"Did The Black Community Vote Its Way Into Poverty Since 1964?"
This was the challenge that was put to me by TVD, one of my frequent debate adversaries a few days ago. I had been thinking about this question in the background tasking of my mind since that time. On the face of the question - it seems like an absurd suggestion upon my arguments. As I thought about the question I realized that I needed to recraft the question and make the case that this is INDEED what has happened over time.
First let me state as I have stated several times on this blog and elsewhere - instead of saying "poverty and wealth" the more accurate statement is "lack of wealth and wealth". I have repeated my high school physics lesson about "heat and the absence of heat" several times so I won't bother making the parallel again.
The bottom line of the matter is that this reasoning STANDS FIRM!! About a month ago I was pissed that my camera phone was so slow in booting up that I missed a perfect scene as I was on a daytime flight into Ft Lauderdale. After miles and miles of the UNMANAGED natural scenery of the Florida Everglades one levee served as the boundary between a relatively unmolested natural state and abundant civilization. To the north of this dividing line I saw trees, flood plains and flocks of birds all ordered as nature would have it. Beyond that one distinct dividing line I saw densely packed housing and retail districts. They were ordered in a precision square grid and some of the subdivisions had a circular pattern of housing. The symbolic point was so clear to me - natural order versus man-made order.
The same is true with regard to a SYSTEM OF WEALTH CREATION. The defacto system of man is basic subsistence. Absent the high order of "division of labor" and the access to certain advance technologies that empower us to do things - such as obtain a glass of water that is flowing "out of the walls in our house" for all that we have to worry about it - clearly the presence of these resources at our disposal enable us to do more "high order" activities, with the basics of life having been taken care of.
Now indeed - I am not on the verge of calling the people who dwell in impoverished communities throw backs to the 1890's frontier or in any way equate their lives to that of a person living in Honduras. There simply is no comparison. The gross majority of people living in America, regardless of their income have access to the same basic services that the standards of this nation afford them - clean tap water, electricity, cable television and ready access to a restroom - among other things. Indeed one's ability to pay for these things has a major impact on the ease of accessibility of these resources but compare this fate to that of either a person in a distant area like Darfur or even the richest person in the world circa 1890 - bottom line - they would not have ready access to much of the resources that even the poorest people in America likely have access to.
More to the point of the question in the title. I base my argument that YES - ultimately the Black community did indeed "vote to maintain the level of poverty that it now faces" as a result of our political and economic choices made over the past 40 years. It is interesting to me that if the same person challenging me on the point was given the notion "Did the Black community VOTE its way into receiving CIVIL RIGHTS and JUSTICE in America" this same person would have little difficulty in accepting this as being a truthful premise. He would point to the politicians that the community had supported en masse. He would point to the POLICIES that accompanied these same politicians. He would make note that as these politicians and their policies were POPULARLY ASSUMED to be "in the Best Interests of the Black community" thus they were ushered into office to "fight on our behalf" and thus they indeed brought us this day that we live under today. We have the ability to seek recourse in the court system for anyone who has violated our civil rights. We have a police force that now enforces the law rather than selectively doing so based on the color of both the victim and the assailant. Thus the link between voting and Civil Rights is a foregone conclusion in the mind of most people reading the opening question.
Now let us focus on economics. It comes as no surprise that during the Industrial Revolution which I will only focus on the post Civil War tail of the era - the Black citizen participated in this revolution as a worker and certainly not as a capitalist or owner. Quite honestly during this time we didn't even have union representation on our side because at this time we were barred from both the unions and the jobs that were represented by the unions. The famous Davis-Bacon Act that the Civil Rights Establishment now has affinity for - per New Orleans - was originally crafted AGAINST BLACKS - to protect union jobs in the North as Blacks migrated from the South and had agreed to work for lower pay than their White unionized counterparts. How quickly we adopt the exclusionary ways of our long time adversaries, fully justifying OUR OWN ACTIONS based on our new "inside position" - but this is another story all together. Blacks did not enjoy full union representation until the late 50's and through the 1960's. The union movement upon seeing the way the winds were blowing in the society decided that the Black vote is still a vote none the less. The leadership over came the recalcitrant sentiments among its rank and file and began to allow Blacks into their ranks. From the 1960's through the 1970's the political activism for Blacks largely aligned with the activism of the labor unions. Both factions wanted higher pay, better benefits, improved working conditions, and more job protection. Bottom line - where as originally the power to hire, fire and pay was exclusively in the hands of the employer - indeed the Labor Movement and some of the laws and related government policies shifted the balance of power more toward the middle - and thus labor - via collective bargaining flexed its power. I am willing to accept the notion that the American middle class was built upon many of the advances that were made as a result of the labor movement. Rather than "increasing the size of the pie" (ie: the market size) as some people mistakenly analyze the labor movement's effect - it actually increased the size of the SLICE that the American worker took home versus what was pocketed by the owners of the company. Thus the worker was benefited because he had more money in his pocket to spend on lifestyle expenditures.
In my analysis over the long run - just as the various demands from the labor movement brought forth the equilibrium between ownership and labor to its perfect balance - this same movement tipped the balance too far and ended up
"operating against their own long term interests". They, coupled with their political operatives as well. With respect to the steel industry, for example - the government price controls that were put upon the industry due to World War II - were left in place well into the 1950's. This regulation starved the industry of capital. At the same time Japan and Europe were just coming back on line after several decades of war related destruction of their infrastructure. Where as America grew powerful and rich at a time when we were the "last man standing" - never having our domestic infrastructure destroyed and with bulked up production capacity spilling over from the war - things rarely looked better for the American economy and the American worker. As the competition grew from Japan and Germany in particular the bloated American companies could not compete in the 1970's. We were losing out initially due to costs and then later on due to quality.
As the late 1960's and 1970's came about the pressures on these labor intensive corporations GREW. They were competing against other entities that were more productive and efficient and which had plants and equipment that were relatively newer. In my argument THIS IS WHEN THE AMERICA LABOR MOVEMENT WENT TOO FAR AND WORKED AGAINST THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS. Instead of making note of the competitive pressures that would later prove to be fatal for both labor and ownership - they chose to focus on current profits and or imbalances that were favorable to the owners. We still hear the same tactics today - "why are they asking us for job cuts when they received executive bonuses last year". I am not arguing that ownership didn't make some boneheaded mistakes along the way - I am only arguing that Labor's mistakes proved to be most damning to themselves.
Now let us map this industrial pressure against the CITIES that these things were taking place in - Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Camden, Newark, Baltimore etc. In the context of the Labor Movement battles with big corporations in many of the cities listed above there was the backdrop of racial power struggles going on. In Cleveland, for example, in 1968 the classic battle to have Carl Stokes promoted as the city's first Black mayor and first Black mayor of any large American city was taking place. Cleveland at the time was a labor dominated town. Even back then it was 80% Democrat as proof of it being a labor stronghold. Even as the Whites and Blacks debated about the race of their city - manufacturing activity in Cleveland and other Rust Belt Cities was on the wane.
So how did "Blacks vote against their economic interests?" you ask? Easy. At a time when LEADERSHIP of these various cities and states could have been more objective in analyzing the terminal condition of many of these manufacturing firms - BOTH local, regional and large national firms - they instead chose to largely turn the screws and fight to maintain jobs, high wage rates and in some cases a punitive regulatory and legalistic environment that only served to take down these capitalistic giants rather than assist them in weathering the storm. Indeed this would have called for a major restructuring of the pay scales and benefits BUT compare the pain of this versus the pain of having NO JOBS AT ALL.
I find it difficult to understand the logic and reasoning of those who can talk for days about how activists and the organized labor movement deserve a pat on the back for INCREASING PAY above the former paltry rates(as indeed they deserve) but the same people fail to see that they also deserve some of the BLAME for having the cost of doing business that was far too high to justify as these firms failed to be competitive and many either closed their doors for good or moved South to places where their cost structures were not as steep.
From the Black community's stand point is it a dual case of - first - going along with Labor's fight against the ownership and thus failing to see that in going too far they INDEED were working against their best long term interests. Anyone taking a tour of Camden NJ would be hard pressed to make the case that the city was worse off when the big Campbell Soup plant, Mars plant and several other firms that made the city were around.
The second major strategic flop was that the focus in the Black community was placed upon POLITICAL GAINS rather than ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE. About 2 years ago I heard US Representative John Conyers say on television that the key for any people to obtain ECONOMIC power was for them to first obtain POLITICAL POWER. Sadly the elderly Mr. Conyers who still presides over the same district for more than 20 years has yet to see how WRONG HE IS. (I know I know - I am not a fan of John Conyers. That's because many of you have not actually listened to or read some of his proposals). At a time when the Black community strategically could have focused INWARD, developing more of an economic and job creation base to employ our people - we instead took up the assumption that in supporting elections of Blacks and/or Democratic officials where we had majority vote - that THIS would translate into economic bountifulness for our communities - has been proven over time to be a fatally flawed assumption. Shame on you Mr. Bayard Ruskin. Maybe at the in reference to the struggles that you fought - a power base against "Da man" was a good idea. When we factor in the present day challenge where these central cities who are governed by people that are largely favorable to Black folks and are in need of a massive infusion of jobs and/or job creating entities - the gross miscalculation that your strategy represents couldn't be more clear.
The truth of the matter is that the popular movement that was present within Black America was more about opposition to a repressive system of economics and law (as well it should have been at that specific time) than it was about organic economic development. Once this machine stepped into power many of the promises that were made about the benefit from assuming power in elective offices were not met. The bottom line miscalculation that was made was to assume that once in power those adversarial forces, now being governed by the "right type of people" were going to sit back and submit to the new authority. Instead - where as the manufacturing companies as stated above had moved out of these cities the White residents began an exodus. Let me clarify - the White exodus both enabled Blacks to assume the balance of power and was further propelled by the increasing power, particular over school related issues that Blacks had assumed. In all honesty - the problem was not their exodus and the reasons - in many cases racist - for them departing. The key problem as it relates to how the Black community fared after their departure is that WE HAD PREVIOUSLY SPENT SO LITTLE TIME DEVELOPING an economic infrastructure that could produce the jobs and services that our people would ultimately need once we are relatively all alone.
So lets wrap this back around to the key question that was raised by the title of this blog entry. The loss of the JOBS that Black folks used to work - see Detroit - had the effect of eroding the Black middle class in these communities. It is plain and simple. Upon my visits home to Philadelphia and the recent visit of a debate adversary to Detroit - the point is clear - when the revenue stream was adversely impacted into the Black community the physical plant of the Black community, the presence of stable families, the the conditions of our schools and the various social ills began to atrophy as well. A vicious cycle was created.
We only need to make note that many Southern born Blacks had come North into these same cities because of the abundant job opportunities that were present in many of these cities to realize that the unraveling of these same labor consumers would mean disaster for these same towns.
Ultimately the investment of time is better spent on WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW TO INSURE THAT TOMORROW IS DIFFERENT rather than attempting to find specific blame to place about the past. At the same time while it is unproductive to find a PERSON to pin the blame upon I simply cannot yield my contention that indeed a certain IDEOLOGY was to blame and continues to be the problem as we move forward. Few things are more certain than the case that IF this ideology remains dominate our future outcomes will mirror that of our present.
These same large cities circa 2008 still have productive central business districts. In many cases decay is taking place in particular neighborhoods. The cycle of problems have driven out many of the key elements that make for a stable community and the associated community and economic wealth fabric to be crafted. The people in these same communities suffer from more "mental unemployment" being absent of a certain mission in life than they suffer job related unemployment which is often a secondary indicator of the first condition.
Change will come from a multifaceted approach. The basic messages and outlook needs to be modified in the community. The people need to be placed into the context of a vision for the future. Their schools must be made to enforce this future. Where as some offer the "audacity of hope" - this must be followed up with the "CHUTZPAH TO PUT THOSE WHO THREATEN THE MOVE FORWARD IN LINE". We have far too much sugar cane put forth for our people. It is time to pull out the cultural clubs. The COSTS of failing to do things in line with the REVERSE ENGINEERED path that takes the community to the promised land need to be registered into the minds of the masses.
One can be "anti-corporate" if it falls against their ideology but please put forth an alternative and practical plan that goes beyond a total opposition stance. Now that there is no "bad guy" to fight against it comes come to the consciousness that YOU ARE the one that must feed the masses.
I believe that the question has been faithful answered - "Did the Black community vote its way into poverty since 1964?". The Black community FAILED to make note of the macro-economic changes that were taking place around it and DID NOTHING with the appropriate level of COMPREHENSIVENESS to insure that the SYSTEM that was present that brought us WEALTH was replaced by an equally fruitful system when the former consumers of our labor RELOCATED AWAY FROM OUR MIDST.
