Sociologist to Speak on Anti-Black Discrimination

Algernon Austin of the Economic Policy Institute's Program of Race, Ethnicity and the Economy will speak on "Anti-Black Discrimination in the Age of Obama" at 7 p.m. Monday, April 6, in Schroeder Hall room 242 at Illinois State University.  Admission is free.  Austin's appearance is sponsored by the Department of History.

Despite claims that anti-black racial discrimination is a thing of the past, evidence still shows that blacks face significant disadvantages in the labor market.  Austin will review research on contemporary discrimination to show will show why the claims of a "culture of failure" among the black poor are more stereotype than fact.

Austin is a sociologist of racial relations with a specialization on black Americans. Prior to joining the Economic Policy Institute, he was assistant director of research at the Foundation Center and a Senior Fellow at the Demos think tank.  From 2001 to 2005, he served on the faculty of Wesleyan University.

Austin has published numerous scholarly articles and is the author of "Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals Are Failing Black America" and "Achieving Blackness: Race, Black Nationalism, and Afrocentrism in the Twentieth Century."  He is a Ph.D. and master's degree graduate of Northwestern University. 

The Economic Policy Institute is a nonprofit Washington D.C. think tank created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy