<p>Yes, but Detroit, as a city, is floundering. And IMO the proportion of black professionals is a LOT lower than the proportion of blacks wavering on the poverty line.</p>
<p>While there still are lots of disadvantaged blacks in Detroit, there are many black professionals. One could choose to hang out only with black professionals and have an extremely large circle of acquaintances, and those people would have a lot of power -- not just in terms of city government, but also at universities, corporations, courts, etc.</p>
<p>There are probably more black professionals in Detroit than there are in predominantly white cities like Boston or in a city like Miami, where blacks literally are at the bottom of the rung: There is a proportionately small group of black residents, and of that group, very few are professionals and very few have any kind of power.</p>
<p>"There are probably more black professionals in Detroit than there are in predominantly white cities like Boston or in a city like Miami, where blacks literally are at the bottom of the rung:"</p>
<p>Do you know that for a fact or are you just making yet another generalization?</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom. Many people look at Detroit from the outside and assume everyone there is below the poverty level. While I would never suggest Detroit is a thriving city as a whole, or that they have the best leadership, Detroit DOES have a very large black professional and middle class population. I know this for a fact because I have a lot of famil members there who live in northwest Detroit and their entire neighbood is fille with successful, professional blacks (and yes they DO live in the city!)</p>
<p>I have personally been there so I know. Many people just generalize because you never hear of that segment of Detroit's population on the news or in the media. I was pleasantly surprised myself when I first witnessed it. Like I said, Detroit is NOT a thriving city, but they do have many middle and upper class black professionals.</p>
<p>Here's info about the numbers of black professionals in 42 major cities. It's by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The top cities are:</p>
<p>New York: 205,300
Chicago: 151,000
D.C.: 136,300</p>
<p>Atlanta: 126,000
Los Angeles: 119,500
Philadelphia: 99,600
Detroit 80,500....(many cities are below this)</p>
<p>Miami 37, 300
Boston 16,800</p>
<p>While Detroit doesn't have the most black professionals, their impact may be stronger in Detroit because it is the blackest major city in the country: 82% black. The black professionals in Detroit have power. It's a place where being a black Greek or having gone to an HBCU will open major doors.</p>
<p>Link to the stats: <a href="http://www.nbbta.org/blkdata.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.nbbta.org/blkdata.htm</a></p>
<p>Well, there are like eight hundred thousand Black people in Detroit, compared to the one hundred thousand White; I guess there is bound to be some Black professionals in a city that it eighty percent Black </p>
<p>Dang kk... can anything be said about the achievements of black people without someone saying negative things about what has been done? Its so sad that no matter how often black people do positive things, they are almost always overriden with someone else's negativity. KK, aren't you black? If so, you are suffering from a serious case of "crabs in a barrel" syndrome. :-/</p>
<p>I think its OK for he/she to mention the fact that the data is not necessarily valid.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Have you been to Detroit? I lived there for 7 years and there is a very strong black middle and black upper class. university professors, In addition to doctors, lawyers, department heads in city government, and city government officials, there also are plenty of black judges, including black female judges - the first time that I had ever been around so many black women judges.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I've lived within 10 minutes of the true Detroit city limits. </p>
<p>
[quote]
there is a very strong black middle and black upper class
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, when 85% of the city is black, and no white person will dare venture through the area, some dentists and doctors are bound the be black!</p>
<p>
[quote]
university professors
[/quote]
Detroit Mercy? The school that had three seperate drive by incidents last year? The closest real school is MSU or UM, and the only Detroit natives here are the AA admits who invariably fail out after their first year. Doesn't say much for the Detroit school system, does it?</p>
<p>
[quote]
lawyers
[/quote]
Small-time criminal defense mostly. If you need a lawyer to play the race card against a crack cocaine violation, you can find him in Detroit, but the major firms have moved to the suburbs. That's where the legal staff of the big corprates that haven't moved out yet is drawn from, as well.</p>
<p>
[quote]
city government, and city government officials
[/quote]
A massively corrupt government that ran the city into the ground and stole millions of dollars. Read my above post, but on the other hand none of that was their fault - just ask them! It is caused by racism - racism by the suburbs, racism by the racists in Lansing, and racism by the racists in Washington D.C.!</p>
<p>So once again, trust me, you don't want to use Detroit as a model for racial empowerment. </p>
<p>I don't know when you were here, but things have gotten exponentially worse every year for the last two decades.</p>
<p>How does the idea that "there is bound to be some Black professionals in a city that it eighty percent Black" make the original statement invalid? The original statement was that there are a lot of black professionals in Detroit. NorthstarMom proved that... and then kk1 had to come back AGAIN and say something to deride the achievements of the black professionals there. Perhaps I am reading too far into it, but kk1's statement pretty much says that being a black professional in Detroit is no big deal/ not an indication of accomplishment simply because there are a lot of black people there. Kk1, if that isn't what you meant, can you clarify for me?</p>
<p>No, the original question is where he could find an area with good role models, lots of Black professionals etc - basically a good place to live.</p>
<p>His point refutes that because, the number of Black professionals (when compared to other cities of it's size) is high only because 85% of the population is black. If a city of the same size with a 20% black population has nearly the same number of black professionals, you can see that the proportion is much larger and fits the criteria the original poster asked about.</p>
<p>Detroit doesn't fit that bill at all. Poor schools, ungodly crime/murder rate, corrupt and racist government, abject poverty etc.</p>
<p>It isn't a place people live in because they want to.</p>
<p>"Where are these communities with several black professionals and well-established black adults? I'd love to raise my kids in that kind of environment (with many strong, successful blacks)."</p>
<p>The poster didn't ask for all that extra stuff. You can ASSUME that is what the poster meant, but if it wasn't written, you stand corrected. The question was about where there are "many strong, successful blacks." Detroit may not be the absolute best place to live, but based on that ONE criteria, its a good place to live.</p>
<p>Not really, if he was talking about absolute number than larger cities like LA or NY would be better.</p>
<p>If he was talking about proportion many, many cities would be better.</p>
<p>Either way, when someone is talking about where to raise their kids, I'll infer that they don't want to raise them in a xxxxhole every time!</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>The person didn't mention absolute number or proportion. I love how you can't just say NSM answered the question AS IT WAS POSED. If the poster wanted all those extra criteria met, they could have said so, or will say so in the future. Until then, the question has been answered. Your opinion on it doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Ok, NSM answered the question as it was posed in a decieving way. The next poster called her on it.</p>
<p>I am not deriding the accomplishments of my people, I only gave the stats to say that it is only logical that a city that is overwhelmingly black will have a percentage that is composed of professionals. Moreover, it is pretty well known that Detroit has serious governmental and social-structural problems that is faces, thus I would have to agree that it is a awful example of a place where one would want to raise his children.</p>
<p>Northstar,</p>
<p>Thanks for posting this info. Is there any way to break it down so it is easier to interpret? In other words, in a city like DC that is majority Black what percentage of black residents are middle classs? </p>
<p>Phila., I believe is almost 50% A.A. but again depending on the overall minority population of a specific city its hard to know which ones have a higher % of Black professionals. Boston has a much lower population in general than some of these citiies, and like many New England cities the AA population is lower than others. Yet it appears that there are proportionately more AAs there that are professonals/middle class. I would venture that may be true for Seattle and SF too---low overall Black polulation but a higher % of those in this category are professionals.</p>
<p>Is there any way to determine the number of middle class/professionals as a percentage of total AA population? Thay may give a better idea of which cities are more likley to have systems in place to better support college grads.</p>
<p>dogs,
Got to the link that I posted. It has a separate table showing the proportion of blacks in each city. Another table shows the numbers and breakdown of black professionals for each of the 42 cities.
<a href="http://www.nbbta.org/blkdata.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.nbbta.org/blkdata.htm</a></p>
<p>OK I'll check again. I must be dense. I was trying to figure percent of black professionals within the % of black residents and somehow I infereed that the site was still talking about black professional % of total population.</p>
<p>Also, I wonder if this applies to city vs. metropolitan area. There are many areas of Philadelphia where professionals reside while in other cities almost all professionals reside in the suburbs.</p>
<p>This thread has gone way off topic...</p>