Race In The News

USA Study: Most Black Kids Know About Food Stamps

Dr. Mark Rank, a sociologist at George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis was the lead author in a new research study that found nearly half of all children in the U.S. and 90% of black children (compared to 37% of white children) have been on food stamps at some point during their childhood. Other study findings include: (1) nearly one-quarter of all American children will be in households that use food stamps for five or more years during childhood. (2) 91% of children with single parents will be in a household receiving food stamps, compared to 37% of children in married households; and (3) looking at race, marital status and education, black children whose head of household is unmarried and with less than 12 years of education have a cumulative percentage of residing in a food stamp household of 97% by age 10.

Black In Brazil

I know what you're thinking, but I'm reporting the news as how Brazilians view it: the Brazilian census board says that non-whites will outnumber the white population this year (hat tip: BlackElectorate.com). This means there are more people of African descent in Brazil than in any country outside of Africa itself, making Brazil second only to Nigeria in terms of its black population. However, only about 6% of African-Brazilians consider themselves to be fully-black. The overwhelming majority classify themselves as mixed-race. Many Brazilian universities have adopted affirmative action policies or quotas to try to boost the number of black and mixed-race students in higher education. This move has divided opinion in the country and provoked lengthy legal and political battles.

South Koreans Struggle With Race

Hat tip to reader Nanakwame for this one. South Korea, a country where until recently people were taught to take pride in their nation’s “ethnic homogeneity”, is struggling to embrace a new reality. In the past seven years, the number of foreign residents has doubled, to 1.2 million, even as the country’s population of 48.7 million is expected to drop sharply in coming decades because of its low birth rate. An influx of foreigners into a society, where 42% of respondents in a 2008 survey said they had never once spoken with a foreigner, has South Koreans learning to adjust — often uncomfortably.

Many foreigners come to toil at sea or on farms or in factories, providing cheap labor in jobs shunned by many South Koreans. Southeast Asian women marry rural farmers who cannot find South Korean brides. People from English-speaking countries find jobs teaching English in a society obsessed with learning the language from native speakers. Amnesty International criticizes discrimination in South Korea against migrant workers, who mostly are from poor Asian countries, citing sexual abuse, racial slurs, inadequate safety training and the mandatory disclosure of H.I.V. status, a requirement not imposed on South Koreans in the same jobs. The group claims that following last year’s financial downturn, “incidents of xenophobia are on the rise” in the country. In South Korea, a country repeatedly invaded and subjugated by its bigger neighbors, observers say that people’s racial outlooks have been colored by “pure-blood” nationalism as well as traditional patriarchal mores.