BlacKosity Magazine

The estimated time when whites will no longer make up the majority of Americans has been pushed back eight years — to 2050 — because the recession and stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners into the U.S.

Census Bureau figures released Wednesday update last year’s prediction that white children would become a minority in 2023 and the overall white population would follow in 2042. The earlier estimate did not take into account a drop in the number of people moving into the U.S. because of the economic crisis and the immigration policies imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The 2050 estimate is one of four projections released that is based on rates for births and deaths and a scenario in which immigration continues its more recent, slower pace of adding nearly 1 million new foreigners each year. Demographers said that scenario offers the best look for now at the future demographic makeup based on current conditions, rather than other models which assume higher rates of immigration.

The United States has 308 million people today; two-thirds are non-Hispanic whites.

The total population should climb to 399 million by 2050, under the new projection, with whites making up 49.9 percent of the population. Blacks will make up 12.2 percent, virtually unchanged from today. Hispanics, currently 15 percent of the population, will rise to 28 percent in 2050.

Asians are expected to increase from 4.4 percent of the population to 6 percent.

The point when minority children become the majority is expected to have a similar delay of roughly eight years, moving from 2023 to 2031.

The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 18.6 million.

The actual shift in demographics will be influenced by a host of factors that can’t be accurately forecast — the pace of the economic recovery, cultural changes, natural or manmade disasters, as well as an overhaul of immigration law, which may be debated in Congress as early as next year.

As a result, the Census Bureau said the projections should be used mostly as a guide.

The agency also released numbers showing projections based on “high” rates of immigration — more likely if more-flexible government policies and a booming U.S. economy attract large numbers of foreigners — as well as “low” immigration, a possible scenario if U.S. policies don’t change much while the economy substantially improves.

_With high immigration, the minority “tipping point” is moved up to 2040, two years earlier than the previous estimate. At that time, Asians would have a much larger share, at 8 percent, since their population growth is more dependent on immigration than birth rates.

_With low immigration, the “tipping point” arrives by 2045.

Under a purely theoretical “zero immigration” scenario in which the U.S. effectively does not take in any immigrants, whites would remain the majority in 2050, making up a solid 58 percent of the U.S. population. In such a case, the share of Hispanics would increase to 21 percent because of high fertility rates and a younger population.

Under a “zero immigration” model, the 65 and older population also grows substantially faster, comprising nearly 1 in 4 Americans.

“These projections show that immigration will serve to replenish our labor force as baby boomers age into retirement and make our population younger without overburdening our schools and other community resources,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution.

(Bomb suspect came from elite family, best schools)

As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the eliteBritish International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.

But the education he wanted was of a different sort: Nigerian officials say his interest in extremist Islam prompted his father to warn U.S. authorities. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he told U.S. officials that he had sought an extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

A portrait emerged Sunday of a serious young man who led a privileged life as the son of a prominent banker, but became estranged from his family as an adult. Devoutly religious, he was nicknamed “The Pope” for his saintly aura and gave few clues in his youth that he would turn radical, friends and family said.

“In all the time I taught him we never had cross words,” said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo. “Somewhere along the line he must have met some sort of fanatics, and they must have turned his mind.”

Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Northwest flight on Christmas Day with 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board. The detonator on his explosive apparently malfunctioned and he was subdued by other passengers.

Through an official, Abdulmutallab’s father “expressed deep shock and regret over his son’s actions.”

His family home sits in the city of Funtua, in the heart of Nigeria’s Islamic culture. Religion figured into the family’s life: His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, who had a successful career in commercial banking, also joined the board of an Islamic bank — one that avoids the kind of interest payments banned by the Quran.

The large house, surrounded by a wall and a metal fence just off the main road running through the city, stood empty, a common occurrence for a jet-set family that sought an education abroad for Abdulmutallab. Family members told The Associated Press they could not comment but expected the family to issue a statement.

Mutallab was working with the FBI and not expected to grant media interviews, Information Minister Dora Akunyili said.

The elder Mutallab was “a responsible and respected Nigerian, with a true Nigerian spirit,” she said. He had been estranged from his son for several months and alerted U.S. officials last month about the youth’s growing hard-line Islamic religious beliefs.

A close neighbor told the AP he believed Abdulmutallab did not get his extremist ideas from his family or from within Nigeria.

Basiru Sani Hamza, 35, said Abdulmutallab was a “very religious” and a “very obedient” to his parents as a boy in the well-to-do banking family.

“I believe he must have been lured where he is schooling to carry out this attack,” Hamza said. “Really, the boy has betrayed his father because he has been taking care of all their needs.”

Rimmer, a teacher at his high school in West Africa, said Abdulmutallab had been well-respected.

“At one stage, his nickname was ‘The Pope,’” Rimmer said from London in a telephone interview. “In one way it’s totally unsuitable because he’s Muslim, but he did have this saintly aura.”

But Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, Rimmer said.

In a discussion in 2001, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Rimmer said. At the time, Rimmer thought the boy was just playing the devil’s advocate.

He also noted that during a school trip to London, Abdulmutallab became upset when the teacher took students to a pub and said it wasn’t right to be in a place where alcohol was served.

Rimmer also remembered the youngster choosing to give 50 pounds to an orphanage rather than spend it on souvenirs in London.

Rimmer described the institution — an elite college preparatory school, attended by children of diplomats and wealthy Africans — as “lovely, lovely environment” where Christians often joined in Islamic feasts and where some of the best Christmas carolers were Muslims.

Abdulmutallab showed no signs of intolerance toward other students, Rimmer said, explaining that “lots of his mates were Christians.”

The Briton noted that he has not seen or heard from his former pupil since 2003 when he was still a teenager.

Abdulmutallab went on to study engineering and business finance at the University College London, where he graduated last year, the college confirmed.

Students at his prestigious university in London, where Abdulmutallab lived in a smart white stone apartment block in an exclusive area of central London, said Abdulmutallab showed no signs of radicalization and painted him as a lax student with deep religious views.

“We worked on projects together,” Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering studentat University College, told The Independent newspaper. “He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes. When we were studying, he always would go off to pray.

“He was pretty quiet and didn’t socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. I didn’t get to talk to him much on a personal level. I was really shocked when I saw the reports. You would never imagine him pulling off something like this.”

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer

(Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is shown in this booking photograph released by the U.S. Marshals Service December 28, 2009. Abdulmutallab, 23, who was traveling with a valid U.S. visa although he was on a broad U.S. list of possible security threats, was overpowered by passengers and crew on the Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25 after setting alight an explosive device attached to his body. He was treated for burns and is in federal prison awaiting trial in the incident.)

President Barack Obama has ordered the federal government to acquire an underused state prison in rural Illinois to be the new home for a limited number of terror suspects now held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The federal government will acquire Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., transforming the prison in a sleepy town near the Mississippi River into a prison that meets “supermax standards,” according to a letter to Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair.

Those departments “will work closely with state and local law enforcement authorities to identify and mitigate any risks” at the prison, the letter said.

The decision is an important step toward closing Guantanamo Bay. Thomson, about 150 miles from Chicago, is expected to house bothfederal inmates and no more than 100 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

Administration officials as well as Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn were appearing at the White House later Tuesday for the announcement.

Republicans were quick to criticize the administration’s plan.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the American people “already have rejected bringing terrorists to U.S. soil.” He accused the administration of failing to explain how transferring the detainees would keep the public safer than keeping them offshore inCuba.

The facility in Thomson had emerged as a clear front-runner after Illinois officials, led by Durbin, enthusiastically embraced the idea of turning a near-dormant prison over to federal officials.

Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., said he had “full confidence that the facility will hold these terrorism suspects safely and securely.” In a statement, Burris said that with Illinois struggling with 11 percent unemployment, the transfer will be “a great economic benefit to the state by creating over 3,000 well-paying jobs and bringing in valuable federal dollars to fund local facility operations.”

The Thomson Correctional Center was one of several potential sites evaluated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to potentially house detainees from the Navy-run prison at Guantanamo Bay. Officials with other prisons, including Marion, Ill., Hardin, Mont., and Florence, Colo., had said they would welcome the jobs that would be created with the new inmates.

Closing Guantanamo is a top priority for Obama, and he signed an executive order hours into his presidency directing that the process of closing the prison begin. Obama has said he wants terrorism suspects transferred to American soil so they can be tried for their suspected crimes.

The Thomson Correctional Center was built by Illinois in 2001 as a state prison with the potential to housemaximum security inmates. Local officials hoped it would improve the local economy, providing jobs to a hard-hit community. State budget problems, however, have kept the 1,600-cell prison from ever fully opening. At present, it houses about 200 minimum-security inmates.

Some Illinois officials have not supported the idea. GOP Rep. Mark Kirk, who is seeking Obama’s old Senate seat, said he believes moving Guantanamo detainees to Illinois will make the state a greater threat for terrorist attacks. Kirk has lobbied other officials to contact the White House in opposition to using the facility.

To be sure, Thomson will not solve all the administration’s Guantanamo-related problems. There still will be dozens of detainees who are not relocated to Thomson, other legal issues and potential resistance from Congress.

Thomson is a symbolic step, however, a clear sign that the United States is working to find a new place to hold detainees from Guantanamo.

(Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul (R), British citizens who were detained at the U.S. Guantanamo naval base as terror suspects, answer questions at a news conference to promote the film “The Road to Guantanamo” in Tokyo January 11, 2007.)

In 1994 The Notorious B.I.G had a song called “Suicidal Thoughts” on his Ready to Die album. What may have been a big shocker to most of us, was the soundtrack to the lives of many young people. He talked about all his problems in the song and the end result was him pulling the trigger of a gun and killing himself while Diddy frantically pleaded with him.

At the time the trend of suicide amongst young people was at it’s lowest ever but in the past five years suicide related deaths by young men and women have risen in double digit percentages. There are thousands of theories on why it happens but we need to build more ways to prevent it. Young people are under more pressure than ever now days  and some feel so isolated and lonely that suicide seems to be the only way out.

Plenty of politicians and lawmakers talk at this problem, but no government funded program can fully end this epidemic. You know when one of your friends/ family members is not acting like them selves and it is your obligation to reach out and be there. A simple hug or telling someone how much you care can save a life. Neglect seems to be at the root of the reasoning why most people commit these acts so check your personal inner circle and do what you have to.

This is very personal for me because one of my close friends Sean Hocutt of The United States Navy committed suicide Tuesday November 10th. We really don’t have a solid reason on why he did it but loneliness and neglect were at the root of the problem. I had to learn the hard way that these signs are real and it is our duty to prevent the worst case scenario to the best of our ability. We can’t stop someone from doing what they want to do but we do have the power to prevent it.

Don’t let someone close to you be next, check your inner circle.

Sean Hocutt

Unfortunately we are living in a society where violence in many communities is not only normal it is not even shocking to see. Violence didn’t start yesterday and probably will never totally leave our society but today it is completely senseless and extremely too common. In the past few weeks we have reported so many murders of young people by young people it makes you stop and think, is this normal. The way the kids in Chicago stood and watched as the young honor student, Derrion Albert, was fatally beaten  seemed to be normal to them. There are hundreds of similar stories all across the nation.

This begs the question, are we raising a nation of thugbots? Is this a generation  of young men and women bred to be violent murderers and savages. These are our children, brothers, sisters, and friends and we sit and watch as they kill other brothers and sisters for meaningless reasons.

What is a Thugbot? A thugbot, like a robot, is programed to live a life of ignorance and mischief. We need to reprogram our youth and get rid of these thugbots because I’m tired of hearing and seeing young brothas get killed in the streets for nothing. Let’s start going into the communities and talking to the youth on a serious level about choices and the seriousness of these bad decisions. Take your children and communities back because the negative forces are winning and they have been for a long time. How are we, as a people, going to progress in the world if we can’t even progress in our communities?

Stop the shooting, stop the violence, stop the ignorance, stop the mis-education, stop the Thugbots! Even if you can change one life that’s great for the movement.

It’s been nearly 40 years since Pride, the best-selling African-American performer in country music, won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist of the year in 1971-72, a feat not since repeated by a black artist. Rucker, who also has a chance to be the first black to win for new artist, will perform during Wednesday’s live broadcast on ABC.

There are only two black performers in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum — Pride and DeFord Bailey, who was a member of the early Grand Ole Opry cast.

Some black singers like Lionel Richie, Solomon Burke, Esther Phillips andAl Green had fleeting success in country music on their way to other destinations, Country Hall of Fame historian Jay Orr said. And relatively recently, performers such as Stoney Edwards, Big Al Downing, Cleve Francis, Rissi Palmer and Cowboy Troy have registered on the country charts.

Darius Rucker was just a young boy with a love for “Hee Haw” and FM radio when he made a discovery — and a decision — that would shape the rest of his life.

“When I was 4, I just kind of found these Beatles 45s,” Rucker said. “I think I just said to myself, ‘I’m never going to let anybody tell me what I can listen to.’ And I never did. When I was sitting there watching ‘Hee Haw,’ my brother didn’t want to watch it. He was older than me but there was going to be a friggin’ fight if they didn’t let me watch ‘Hee Haw.’”

That mindset has led the singer best known as the frontman of Hootie and the Blowfish to a career renaissance in country music marked by the kind of success no one could have predicted and few other black performers have experienced.

Rucker one two Country Music Association Awards and is joining Charley Pride as the only African-Americans to win best male vocalist . And he has sold more than 1 million copies of his debut country CD, “Learn to Live.”