I'm an African American. Ask me anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

ManHere wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think, generally speaking, more AAs have bad credit reports than whites? It seems that AAs tend to not value their credit ratings as high as white?

Do you have any statistics on that or are you just freestyling?

Yes, the federal reserve published a report on this. Let me find it and post the link.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/rptcongress/creditscore/creditscore.pdf

I believe this is the report. If you go to table 27 on page 186, it summarizes the findings Of the differences in credit scores based on demographics.

Pg 186 has table 12 and does not include anything about race. Can you give the correct page number? I'm interested in reading the findings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw a program that said AA GIs weren't allowed to purchase homes when they got back from the war. They were forced to rent and over time, white veterans were able to build equity in the homes they purchased with GI Bill money. They used this to send their kids to college and because they had college degrees, they were able to get good jobs. AAs weren't able to save as much and so maybe their kids didn't go to college and got lower paying jobs. So maybe that is part of it. And maybe because if you are conditioned to have little hope in things being fair, you just don't care about the future and live for the here and now.

Absolutely this is true for many AAs. This cycle is slowly being broken (I'm proof of that), but this is very real. It's very hard to break the cycle of poverty and inertia in 50 years when you faced oppression for the previous 300+ years. The days of government sanctioned oppression were not that long ago; many of these people are still alive today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

ManHere wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think, generally speaking, more AAs have bad credit reports than whites? It seems that AAs tend to not value their credit ratings as high as white?

Do you have any statistics on that or are you just freestyling?

Yes, the federal reserve published a report on this. Let me find it and post the link.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/rptcongress/creditscore/creditscore.pdf

I believe this is the report. If you go to table 27 on page 186, it summarizes the findings Of the differences in credit scores based on demographics.

Pg 186 has table 12 and does not include anything about race. Can you give the correct page number? I'm interested in reading the findings.

Keep scrolling down until you get to table 27. It's page 186 of the actual document, Not the page number that appears on your computer as you're scrolling (I think that would be different for different computers so that number that appears on my computer may be different than yours and wouldn't be helpful.).

Also, for a quick bar chart, go tp page number O-25 (toward the beginning). It breaks down some stats based on Age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital status, etc.

[ManHere]

Thanks for posting the stats PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

ManHere wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think, generally speaking, more AAs have bad credit reports than whites? It seems that AAs tend to not value their credit ratings as high as white?

Do you have any statistics on that or are you just freestyling?

Yes, the federal reserve published a report on this. Let me find it and post the link.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/rptcongress/creditscore/creditscore.pdf

I believe this is the report. If you go to table 27 on page 186, it summarizes the findings Of the differences in credit scores based on demographics.

I am by no means a statistician, but I do not trust these reports that break down statistics by race unless they control for income. The rate of poverty among black people in this country is nearly triple what it is for whites. When you look at this table about credit scores, it shows that blacks tend to have the lowest credit scores among the races, but it also shows that low income people tend to have the lowest credit scores among the races. So it's likely that a lot of the reason that blacks tend to have lower test scores is because that blacks tend to be poorer than other races.

[Anonymous]

You are arguing a different point than the PP. PP just asked why (and provided statistics) it is that blacks have lower credit scores. Then she/he offered their opinion of why that is, and asked for additional reasons.

Being poor does not necessarily mean that you will have a low credit score. There are a lot of wealthy people of all races with horrible credit scores. It's about managing your money and being responsible. Of course, there are other factors that can cause a bad credit score like medical emergencies and unexpected unemployment, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Talk to me about shaving leg hair and underarm hair -- do AA women do/not do this? What do AA men think about that?

Yes we shave our legs and underarm hair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are arguing a different point than the PP. PP just asked why (and provided statistics) it is that blacks have lower credit scores. Then she/he offered their opinion of why that is, and asked for additional reasons.

Being poor does not necessarily mean that you will have a low credit score. There are a lot of wealthy people of all races with horrible credit scores. It's about managing your money and being responsible. Of course, there are other factors that can cause a bad credit score like medical emergencies and unexpected unemployment, etc.

Maybe it wasn't clear, but my point was that blacks have lower credit scores in part because as a race, we are poorer and poorer people of any race tend to have lower credit scores. So if it's about managing your money and being responsible, that is a skill that lower income people tend to have in lower numbers across the races, not just among blacks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Talk to me about shaving leg hair and underarm hair -- do AA women do/not do this? What do AA men think about that?

Yes we shave our legs and underarm hair.

I had a principal in high school who was an AA woman and did not shave her legs. (Don't know about the armpits, but you could see her legs.) I would guess this is strictly personal and has nothing to do with race, because I know plenty of white women (and I am white) who won't shave their legs all winter because they're lazy and "nobody sees them anyway."

[Anonymous]

I think maintaining good credit is more about education than anything else. I don't believe any race has the market cornered on good credit. There are many many white people who have shitty credit, and not only the lower income bracket. America is a showy, "live for the moment" culture. Many people live beyond their means, buy things they THINK they can afford and keep racking up credit card debt.

Many parents don't teach children how to manage money, it's a vicious cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are arguing a different point than the PP. PP just asked why (and provided statistics) it is that blacks have lower credit scores. Then she/he offered their opinion of why that is, and asked for additional reasons.

Being poor does not necessarily mean that you will have a low credit score. There are a lot of wealthy people of all races with horrible credit scores. It's about managing your money and being responsible. Of course, there are other factors that can cause a bad credit score like medical emergencies and unexpected unemployment, etc.

Maybe it wasn't clear, but my point was that blacks have lower credit scores in part because as a race, we are poorer and poorer people of any race tend to have lower credit scores. So if it's about managing your money and being responsible, that is a skill that lower income people tend to have in lower numbers across the races, not just among blacks.

New poster but there is a lack of credit maintenance education in communities that tend to have lower incomes.

[Anonymous]

It is. I shave my armpits and I would shave my legs if I had enough hair down their to shave. You have to have your nose touching my shins to be able to see them, so why bother?

My mother, on the other hand walks around with bush armpits, no matter how much shit I give her for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do black babies fare the best in the NICU?

Full disclosure: white woman answering.

From researching pregnancy related issues while pregnant, I believe the reason for this is that 'average' gestational age varies by ethnicity (shorter for those of African descent, longer for those of Caucasian descent), so that impacts how close to ready for birth a baby is at 36 weeks. Though the research is still trying to figure out these variations.

Related studies:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15282448?dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1425069/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

ManHere wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do black people hate dogs so much?

OP here. Where did you hear that?

I'm from the South... all black people I knew growing up HATED dogs! Terrified of them, even little harmless looking ones like old ass cocker spaniels.

Hmm, do you really have to ask?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw a bit on 60 minutes a while ago where they had a panel of AAs and they were talking about being teased in school if they did well as "acting white".

Is that true or have you experienced that?

This is overplayed. People don't say that much anymore. Plus, not really sure why only blacks are accused of harassing smart people. There are MANY white kids that are teased for being nerds.

I was smart in school and was never teased. The kids that were teased were geeks (and they weren't always smart). I would wager that folks who were accused of "acting white" were Carlton (from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air) type black kids. In these instances white=yuppy, preppy, bourgeois, etc.

It must depend on the area, because I don't think it's overplayed. I was in high school within the past decade and was teased terribly for talking and acting white (and acting white was getting good grades). It only came from the lower-income black kids, so although I hated them then, I'm forgiving and understanding of why they acted that way now.

I was raised in the projects of SE, DC. I was also very smart. Went to DCPS. Never saw anyone teased for being smart (not many people were going around asking what grades everyone got). The kids I saw being teased were the dorks (sometimes they also were smart, but not always). There are plenty of cool smart kids who don't get teased. If you were/are smart and you got teased, it probably has more to do with you also being a dork and/or socially awkward.

Also, the acting white thing is usually just synonymous with acting preppy, superior and/or bourgeois. The "acting white" insult has more to do with being lame and/or uncool than it did to being smart.

I agree. As an honor roll student, I was not teased. I also was and also continue to be down to earth and gregarious.