Some people find the word “race” offensive in these modern times but it is a real social/biological concept and probably always will be. I thought the speech by James Baldwin presented in class gave some food for thought. He, like civil rights activists that came before and after him, used speech powerfully and masterfully. Without them it is arguable that the old institutions would never have been changed. Although with technology I personally think desegregation was inevitable. Who can today imagine such institutions coexisting with Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube? It would be practically impossible. If the civil rights movement didn’t succeed in the 60s it would have 20 or 30 years later unless the USA chose to live inside a bubble and forever went against technology.
Yet racial inequality still exists. It exists more so than most people believe. A study released this very year shows that Black Americans are actually poorer than White Americans than they were in the 60s. And the gap is apparently widening.
http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/Author/shapiro-thomas-m/racialwealthgapbrief.pdf
From another study:
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/26/138688135/study-shows-racial-wealth-gap-grows-wider
These statistics should be taken with a grain of salt since for example presented are two different studies that show very different numbers for median net worth for each group. The first one shows the gap being a 10x difference, the second is 20x for the same year. It is unknown (to me at least) if either one accounts for outliers like billionaires or multimillionaires. Yet the point to be made is inequality is alive and well and apparently growing.
These problems must be addressed as they will eventually have to be. It is nonsensical to me why they aren’t. Maybe people believe that things are looking better for everyone and that it is a process. Maybe it is just too sensitive of an issue. Yet this is only wishful thinking. Related to the wealth gap, Blacks and Hispanics suffer higher unemployment, crime, and incarceration rates. They can be entrapped in a cycle of poverty. People need the opposite: momentum, positive feedback loops, etc. This is what drives success. There must also be a culture in place that supports all of this, which is probably the most fundamental thing.
Being from NYC it is clear to me and no doubt others that a wealth gap does exist but everyone at the end of the day remains complacent. We live in “post-racial” America yet if this was true there simply would be no inequalities whatsoever. America will have to address these two conflicting personalities. Either institutions are not there to support a level playing field or different groups innately have qualities that allow them to succeed or fail. Eugenics (which drove much of racial apartheid) has long been scrapped and thrown away. So the only possible answer is to level the playing field which is simply not being done.
This is a great piece. I agree that measures must be taken by both government and community leaders (especially in African American communities) to set up a system to fight this. I personally think education is key which is why the CUNY system should be a model for cities across the U.S. But here’s one stat from a NYT article from Feb 2012: 73 percent of black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites. And there should be no doubt that being raised in a broken home CAN lead to poverty. But remember one big exception: a guy named Barack Obama. Here’s the link to that article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Great blog post!
And by the way, I watched this after I wrote the comment but you’d probably enjoy this. Was on tonight (4/3) and it is on your topic. Enjoy… http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2275456916001/bet-founder-on-high-unemployment-among-african-americans/?playlist_id=86923
I am glad you found the blog useful. I read the very same NYT article regarding illegitimacy before, and while extremely prevalent in the black community, it is a widespread trend in the US that seems to be growing as well.
From the article:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/02/18/us/0218-nat-webBIRTHS/0218-nat-webBIRTHS-articleInline-v2.jpg
Even among college graduates, the number of single moms have grown, not decreased.
As for discrimination in the work place. I believe that markets are efficient, and sometimes brutally efficient. I do not believe African Americans face high unemployment or are behind wealth creation because of their skin color and discrimination based on it. This is simply not enough. It is an issue of human capital. A person’s value in knowledge and skill is only worth what the next person will pay for it. Improving human capital is what will solve these problems, but it is much more complicated than simply giving access to education (which is also difficult to do today when everyone wants it).