Monday, May 18, 2009

Genesee County's African-American Diaspora

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Genesee County population dropped to 428,790 in 2008 from 437,445 in 2006. That's not a big shock, but the racial disparity in the expatriates is unusual: "The county lost nearly 7 percent of its black community, but less than 1 percent of its white population between 2000 and 2008," reports Beata Mostafavi of The Flint Journal.



2 comments:

  1. I am betting she misread the statistics. J/K

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't think the stats are misread. The few jobs left in Flint go to white workers. There are very few employment opportunities for African-Americans - check out the unemployment numbers for the two groups. There are few more opportunities for African Americans else where in the country.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.