In a previous post I noted the propensity of people to make the White male with a college degree as the key reference for the employment rate that should be for Black men. They are our "1.0" of perfection, if you will. The argument is that only "RACISM" could describe the reason for the gap between the 4.4% unemployment rate among degreed White men and the present 7.8% for Black males who are similarly degreed.
The NY Times follows the typical review. Detail the gap then interview Black people who say that they have been victims of racist hiring managers, many of whom were shocked when the voice they liked on the phone had "brown skin" in person. From this sight the interview went down hill. No one, certainly not me, is arguing that there is no preference for one's own race that gives the White male a leg up in employment. In addition there are existing stereotypes that are negative against Black people many of which don't prove to be true.
Despite all of this my argument stands. The facts that document the employment differences between Black males with degrees, Black males with high school diplomas and Black males who don't have a diploma at all blow all other "gaps" in employment that can be made based on purely racial terms.
In seeking to dislodge all racial considerations in the hiring process the task is expansive. Beyond the elements of human and group nature that is detailed above there would need to be an expansive regulatory effort to achieve a few percentage point gains. From my experience in insuring the uptime of computer systems - the more "9's" that you purse in the "99.999%" uptime standard the more expensive the task becomes for diminishing returns.
In as much as the New York Times is prone to engage in "advocacy journalism" I don't look to them for dispassionate strategic development. Instead I choose to lay out the facts.
The fact is that the biggest gains for the Black unemployment problem reside in improving the high school graduation and literacy rates amongst Black males. The past 50 years of political advocacy and struggle has delivered the public school apparatus where Black people live into our hands (or at least being run by 'favorable people').
It is clear to me that instead of constructing a regulatory framework around all corporations that reside largely outside of our communities so that they hire sufficient numbers of African-Americans the larger "green field" opportunity resides with realigning and redefining the key academic (and cultural) institutions that are closer to home so that they might produce better results amongst the people who they service.
In this world people are inclined to focus upon gaining access to the "finished opportunities"/"finished goods" that they see before them which others have and they don't. This defines the dimensions of the marketplace within which they operate. All the while there remains an abundance of "raw materials" that are scattered amongst their feet. These materials are awaiting the application of human intelligence to refine them into "finished goods".
Many of the job opportunities that are not present will be developed within the architecture of this locally focused framework. At present opportunity has vacated our communities as other people departed the space and took their framework along with them. Marcus Garvey tapped into the dual need for employment and a purpose and as a result was able to deploy thousands of African-Americans into his UNIA organization. Today we enjoy an environment in which this same spirit can be made more sustainable in the absence of an oppressive national government that would seek to destroy such an organically productive venture to develop our communities AND leverage the millions of Africa-Americans who have education and professional management skills to overcome some of the mismanagement and "thuggery" that was reportedly associated with the original movement lead by Marcus Garvey.
The challenge is to keep the movement focused upon developing organic potential rather than have it be "against" any particular force (White Supremacy). The rhetoric must be focused upon lifting our communities to their full potential not resentment of the past events in this country.
Today's actions will be the "history" for our people living decades in the future.
Once again - we need to turn the picture of an aggrieved Black man as shown above into a "happy Black man" who's capabilities are more fully utilized:
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