Nationwide, women make up 47.2 percent of all medical school students in the United States. But for African Americans, the gender gap is significantly in favor of women. According to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, in 2011 there were 3,472 Black women enrolled in U.S. medical schools. That year, there were 2,109 Black men in medical schools. So women made up 62.2 percent of Black enrollments in U.S. medical schools.
The gender gap in African American medical school enrollments has remained relatively constant over the past decade. In 2002, women were 63.3 percent of African American medical school enrollments.
Getting Black males into medical school starts in pre-K. By the time a young man is in the 8th grade if he’s only reading at a 5th grade level, and thinks being ‘smart’ is acting ‘white’, he not only will not become a Ben Carson, he will not be prepared for a career in any profession. We need to raise the collective behavioral and academic bars for our young people.
To get a glimpse of the jungles that our cities are headed to becoming, I commend Octavia E. Butler’s dystopic novel, _The Parable of the Sower_; written in 1993, it projects ahead to 2025 — a little over a decade from now. Prayer meetings and bible studies are not the curative that can turn the trajectory of urban Black life around. Limits, boundaries, standards, and expectations of accountability might help, though, along with a generous, no-nonsense, consistent application of the word, ‘no.’
I am a teacher, and you are right.
I agree…preparation is key! Parents and students must realize that college preparation is a process that begins long before high school. Our students must be exposed to the STEM topics when they’re very small (and open-minded). Many of our students have been distracted by stereotypes of what “smart” means – and they are simply not prepared academically by the time they reach high school.