The state of Black America: Separate and treated unequally

Scan page 16

16 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1992 "Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal," by Andrew Hacker. MacMillan Publishing Co. $24.95.

The more things change the more they seem to stay the same—or get worse!

This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from Andrew Hacker's controversial book, "Two Nations."

Hacker, a professor of political science at Queens College in New York, pulls no punches as he documents the institutionalized inequality Black Americans still suffer over 25 years after the historic civil rights victories of the 1960s.

In his preface to the book, Hacker gives the source for the title, "Two Nations," by appropriately quoting Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's observation of the difference between the rich and the poor in Victorian England:

"Two nations, between whom there is no discourse and no sympathy, who are igno rant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets." Hacker shows how this situation is what exists in America today.

A large portion of "Two Nations" is devoted to examining the different attitudes of Blacks and whites in this country. The author's conclusion is that Blacks face as much if not more racial discrimination than in the past.

But most astoundingly, the economic statistics and graphs presented in this book are what provide the most irrefutable evidence that Black America-despite some modest gains over the last 20 years—has been pushed even deeper into social misery.

In fact, in many categories, Blacks are worse off now than they were in 1960!

For example, the unemployment rate for Blacks has increased since 1960 not only in relation to whites, but also in total percentage. In 1960, the unemployment rate for Blacks was 10.2 percent; for whites, 4.9 percent. In 1990, the unemployment rate for Blacks was 11.3 percent; for whites 4.1 percent. In short, over the last 30 years the unemployment rate for Blacks has gone from double to almost triple of that for whites.

Between the years 1970 and 1990, the median income for Black families increased by only $272. For white families, the median income increased by $2434. Today, for every $1000 earned by a white male worker, a Black male worker ears $776—a paltry increase of $22 towards parity since 1969.

While the standard of living for most working Americans has deteriorated over the last 20 years, for Blacks the current economic recession is more like the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Over 31.9 percent of all Black people, 44.8 percent of all Black children, and 29.3 percent of all Black families live below the poverty line. More than half-56.1 percent—of Black female-headed households live in poverty.

Black middle class

While a growing number of Blacks are getting poorer, Hacker documents a thin layer who have moved up the economic ladder to the middle class. Hacker denotes middle class by income, which means he includes higher paid workers in that category. For Marxists, however, there is a big difference between workers-even highly-paid ones—and small business people, doctors, accountants, etc. Workers still sell their labor power to an employer-they are not self-employed—so their relationship to the means of production, indeed, their class consciousness, is qualitatively different.

As a result of the victories of the civil rights movementoverturning legal segregation in the South, securing voting rights, winning affirmative action programs-employment and professional opportunities opened up for a layer of Black people.

Modest gains were made in the number of Black lawyers, accountants, and managers, etc. For example, the number of Black lawyers increased from 1.3 percent of the profession in 1960 to 3.2 percent in 1990.

But by far the largest contingent in what Hacker calls this "middle class" layer (families with incomes over $50,000 per year) are workers who have gained access to jobs that in the past were denied them.

Since 1970, there has been a 4.6 percent increase in the number of Black families in this category. But Hacker makes an important distinction here, stating that this doesn't mean "that many Black men and women have jobs paying at that level."

"Indeed," he says, "only 3.4 percent of all Black men make $50,000 or more; most $50,000 homes result from two or more sets of earnings... typically, the husband is likely to be a bus driver earning FAMILY D. Michael Cheors While Hacker concludes that this reaction is a symbol of how much his students valued their white skins, the other conclusion should be that the white students realized how much of a handicap it is to be Black in America. Unfortunately, while Hacker does an exemplary job of exposing the cancer of racism, he offers no political or economic analysis or solutions.

When Malcolm X was asked what he thought was responsible for race prejudice in the United States, he answered, "Ignorance and greed. And a skilfully designed program of miseducation that goes right along with the American system of exploitation and oppression."

What Hacker fails to point out is that it isn't only white attitudes that are responsible for the oppression of Blacks. The ultimate culprit is an economic system that uses racism to super-exploit one section of workers.

Under this system, Black Americans will never achieve full equality. One, it would cost the ruling rich too much. And two, it would deprive them of the super-profits they reap by paying Blacks less than whites.

The crisis in the Black community today is the same crisis facing working people in general-the crisis in leadership.

But as the late Marxist philosopher George Novack wrote in 1967, Black Americans will play a role in future struggles out of all proportion to their numbers in the population:

"Because Afro-Americans are both an oppressed nationality and the most heavily exploited segment of the American working class [their] struggle is at one and the same time a nationalist movement for self-determination and a proletarian struggle against the capitalist possessors of wealth and power."