"... Something tells me you didn't make it all the way to the summary ..."   Oh, I did indeed read it all the way through.  As for the summary, being as how this paper was published in the _Journal of African American Studies_, the authors were pretty much obliged to conclude, "Oh!  Oh!  Woe is Us!", if they wanted to see print.  :-/

Their counter-examples of prevailing excuses for black Americans IMV tended to be highly statistical, even epidemiologic.  It was interesting to me how often they frankly conceded that the opposite side of the argument indeed had a valid point, and how often they had to counter with a "... yeah, but ..."

The most interesting thing to me was how many examples of prominent (and some not so prominent) black Americans were telling their own fellow-community members that the time for 'making excuses' for personal failure had past with Mr. Obama's election.  I think it a real pity that attitude didn't stick, instead of the Big Victim meme we have instead.  :(