Brown professor visits Pitt, speaks about racial disparities

Despite the Hollywood allure of some black actors and musicians, not much has changed for the black community since the Civil Rights Movement, according to Tricia Rose.

Black History Month “celebrates the Civil Rights Movement as a past movement … a total victory,” Rose said. “[But] outcomes are much more similar to the 1960s than they are different.”

As part of Pitt’s celebrations of Black History Month, Rose spoke to roughly 60 attendees in Alumni Hall on Monday about recognizing and combating racism. Her talk, titled “Fighting Racism in a Color-Blind Era,” draws on her expertise as an author of four books about aspects of black culture — such as female sexuality, music and youth — ­ and a professor of Africana studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University.

The National Society of Black Engineers and Premedical Organization for Medical Students sponsored the event.

Studies have shown that racial disparities still exist in the city and around the country. 

According to a 2015 study on demographics by Pitt’s School of Social Work, 33 percent of Pittsburgh’s black population live in poverty, while 24.2 percent of the national black population fall below the poverty line. The study also found that blacks make up 39 percent of the United States prison population, compared to 35 percent whites and 21 percent Hispanics. 

With the rise of social media, such disparities have come to a more visible stage. In particular, social media sites have the power to illuminate issues like police brutality, Rose said. 

Around the country, hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter, #IfTheyGunnedMeDown and #ICantBreathe, followed judicial decisions late last year on the recent deaths of black men. The two prominent police-related deaths spawning protest nationwide were of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last August and 43-year-old Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., last July.

“Youthful activism has reached a tremendous high point,” Rose said.

Social media can stimulate discussion about racism, Rose said, as mainstream media have a tendency to gloss over these issues. 

She said mainstream media tend to focus on the successes of black celebrities, such as musician Jay-Z and basketball player LeBron James, instead of addressing struggles affecting the black community, like poverty and racial disparities. 

Rose said that policies such as New York City’s “stop, question and frisk” policy, which began in 2002, has “harassed a whole generation,” prompting nods from many of the audience members. It’s a strategy that allows officers to stop and search individuals whom they suspect may be carrying weapons. 

Rose added that she often jokes with her students at Brown, a predominantly white demographic, about how crime can be overlooked because of privilege among certain groups of people. 

“Structural racism is not only about the past,” Rose said. “It has not gotten better. In some cases, it’s gotten worse.”

Rose cited  a study, released in 2005, from Princeton University’s Department of Sociology that found racial disparities in the job market. In the study, employers called back or offered jobs to 13 white subjects with criminal records and only 10 black subjects with no criminal records. 

Brandon Small, a junior majoring in microbiology and fiction writing, helped organize the event with POMS and NSBE and found this statistic deeply troubling.

“I try to stay out of trouble,” Small said. “[The statistic] makes me wonder why I’m trying to do good things.”