose from a low of 33 percent among high school dropouts to 57 percent among high school graduates, and to a high of 86 percent among four-year college graduates.

The fact that only one of every three young black male high school dropouts was able to obtain any type of job during an average month n 2005 should be viewed as particularly distressing, since many of these young men will end up being involved in criminal activities during their late teens and early 20s. [They’ll face] severe economic consequences for convictions and incarcerations over the remainder of their working lives.

…For anyone deluded enough to question whether education is the ticket to a better life for black boys and men, consider that a black male who drops out of high school is 60 times more likely to find himself in prison than one with a bachelor’s degree. Black males who graduate from a four-year college will make, over the course of a ifetime, more than twice the mean earnings of a black high school graduate…more than a million dollars. [Also college-educated] black males…are more likely to marry and live with their children…. (Emphasis added)

This is not a close-call issue. It is becoming very hard for anyone to succeed in this society without a college education. To leave school without even a high school education, as so many males do — specially black males…is extremely self-destructive. The effort to bolster the education background of black men has to begin very early. It’s extremely difficult to turn a high school dropout into a college graduate. This effort can succeed on a large scale only if there is a cultural change in the black community — a powerful change that acknowledges as the 21st century unfolds that there is no more important life tool for black children than education, education, education. (Emphasis added)

What I’m talking about is extreme joblessness — joblessness that is coursing through [black] communities and being passed from one generation to another, like a deadly virus. …In big cities, more than half [black male youth] do not even graduate from high school. Their employment histories are gruesome. Over the past few years, the percentage of black male high school graduates in their 20s who were jobless (including those who abandoned all efforts to find a job) has ranged from well over a third to roughly 50 percent. Those are the kind of statistics you get during a depression. For dropouts, the rates of joblessness are staggering. For black males who left high chool without a diploma, the real jobless rate at various times over the past few years has ranged from 59 percent to a breathtaking 72 percent.

In the second half of “The Danger Zone” article, Bob Herbert discusses the faint beginnings of federal-level leadership interest in addressing the dreadful job-market-job-opportunity crisis facing Black males. This faint federal-level interest we owe, no doubt, to the fortuitous Democratic Party victory in the 2006 congressional elections, and especially to the first-ever rise of 4 African-American U.S. legislators heading major Congressional Committees and 16 frican-American legislators heading Sub-Committees, and an African-American chosen as Congressional Whip to boot. Herbert commences this discussion by reference to new Congressional Hearings held at the end of February 2007, by Congress’s Joint Economic Committee on the joblessness crisis among African-American males. He quotes the chair of that committee, Senator Charles Schumer of New York:

“Seventy-two percent jobless [for school dropout black males]! This compares to 29 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts.” Senator Schumer described the problem of black male unemployment as “profound, persistent and perplexing.” Jobless rates at such sky-high levels don’t just destroy lives, they destroy entire communities. They breed all manner of anti-social behavior, including violent crime. One of the main reasons there are so few black marriages is that there are so many black men who are financially incapable of supporting a family. “These numbers should generate a sense of national alarm,” said Senator Schumer. (Emphasis Added)

Instead of addressing this issue constructively, [Republican] government officials have responded by eviscerating programs that were designed to move young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into the job market. Robert Carmona, president of Strive, an organization that helps build job skills, told Senator Schumer’s committee [Congress’ Joint Economic Committee] – “What we’ve seen over the last several years is a deliberate disinvestment in programs that do work.” What’s needed are massive programs of job training and job creation, and a sustained national effort to bolster the education backgrounds of disadvantaged youngsters. So far there has been no political will to do any of that.