By: Laura Hazard Owen – Nieman Lab
In December, NewsOne, a news platform aimed at African-American audiences, published a story with the headline “Buying Black: The Lifespan of a Dollar in African-American Communities Is Six Hours.”
The story went on to cite Brooke Stephens, author of a book that argues that African Americans need to spend more money at local black businesses. “The lifespan of a dollar in the Asian community is 28 days, in the Jewish community the lifespan of a dollar is 19 days,” the article said.
But where did that factoid, which has been recycled over the years, even come from? Is it actually true?
Read the full story – A Howard Project is Debunking Myths About African-Americans and Teaching Students Fact-Checking
I assumed that developing critical thinking skills, verifying empirical data along with contextual language was an integral part of university level education. That said, Howard University what have you been doing up to this point, maintaining the DLCs status quo. For those who disagree, I would suggest that you read the article in Bloomberg Business titled "Why Doesn’t Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders?" to better understand my point about the beloved Howard University.
Yeah those facts are true. But all universities especially HBCUs should always do fact checking.