Cordell Riley: Recent study on young black males should have involved more students
By Sam Strangeways –and Amanda Dale
A former Government statistician told a public meeting that part of a recent study on young black males should have been based on a bigger sample group.
Cordell Riley said at the Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) forum on Thursday evening that the qualitative part of the study by Columbia University Professor Ronald Mincy and his team came from just 18 students at one school.
"That in my view represents a problem," he said. "I would have gone to all of the senior schools. If you've only got one school, you've only got one side of the information. We're making these assumptions based on that narrow view."
The $400,000 Mincy report — titled On the Wall or on the Margins? — revealed that more than 50 percent of young black males leave the public school system before completing the full four years.
It also found that black Bermudian men have higher unemployment rates, lower earnings and lower employment rates in high-paying industries than white Bermudian males.
Mr. Riley, managing director of Profiles of Bermuda, a human resource and market research company, gave a presentation highlighting the main points of the 200-page report to about 35 people.
He said the study indicated that black male income was $5,600 less than white males: $27,200 versus $21,600. Mr. Riley stressed that the figure was important because, in statistical terms, it represented the variation in income.
He told The Royal Gazette afterwards: "The natural question is what is causing this variation?" He said the study showed that race or discrimination accounted for 29 percent of the difference in income, a significant figure which he felt was played down when Professor Mincy initially released the results.
A question and answer period followed his presentation and several participants suggested the Mincy study was flawed because the sample group was too small to provide a true picture.
Mr. Riley, chairman of CURB's advocacy working group, told this newspaper that the quantitative part of the study was sound in that it was based on Census data, the most complete data set there is in Bermuda.
But he said if he had been conducting the qualitative part of the study he would have gone to both public senior schools and at least two private schools.
Frances Eddy, CURB's education working group chairwoman, said afterwards she was pleased with the turnout of the meeting and the level of participation in the discussion.
"We wanted to give CURB members an opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings on the results of the study and to discuss the implications," she said.
"A number of persons present felt that the sample used for the study was two small and from only one school on the Island so may not be representative of the population and perhaps not comprehensive enough.
"Others accepted that though it may be limited in its scope it has provided some useful information. It gives validity to what was previously speculative and removed some perceptions."
• CURB is a non-government volunteer organisation set up in 2005 to identify and dismantle racism and address its effects in the community. Visit www.curb.bm for more information
