"Missing" Black Men in America? Yes, and It's a Tragedy

Insult to injury: Black men are safer in prison than on the street.

Sometimes a report is released that defies imagination. The worst thing about the report in the New York Times this morning may be how unsurprising it is, despite how heart-wrenching it is.

They [black men] are missing, largely because of early deaths or because they are behind bars. Remarkably, black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis. For every 100 black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 black men. Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity.

African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is nonetheless jarring. It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict black men — disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings by the police — and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and husbands.

Perhaps the starkest description of the situation is this: More than one out of every six black men who today should be between 25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.

 A snapshot in time that shows that 17% of black men have been disappeared from the population compared to 1% of white men is jarring, scandalous.

Benghazi is a scandal? Complete bullshit. This is scandalous. Of course, because we're not racist here in America, we don't have to -- and mostly won't -- do anything about it.

One city among the worst in America for this "missing" effect? Feguson, MO, which now has at least one more missing, Michael Brown. It doesn't matter whether his hands were up before he was shot. What matters is he lived in a world where he was likely to be disappeared. And he was.

Policy note. If you think that Democrats are more likely to do something about this -- however slight the difference -- than Republicans are, then this is a reason to support the Democrats. Just saying.