Discussion of Some Possible Sources for 2nd Essay

Of course, as I mentioned in one of my other blogs, my second essay will be about racial profiling and how it has influenced my life and the lives of others. My essay will probably be focused on the racial profiling against black people that takes place in America. Today, I was looking for websites and sources for this second essay. I found one website that showed the results from I believe it was the 2002 and 2003 census. One of the important bits of information that I found from this website (http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-222.pdf) was that among the reported number of black people in 2002, 23.9 to 24.1 percent of them were in poverty, according to the race definition. I am sure that this would probably shock a lot of people. It would because many people believe that most black people are poor. However, this information from this website is proof that most black people are not poor. Even though other information from this website shows that black people have the highest percent of poor people than any other nationality of people that was reported in this census. Someone being poor is determined by looking at the size of his or her family and the number of children in that family that is under eighteen years old. With these factors being taken into consideration, that family is given a threshold. If that household/family makes less than that threshold amount of money for their family, then that family is considered poor or in poverty. I am not sure why black people have the highest percentage of poor people out of all the races than any other races. I guess this could go along with one of the other stereotypes of African Americans. The stereotype that goes along with this is the one that has to do with all black people being poor. Even though this stereotype may not be true, many black people are poor, and that is probably why so many of them are poor. However, many other people are poor as well, not just black people. Many of my relatives are lazy and many of them do not work. However, I do have some relatives that are hard working and doing well financially. My family (as in my immediate family) is one of the riches in my family. My dad makes six figures and is one of the many exceptions to the idea of black people being poor. I, as well as my children, will be an exception to this stereotype. A website that I found (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_126.asp) shows that African Americans have the lowest test scores out of all the racial groups that took the SAT in some of the years of the 2000s. This information kind of supports the stereotypes that black people do not do well in school and on standardized tests. However, even though this information that I found from these websites does support both of these stereotypes that I stated, this does not mean that that holding these biases is all right. This is not all right because not all black people are poor and not all black people do bad on standardized test and in school. I am an exception to the last stereotype that I listed also.