The Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class Blacks

Earlier, I referenced an essay by economist and writer Marcellus Andrews in the Black Commentator titled “No Exit in Black/ Trapped by the Economy and Politics.”

In his essay, Andrews voices the concern that “the unique solidarity between the black middle class and the black poor will soon end as the pressure of economic survival turns former allies into enemies.” He goes into detail about this:

The hard truth of our time is that the economic needs of poor black people are much closer to those of other poor Americans than they are to those of middle class blacks. Poor blacks, like all poor people in America, need an immense array of social goods and services that they cannot pay for – from health care and education to safe streets and housing. Middle class blacks, like all middle class Americans, want high quality public services balanced against low taxes in a society of self-reliant individuals.

Middle class black people support greater degrees of regulation and redistribution in economic life because they are poorer than whites and are still subject to discrimination. But the black middle class does not need or want government to the same degree as poor blacks because they are no longer trapped in the basement of the American job market. Many middle class black people are no more interested in paying taxes to support poor people than their white counterparts, not least because they see themselves as proof that hard work and perseverance in the face of white nationalism can pay off in still all-too-racist America.

Some people will say that the black middle class’s slow abandonment of the black poor is a sell out to white America, the act of selfish Uncle Toms who have forgotten what it is like to suffer as racial and class outcasts in this society. Nothing could be further from the truth or more irrelevant. Black middle class abandonment of the black poor is perfectly consistent with a strong sense of racial pride that nonetheless blames poor black people for making their bad situation worse. It is perfectly possible for middle class blacks to be angry at conservative white people and poor black people at the same time.”

Now there is evidence which bears out Andrews’ concerns. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center last year, which is reported in “Optimism about Black Progress Declines – Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class,” reveals income/class differences in the views of black Americans on a range of issues. The Center is a non-partisan think tank.

Separated at Birth?

Separated at birth: Barack… and Tuvok?

Obama does seem to have big ears for a human…

Some notes about Tim Russ (who played Tuvok in Star Trek Voyager) are here and here.

Why We Can’t Get Ahead: It’s All Our Fault.

Why can’t we get ahead? According to most black folks, it’s all our fault.

That’s one of the findings in a report by the Pew Research Center titled Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class – Optimism about Black Progress Declines. The report is based on a survey on racial attitudes was conducted by the Center in the fall of 2007. The Center is a nonpartisan think tank.

According to the report:

Why Some Blacks Lag Behind: Personal Factors or Discrimination?

Fully two-thirds of all Americans believe personal factors, rather than racial discrimination, explain why many African Americans have difficulty getting ahead in life; just 19% mostly blame discrimination.

While clear differences exist between white and black views on this question, these racial disparities are significantly less pronounced than those observed in other areas covered by this survey, including questions that measured perceptions of the overall levels of discrimination faced by blacks.

Overall, most whites (71%), Hispanics (59%) and a narrow majority of blacks (53%) believe that blacks who have not gotten ahead in life are mainly responsible for their own situation. At the same time, three-in-ten blacks (30%) blame racism for failures to advance, a view shared by 24% of all Hispanics and 15% of whites.

The survey also suggests that attitudes about what is more to blame for the failure of many blacks to advance appear to be strongly related to perceptions of discrimination against blacks.

For example, about four-in-ten blacks (37%) who believe African Americans are often discriminated against when applying for jobs also say discrimination is the main reason why some blacks don’t get ahead. But among blacks who say employment discrimination is relatively infrequent, only 15% believe bias is the major obstacle for black advancement.

A similar pattern is apparent among whites. About a third (34%) of whites who believe job discrimination against blacks is common say discrimination is mainly to blame for the fact that many blacks fail to advance. This view is held by just 11% of whites who say this form of racial bias is uncommon. Similarly, four-in-ten Hispanics who say blacks frequently are discriminated against when seeking work say discrimination is to blame for lack of black advancement, roughly double the proportion of Hispanics (19%) who say anti-black bias in employment is rare.

The report has of food for thought. Highly recommended reading. I’ll make another post based on the report in a day or so.

Defending Michelle Obama

It is great to see so many in the Afrosphere/Afrospear stand up for Michelle Obama. She has been the subject of many attacks that seem to be uniquely based on her ethnic origin.

The Black Snob addresses the issue head on:

Look at the image of angry black women on television. Politically you have Maxine Waters of California, liberal Democrat. She’s always angry every time she gets on television. Cynthia McKinney, another angry black woman. And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country. They’re usually angry about something. They’ve had a son who has been shot in a drive-by shooting. They are angry at Bush. So you don’t really have a profile of non-angry black women. — Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas on Michelle Obama being an “angry black woman,” FOX News Watch, June 14.

Black people have long had to live with the stigma that we’re rougher and more horrifying than other people. That somehow we’re more violent and scary and immoral, stereotypes that have existed since wealthy white landowners had to come up with excuses why it was OK to enslave an entire group of people. Black men are menacing and black women are vulgar harridans, screaming obscenities while engaging ball busting.

Many were appalled at Cal Thomas for bringing up the “angry black woman” meme, viewing it as both racist and sexist, and it is. When other women speak their mind, they’re just talking. When a black woman says why she’s proud of America after seeing the results of her husband’s historical campaign she’s an awful witch who wants to destroy all white people. The complete 360 degree turn of hyperbole is attempted over and over again. And with so few images of black women in the media it’s easy to fall back on old stereotypes — the whore, the mammy and the bitch.

Michelle Obama is too chaste and married to be a whore, too independent and smart to be a mammy, so all that’s left is the bitch. And that is the category all educated, independent minded, straight-no-chaser women, black or white, are put in.

The Jack and Jill web site asks, where are the feminists who defended Hillary Clinton against sexists attacks, and why aren’t they defending Michelle Obama? It’s a good question, and there hasn’t been a good answer that I’ve seen.

Heck, even Laura Bush has defended Michelle Obama.

Meanwhile, the Michelle Obama Watch site has been created to, in the site’s words, to be “a repository of all of the criticism, praise, and general chicanery thrown at Michelle Obama between now and November.” It’s worth a quick look.

Political Musings 6/24/08

One effect of the long, drawn-out Democratic presidential primary was the toll it took on presidential candidate Barack Obama’s financial warchest.

Through the end of May, the Obama campaign raised $287,397,945, and spent $244,250,611. At the end of May, the campaign had $43,147,333 million on hand. This information is available from the excellent web site OpenSecrets.org.

Through the same period, the McCain campaign raised $119,594,596. But because his expenditures were lower-the GOP race was decided long ago-McCain had only spent $83,633,159. He had $35,961,436 million on hand at the end of May.

As noted out by Truthout.Org:

For the first time in the campaign, Republican John McCain in May raised about the same amount of money, $22 million, as Democrat Barack Obama…

Obama spent $27 million in May… $4 million for television ads, $3.3 million for travel, $3 million for direct mail, and nearly another $3 million for phone banking. He spent another $1.7 million on print advertisements and nearly another million dollars on Internet ads.

Meanwhile, McCain spent just $12 million. The Arizona senator dropped about $3.5 million on television ads and spent another $1.4 million on postage. No other spending category for the month of May reached a million dollars.

Having effectively wrapped up his party’s nomination, McCain spent the month focused almost exclusively on replenishing his coffers. His schedule was dominated by money-generating events that helped produce his biggest fundraising month to date.

This is one reason why some folks were hoping Sen Hillary Clinton would concede the Democratic presidential race earlier than she did…

Barack Obama has decided to opt-out of public financing for his general election campaign. This caused John McCain, as the LA Times put it, to have a “hissy fit.”

Civil Rights Movement Photos on Exhibit in Atlanta

Above: a Greyhound bus with 14 members of an interracial group that was part of the Freedom Ride was firebombed on May 14, 1961, outside Anniston, Ala.

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta has opened an exhibit that brings to light many new images of the civil rights movement, along with the struggles of the photographers who made them. The show is titled “Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement 1956-1968.”

The exhibit is discussed here in an article in the New York Times.

There is also a link to a slideshow of pictures from the exhibit, called the Unseen Movement, which includes the photograph shown above.

Remembering the Martyrs of Freedom Summer 1964

Today marks a sad date in American history. On June 21st, 1964, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman (seen above in FBI photos), three Freedom Summer volunteers, were killed by a white mob in Mississippi.

As described here:

On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers—a 21-year-old black Mississippian, James Chaney, and two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24—were murdered near Philadelphia, in Nashoba County, Mississippi. They had been working to register black voters in Mississippi during Freedom Summer and had gone to investigate the burning of a black church.

They were arrested by the police on trumped-up charges, imprisoned for several hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who beat and murdered them. It was later proven in court that a conspiracy existed between members of Neshoba County’s law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan to kill them.

Justice for these killings was slow in coming:

Political Miscellany 6/20/08

The Hill reported plans by Barack Obama to meet with his fellow Congressional Black Caucus members on Thursday (6/19). Relations within the CBC are said to be strained due to the hotly contested presidential primary. Many members of the CBC backed Sen Hillary Clinton, even though black voters overwhelmingly supported Obama.

Obama previously met privately with a group of religious leaders, including megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes, and Rev Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The meeting was held to solicit their input on national and world issues, and not necessarily to get their endorsements.

About 30 people were at the meeting. In addition to Jakes, three other prominent members of the black church were present: the Rev. Stephen Thurston, head of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., a historically black denomination; the Rev. T. Dewitt Smith, president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., which was home to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders; and Bishop Phillip Robert Cousin Sr., an A.M.E. clergyman and former NAACP board member.

Other reported attendees were conservative Catholic constitutional lawyer Doug Kmiec; evangelical author Max Lucado of San Antonio; Cameron Strang, founder of Relevant Media, which is aimed at young Christians; the Rev. Luis Cortes of Esperanza USA; and Paul Corts, president of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities.

As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows. Consider the case of Sen Barack Obama and Georgia congressman John Barrow.

Barack Obama, Black, Biracial, Whatever

Question: is Barack Obama black or biracial? And does it matter?

There have been discussions about that all over the Internet, and no doubt in living rooms and business offices across the country.

For many black folks, it’s this simple: if he has a drop of black blood, he’s black. So people just need to acknowledge that and deal with it.

But it isn’t that simple. Being biracial IS a different cultural experience than being black. Adrienne Maree Brown makes the point in COLORLINES magazine’s RaceWire blog:

…I have to just share this temporary moment of swelling heart boom boom because Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, a half-breed, Hafrican, mulatto, black and white cookie, creamed coffee, is-he-is-or-is-he-ain’t, mixed, multi-, biracial, more-than-a-drop, cafe au lait like me is going to be the Democratic nominee for President.

No one will want to remember it that way, it’s too advanced to get into, its big enough that he’s a black man, the black candidate who has been running against the woman candidate in our oversimplified media vomitorium of electoral coverage.

But as a woman who grew up with that special experience of visiting the far reaches of the American experience as represented by the racial spectrum in my veins, as a biracial woman who takes note of all the multicultural straddlers out there leading and supporting movements, I want to take a moment that we rarely get.

Mariah Carey, goddess that she is, isn’t out there forging the path of righteousness for those who are undefining the boundary. Halle Barry wants nothing to do with the gray space. We haven’t had many public figures giving speeches about their mixed heritage, out there publicly applying the unique ability to go beyond temporary bridge-building to the true and evolutionary, fusionistic type of movement building which is a survival mechanism honed at the dinner table for multiracial babies.

The Myth That “Blacks Only Vote Black”

I hear it a lot, from people who call-in to talk radio shows and some political pundits. It’s the belief that black voters “only vote black”: when given a choice between a white candidate and a black one, black voters almost always choose the black candidate.

But a review of election history shows this belief is a myth.

Consider, for example, the results of the 2006 elections. In a report titled “Blacks and the 2006 Midterm Elections”, by David A. Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the black vote for several races where blacks ran against whites is discussed:

Nationally, the black vote in U.S. House elections was 89 percent Democratic and 11 percent Republican…

Three prominent black Republicans lost their elections with varying degrees of black support.

GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Blackwell in Ohio received 20 percent of the black vote, which is above the 10 percent national average for Republican candidates. However, previous white GOP candidates for governor and for U.S. Senator in Ohio have generally won larger shares of the black vote; when U.S. Senator George Voinovich was re-elected as governor of Ohio in 1994, he received 42 percent of the black vote.

Hall of Fame football star Lynn Swann was unable to effectively shift his talents from the gridiron to the political domain; he lost his race for governor of Pennsylvania, while receiving only 13 percent of the black vote.

Maryland Lieutenant Governor and GOP U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele appears to have been the most successful Republican candidate courting black voters, receiving 25 percent of their votes in his losing effort.

It’s quite clear: for African Americans, when it comes to voting for Democrats and Republicans it’s not all black and white.

Obama Father’s Day Speech Criticizes Absent Black Fathers

Sen Barack Obama gave a speech on Sunday – Father’s Day – where he criticized absent black fathers.

It’s something Obama knows about, first hand. His father, a Kenyan, left the United States when Barack was two years old. Barack would see his father just one more time after that.

As noted in his speech:

But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.

You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled – doubled – since we were children. We know the statistics – that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.

How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many?

…But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it’s the courage to raise one.

We need to help all the mothers out there who are raising these kids by themselves; the mothers who drop them off at school, go to work, pick up them up in the afternoon, work another shift, get dinner, make lunches, pay the bills, fix the house, and all the other things it takes both parents to do. So many of these women are doing a heroic job, but they need support. They need another parent. Their children need another parent. That’s what keeps their foundation strong. It’s what keeps the foundation of our country strong.

The prepared text of the speech is in this article in the Huffington Post. But note that, Obama’s actual speech does differ in places from the prepared text.

The speech was given at Apostolic Church of God on Chicago’s South Side.

Political Miscellany 6/13/08

The Obama campaign has been facing an onslaught of unsubstantiated smears. One of the most ridiculous is that Obama wasn’t born in the United States, and that he changed his middle name (from, perhaps, Mohammed to Husein?). This led one web site to display a copy of Obama’s birth certificate. The Obama campaign has now created a website to address these malicious rumors: www.fightthesmears.com.

Some black Democrats in NYC who supported Hillary Clinton for president are catching grief. The Brooklyn Ron blog notes that Congressman Ed Towns of Brooklyn will be facing significant opposition from “writer and hip-hop culture exponent Kevin Powell.”

In Louisiana, Donald Cravins, Jr., an African American State Senator from the southwestern part of the state, appears ready to run for Congress against Republican incumbent Charles Boustany in the race for the state’s 7th Congressional district.

The Coming Betrayal of the Black Poor

Marcellus Andrews is an economist and writer on economic policy and economic justice issues. He wrote a searing essay in the Black Commentator titled “No Exit in Black/ Trapped by the Economy and Politics” after the 2004 elections that really really scared me. And you might be very very afraid too once you’ve read it.

His main point:

(O)ne gets the sense that black America is at a breaking point in matters of politics. The old alliance between blacks and the Democrats is about to end while the war between blacks and conservatives is going to get much worse. Most of all, the unique solidarity between the black middle class and the black poor will soon end as the pressure of economic survival turns former allies into enemies.

Poor black people are about to become the victims of a great political betrayal that is as predictable as it is awful. This betrayal is due to the unyielding logic of modern economic life, which has slowly but inexorably destroyed the basis for black unity.

Andrews comes to this conclusion based on conflicts between rich and poor, and Republicans and Democrats… conflicts that place the the black middle class right in the middle, to the point where the need to protect themselves means they must leave poor blacks defenseless.

Scare Tactics Circa 1949

I think this speaks for itself. It almost makes the Willie Horton ads from the 1988 presidential campaign seem tame.

Note the little girl’s doll:

This picture was taken in 1949. Obviously, Republican campaign tactics haven’t changed much.

This is from the excellent book, One Shot Harris: The Photographs of Charles “Teenie” Harris. Harris was a photographer who worked for the Pittsburgh Courier, which was one of the nation’s top black newspapers.

The book contains photographs taken by Harris from the 1940s through the 1960s. Black Issues Book Review said this about Harris and the book:

One Shot Harris is pure soul. Though Harris photographed people living in poverty, most of his photos break away from the all-too-familiar images that oftentimes represent blacks during hard times. Instead, Harris focused on local folk–proud at work and at home–along with numerous celebrities to convey cultural pride. He took particular pleasure in highlighting The Hill District, the Pittsburgh neighborhood where many African Americans flocked seeking employment and entertainment.

“What I’d like for readers to take away from this book,” says writer Stanley Crouch, “is that Harris shows that these black communities, regardless of all stereotypes, were as civilized as any community in the entire western world.”

The book contains an essay by noted writer Stanley Crouch, and a biography of Harris by African American photography scholar Deborah Willis. Highly recommended.

Clinton Campaign’s Heavy Hand May Have Cost It the Nomination

In the wake of Sen Hillary Clinton’s failed bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination, the big question is, how and why did this happen? How did a person who had a huge lead in money, name recognition, and support from the Democratic Party establishment lose to a young, relatively unknown, African American novice?

If you do a Google search on the subject, you’ll find pages and pages of sources, more than you could read in a day, or maybe a week. Most agree on a few things:
• the Clinton campaign showed poor judgment in ignoring small states and caucus states.
• the Clinton campaign was not able to match the Obama campaign’s Internet-based, small donor fund-raising machine.
• Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War hurt her standing among progressives and the anti-war elements of the Democratic Party.
• Barack Obama turned out to be a unique, charismatic competitor.

All of that is probably true. But I think a lot of people are missing an element that was key, although not necessarily decisive: in the end, the superdelegates got tired of being pushed around by the Clintons. And without the support of the superdelegates, the Clintons were doomed.