California and Diversity

March 30, 2001 Here's some recent stories about the 2000 US census:

Asian-Americans post biggest gains - San Jose Mercury News (Mar 30, 2001), with most dramatic racial mix, California is America's melting pot - San Jose Mercury News (Mar 30, 2001), Hispanics Now Make Up Third Of Californians - San Francisco Chronicle (Mar 30, 2001), Hispanics Reap Greater Clout, But Where Will They Use It? - Chicago Tribune (Mar 26, 2001), Census Highlights California's Diversity - NPR (Mar 30, 2001).

And here's one that just came out today: California Census Confirms Whites Are in Minority By TODD S. PURDUM, The New York Times.

New census figures show that Hispanic residents now account for nearly one-third of California's population.

LOS ANGELES, March 29 For the first time in the modern era, non- Hispanic whites are officially a minority in California, amounting to a little less than half the population of the most populous state, compared with nearly three-quarters only a decade ago, according to census figures released today.

Hispanic residents now make up nearly one-third of the state's population.

The change was long expected, the result of high Hispanic birth rates and decades of immigration, but combined with a 43 percent increase in the state's Asian population, it confirmed California's status as the nation's most diverse big state and was viewed as a harbinger of changes in other populous states like Florida, New York and Texas.

California easily remained the most populous state, home to nearly one in 8 Americans...Over all, California gained slightly less than three million people, for a total of 33.9 million...More than 43 percent of Californians younger than 18 are now Hispanic, compared with about 35 percent a decade ago, the figures show...The state's black population declined by 3 percent, to 2.3 million when some of the residents who listed themselves as mixed-race are counted as black, while the black population of the most populous county, Los Angeles, declined by 12 percent, to 920,899.

The state's white population declined, too, by about 8 percent over the decade. Because that figure was so high, blacks maintained almost the same percentage of the population, roughly 7 percent, as in 1990.

Statistically speaking, it looks like if racism is alive and well in California, the white-male isn't the only racist. Less than 25% percent of California's population is now white-male and virtually all of them have no more power than the average non-white-male. Power is money and money is cocentrated in a very few number of hands. Contrary to stereotypes...just because you're a white-male does not mean you have money. The very rich in California now includes all races and sexes. Moreover, the trend is, that as time goes on there will be even less and less white-males in California. Some time in the future, the white-male population in California could be insignificant, wouldn't that be interesting, no white-males to blame anymore. Maybe then we'll get it right, it's the rich stupid.

The Rich, The Poor, and the Middle-Class

March 9, 2001

Corporate profits rose 328% from 1970 to 1997 (corporate profits after tax of $140 billion in 1970 to $460 billion in 1997). However, average hourly wages in constant 1982 dollars increased 0%, yes, zero percent ($8 per hour in 1970 and in 1997 it was still $8 per hour).

When the work force is broken up into quintiles or five parts based on average household incomes: those in the top quintile or those with the highest average household incomes saw their incomes from 1967 to 1999 increase 64.4%. In the next highest income quintile the increase was 39.8% and those with the lowest incomes saw increases of 33.2%. However, the middle-class those in the third and forth quintile only saw increases of 25.8% and 20.1% respectively. The hard working middle-class gets the shaft again.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau Data

Women and Driving

July 12, 2000

Since 1975 women automobile fatalities have increase 66% while men's have increased by 10%. I never have fiqured out why women want the same job stresses and responsibilities that men have had for centuries. Meaning, I would rather be responsible for the home and what's in it than be primarily responsible for bringing home the bacon. Most jobs performed by Americans are: boring, you don't get credit for doing a good job, most likely you will get stuck with a boss who sucks, it's hard to make improvements without it turning into a federal case, and bringing home the bacon lasts a long time (you need money before the kids, when the kids are around, and after the kids are gone).

Again, only speaking for myself, I would rather be responsible for the home and what's in it: I'm in control, I have flexibility with my hours, I don't have to put up with no where near as many assholes, and my free time will increase as the children get older and older (whereas when it comes to money, as the children get older and older, more and more money is needed).

The Rich and the Poor

June 26, 2000

According to Ralph Nader (choice of the Green Party): America is in 37th place in health care; Bill Gates' net worth is equal to the lowest 120 million American's net worth; the top 200 wage earners make as much as the lowest 3 1/2 billion people in the world; in 1980 the average CEO was paid 40 times the wage of an entry level employee, today it's 400 times the wage of an entry level employee; and 20% of the children in America live in poverty.

May 7, 2000

Women and School

"Consider that today [1994] 55 percent of college students are female. In 1971, women received 43 percent of the bachelor's begrees, 40 percent of the master's degrees, and 14 percent of the doctorates. By 1989 the figures grew to 52 percent for B.A.'s, 52 percent for M.A.'s, and 36% for doctoral degrees. Women are still behind men in earning doctorates, but accourding to the U.S. Department of Education, the number of doctorates awarded to women has increased by 185 percent since 1971."

"On the National Assessment of Education Progress Tests (NAEP), administered to seventeen-year-olds in 1990, males outperformed females by three points in math and eleven points in science. The girls outperformed boys by thirteen points in reading and twenty-four points in writing."

"Girls outnumber boys in all extracurricular activities except sports and hobby clubs. Almost twice as many girls as boys participate in student government, band and orchestra, and drama or service clubs. More girls work on the school newspapers and yearbooks. More are members of honor and service societies. Boys far outnumber girls in sports, but that gap is narrowing each year. In 1972, only 4 percent of girls were in high school athletic programs. By 1987 the figure was up to 26 percent, more than a sixfold increase."

Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism,pg. 160, copyright 1994, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

More

"Among African-Americans, the female edge has grown large enough to be a cause for concern: almost twice as many black women as black men now receive college degrees."

Cathy Young, Ceasefire!, pg. 72, copyright 1999, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

More

"In the 1991 International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP), the Educational Testing Service found that on a scale of 100, thirteen-year-old American girls average 1 point below boys. And this slight gap is altogether negligible in comparison with the gap that separates American students from their foreign counterparts. Taiwanese and Korean girls are more than 16 points ahead of American boys on this same test."

Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism,pg. 162 and 163, copyright 1994, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

It looks like the problem here in the US is not with girl students vs. boy students, but with American students vs. foreign students. No wonder corportate America is already complaining about not having enough qualified workers. And each year it will get worse: more and more manufacturing type jobs will be transfered overseas, these manufacturing jobs are the jobs people could get with only a high school education (if that) and would still pay a decent wage, with less and less low education jobs available it will put even more pressure on people entering the job force for the first time to have a college degree; the exponential increase in technology, technology type jobs in themselves will require higher and higher education; demographic changes, older, more experienced individuals will be retiring and the country will need to replace them from a shrinking labor pool; poor fiscal management by the federal government, we won't have a fully funded Social Security trust fund which most likely will mean higher taxes and that won't be good for the economy in general.

Finally, Americans aren't even concerned enough right now to do anything about the problem except elect politicians who do no more than sit around all day talking about it (the problems). What this all means is if you have children regardless if they are boys or girls, the future does not look very promising.

Men and Healthcare

"In 1993, Congress appropriated $39 million for prostate cancer, which kills about 34,000 men annually, and over $400 million for breast cancer, which kills 42,000 women."

"And this wasn't just an attempt, spurred by rising female influence in politics, to correct past imbalances. Breast cancer activism did not become a political force until 1991; yet from 1981 to 1991, the National Cancer Institute had spent $658 million on breast cancer research and $113 million on prostate cancer. The Medline database has 17,951 English-language entries under "breast cancer" for 1966-1991, compared to 1,784 for prostate cancer."

Cathy Young, Ceasefire!, pg. 74, copyright 1999, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

"In the early 1990s, there was an outcry over a government report showing that women's health projects accounted for less than 14 percent of National Institutes of Health (NIH) spending in 1987. This figure was cited by congresswomen in the effort to pass legislation requiring more funds for women's medical needs and establishing a federal Office of Women's Health. What was rarely mentioned was that NIH funding for male-specific health projects accounted for just under 7 percent of its total expenditures; 80 percent of the money went to study diseases that afflict both sexes."

Cathy Young, Ceasefire!, pg. 76, copyright 1999, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Men

Men are four times as likely to kill themselves as women, men suffer ten times as many job-related fatalities as women, and men die seven years earlier than women.

"The most blatant example of legalized sex discrimination in our society--only men can be drafted and sent into combat--is usually discussed only in terms of opportunities denied to women in the military."

Cathy Young, Ceasefire!, pg. 221, copyright 1999, Simon & Schuster, Inc.