Black America: Sinking to a New “Bottom”?
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by BAR executive editor Glen FordThe Black job market is imploding, even as the moneyed classes congratulate themselves on having “turned the corner” toward economic recovery. Alarming Black unemployment patterns indicate that “a perfect storm of racial disadvantage” has occurred. “Virtually nothing prevents the boss from acting out his prejudices and greed with impunity.” There’s nothing “post-racial” about the current crisis for Black workers.
Black America: Sinking to a New “Bottom”?
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Endemic racism in the United States ensures that every ratcheting up of employer power and prerogatives will redound to the special disadvantage of Black workers.”
Corporate economists have lately grown fond of saying the economy is “turning the corner,” but for African Americans, it’s shaping up as a long and very scary ride downhill. Official labor statistics show Black unemployment rose to 16.5 percent in March, up from 15.8 percent the month before, while white joblessness remained steady at 8.8 percent. The figures are in line with the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute’s prediction that Black unemployment will hit 17.2 percent by the third quarter of this year – the highest level in a quarter century. Not only is the Great Recession nowhere near over for Black America, there are indications that the contorted economy is finding a new “bottom” for African Americans to inhabit.
When the previous bottom fell out, Blacks fell farther and faster than whites, Asians and Latinos, and from an even more precarious economic position. As Dedrick Muhammad, of United for a Fair Economy reported in February 2009, “African Americans never emerged from the 2001 recession.” Black households lost additional ground to whites and Latinos between 2000 and 2005 and were plummeting in real and relative terms even before the economy “officially” went off the cliff in December, 2007. When the crash came, the “Black” economy entered unknown territory, where previous patterns of relative Black-white employment prospects – as bad as they were – may no longer apply.
“Blacks fell farther and faster than whites, Asians and Latinos, and from an even more precarious economic position.”
The sheer speed with which Black joblessness soared into the deep double digits since the official beginning of the recession indicates how tenuous is the Black connection to an economy stripped of all pretense of fairness and reciprocity. If national Black unemployment reaches 17.2 percent in the late summer, as the Economic Policy Institute predicts, that will represent an exact doubling of Black joblessness since December, 2007.
Experts offer a variety of reasons that Blacks are losing ever more ground in the labor market, from lack of access to transportation to the oft-cited gaps in preparedness for the “new economy.” But none adequately explains the speed and scope of the implosion of Black job prospects. My own sense is that both old and newer factors have combined to create a perfect storm of racial disadvantage – and the possibility of a continuing African American employment spiral that will reset the meters on the Black misery index.
In addition to the myriad disadvantages Black labor has endured for generations, the constant erosion of workers’ overall bargaining power with employers has reached such a nadir that, especially in the low wage sector, virtually nothing prevents the boss from acting out his prejudices and greed with impunity. Endemic racism in the United States ensures that every ratcheting up of employer power and prerogatives will redound to the special disadvantage of Black workers. For example, studies show rampant employer theft of workers’ earned wages – nearly 7 out of 10 low-wage workers report that their bosses steal from them. Not surprisingly, Blacks are robbed by bosses at three times the rate of whites.
“Virtually nothing prevents the boss from acting out his prejudices and greed with impunity.”
Simply put, the more desperate workers’ circumstances become, the more critical becomes the factor of employer racism. With 5.5 job seekers for every actual job opening, according to the latest data, employers can discriminate in favor of whites to their hearts’ content, while continuing to lower wages and working conditions. It’s easy to casually fire Black people and even easier not to hire them.
We will soon find out if a statistical “point of no return” in unemployment levels exists, from which communities cannot recover absent extraordinary assistance by a caring government. There is ample reason to believe that many Black communities had already reached such a “deeper level of Hell” before the Great Recession, with Black male participation in the job market hovering around 50 percent. At least a score of major Black population centers now register official unemployment levels nearing 25 percent, comparable to the depths of the Great Depression – and it took World War Two to pull the economy out of that pit. Where is the political will to rescue Black America?Certainly not in the Obama White House.
“There is ample reason to believe that many Black communities had already reached such a “deeper level of Hell” before the Great Recession.”
With every successive wave of unemployment, the ranks of the Black “permanently” jobless thicken and congeal, to finally become part of the background noise of the ghetto. The process of expelling more and more Blacks from the job market entirely, is quickening. Stats show Blacks are dramatically more likely than whites to still be unemployed six months after losing a job.
Another hammer blow is coming. With states and localities in fiscal crisis virtually everywhere, African Americans face a double-whammy as disproportionate holders of public jobs and consumers of public services. Unless the federal government comes to the rescue of the states and cities, Blacks will lose hundreds of thousands of previously steady public jobs with benefits, while the poor and carless will face a hostile world all on their own.
A Local Jobs for America bill recently introduced in Congress would bail out state and local governments with $100 billion over two years, but there is little chance that President Obama will give more than lip service to the legislation, which is doomed to fail without the most active support of the White House.
“Unless the federal government comes to the rescue of the states and cities, Blacks will lose hundreds of thousands of previously steady public jobs with benefits.”
The casino economy was (temporarily) “turned around” by the transfer of many trillions of dollars of public funds to Wall Street, mainly through the Federal Reserve. The bankster bailout was carefully captained at every critical juncture by Barack Obama, starting with his rescue of the initial bailout bill while still a candidate. Meanwhile, Black America is going down, drowning in unemployment, foreclosure, gentrification, mass incarceration and accompanying social disintegration. African Americans have the great misfortune to have invested all their political capital and energies in a president who is actively hostile to any measures that would directly address the particular Black condition, even as that condition deteriorates by the day. It’s past time that Blacks relearned a lesson: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” We need a movement.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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A lot of businesses are
A lot of businesses are sinking with this sinking economy. There's no wonder how and why is it happening. However, despite those quandaries, some entrepreneurs are still standing and fighting the crisis. Juliette Brindak's entrepreneurial spirit ought to serve as an inspiration to young people. CollegeNews.com accounts that her girls' site Miss O and Friends is phenomenon that is well worth $15 million. It began with cartoon drawings however soon became an internet social empire that outpaces the competitors.
Doesnt the South African situation sound a little familiar?
South Africa's black empowerment
The president says it has failed
To give more economic clout to the black majority has proved hard
http://www.economist.com/world/middle-east/displaystory.cfm?story_id=158...
IT IS now widely agreed that “black economic empowerment” (BEE) and affirmative-action laws brought in after apartheid as the star policies of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) have failed. Even President Jacob Zuma seems to agree. Instead of redistributing wealth and positions to the black majority, they have resulted mainly in “a few individuals benefiting a lot,” he says, while leaving the leadership of most big companies in white hands. The black masses, the intended beneficiaries, have hardly gained.
Largely as a result of the emergence of this new BEE elite, post-apartheid South Africa is still one of the most unequal countries in the world. Although poverty has been alleviated by providing welfare benefits to more than one in four of South Africa’s 49m inhabitants, the gulf between rich and poor has widened. The richest 4% of South Africans—a quarter of whom are black—now earn more than $80,000 a year, 100 times what most of their compatriots live on.
Under apartheid, blacks were given an inferior education and on the whole restricted to much worse jobs. The Employment Equity Act in 1998 tried to make the workforce “more broadly representative of our people” across the board. But more than a decade later, whites still hold three-quarters of senior jobs in private business whereas blacks have 12%, the exact reverse of their share in the working population.
Among the 295 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), blacks account for just 4% of chief executive officers, 2% of chief financial officers and 15% of other senior posts. In non-executive ones, they do a bit better, accounting for just over a quarter of board chairmen and 36% of directors, but still nowhere near their share of the workforce. Even so, many whites grumble sotto voce that incompetent blacks are being promoted beyond their abilities.
As whites account for 40% of university graduates, a 12% quota for whites in skilled or top managerial positions is absurd, the South African Institute of Race Relations, a think-tank, says. Its head, John Kane-Berman, argues that BEE, in the way it has so far been implemented, has actually harmed blacks by discouraging self-reliance and an entrepreneurial spirit. Instead it has fostered a debilitating sense of entitlement.
The idea of legislating for black economic empowerment was originally promoted by big white businessmen to ward off post-apartheid calls for nationalisation. If a few well-connected black people were given chunks of the action, big business would, they hoped, be left alone. In that sense, BEE has been a roaring success, as whites still own the bulk of the country’s wealth. Although renewed calls for the nationalisation of the mines and banks have recently been heard within ANC ranks, Mr Zuma, urged on by the new black capitalists, has repeatedly said that this is not on the government’s agenda.
Under BEE laws, white-owned companies with an annual revenue of at least 5m rand are given ratings for enabling blacks to own shares, improve their skills within the company, move up the managerial ranks, and so on. The higher the company’s score, the more likely it is to win lucrative public contracts. Everyone is supposed to win. Black individuals or companies could buy large holdings in white companies in the hope of paying off their debts through dividend payments and rising share prices.
For as long as buoyant stock markets were rising, this worked nicely. But when the global financial crisis caused shares to plummet, many BEE companies crashed, making new investors wary. In 2007 there were a record 111 BEE deals, worth 105 billion rand, involving companies listed on the JSE. In 2008 this fell to 84 deals, worth 61 billion rand. Last year, however, there were just 13 deals, worth 20 billion rand.
Moeletsi Mbeki, an analyst and entrepreneur who is a brother of the former president, Thabo Mbeki, claims that BEE has struck a “fatal blow against the emergence of black entrepreneurship by creating a small class of unproductive but wealthy black crony capitalists.” Yet most leading businessmen, white and black, still regard the policy as vital for the country’s future, though they admit it has been badly implemented. All seem to agree that the policy should be made to benefit a wider range of blacks, not just business people.
President Zuma promises a review. He complains that the country’s economic “transformation”, meaning the redistribution of power and wealth to the black majority, has been “disappointingly slow”. Last month he launched a new council to advise on a much “broader-based” BEE. Meanwhile, worried whites, whose skills are still sorely needed, are continuing to emigrate in droves.
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Black unity missing as usual
The black middle class doesn't give a damn what happens to poor blacks much like the white middle class. Americans are hooked on the self and consuming as much as corporate America can provide using the over-inflated currency which is almost worthless overseas now. Blacks have no unity outside of small circles like the Nation of Islam. It's over for us because even after the Million Man March most of us went right back home and continued the same reckless behavior or worse. I will continue to fight injustice and speak out but the majority of us are lost and cannot be found. We have no roots since whites destroyed those. Feminism and Willie Lynch have reversed the gender roles so that women are the men now and men the women.
Basically everything outlined by the Jews in their Protocols of the Elders of Zion has been accomplished. They have destroyed black manhood in the media. They are destroying true Christianity by having modified the Bible to suit their own ends. Now they are working on destroying Catholicism. Without black unity we cannot get any land in this country or any other. Without land we are continually at the mercy of white people who either hate us or white apathy. There is nothing else to say. We cannot force lost black people to do what we know is right or what is good for them. If they want to continue to wallow in self-destruction that is their choice. If they refuse to hear the warning or listen to the wise council of blogs like this what can we do? Nothing.
We should cut those loose who have no chance of ever waking up and then maybe we can build from there. Once our numbers reach a certain level and the black community can see the positive effect we are having then others may get on board. Until then they are trusting in whitey and all of his false Gods and idols.
The other thing we must do is recreate the stigma for out of wedlock births. It is far too common to see single mothers these days. It should be an embarrassment to them to not have a good man around. That stigma would end this insanity and put gender roles back in their proper position after feminism damn near destroyed manhood and womanhood.
Need I say that feminism was started by the Jewish elite? White people may give us hell every day but it's Jews that have done the most damage to us over time starting with financing the ships during slavery. Most people don't know Jews started the NAACP. They used it simply to divide us from whites while they made off with the money. They've been doing this same Ponzi scheme for thousands of years which is why wise leaders have always relegated them to positions with no power.
Everything has a purpose.
Chris Rock once said something to the effect of, "Look at me. I'm young, good looking, talented, and rich. And there's not one of you white boys who would change places with me."
If blacks didn't exist, white people would invent them.
They are necessary as a reserve pool of labor to be used as a threat against uppity whites who still have a union to defend them. And their appalling economic plight is a reminder to
those same people, who see their standard of living heading south, their dreams of a comfortable retirement shattered, of how privileged they are--in comparison with blacks.
Don't Worry, " I'll pray for you 'Special Interest' Negroes" lol
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR201004...
"This meeting is not about politics," spokesman Corey Ealons said. "It is about connecting with key faith leaders on the challenges impacting our nation. President Obama appreciates the acute challenges facing African Americans across the country and respects the work these pastors are doing to support the communities they serve."
"The public show of support and its welcome by the White House is a shift from Obama's seeming detachment from the question of whether he should have a "black agenda." In the past, he has responded by saying that "a rising tide lifts all boats" and that his job "is to be president of the whole country." This time, he is letting the ministers sing his praises."
"He is the president of the United States, not just the president of black people, the president of Latino people," said Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, a leader of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. "We expect him to put together policies and an agenda that will impact all of America and not just one special interest."
Is it not so sad?
Black folks still defend Obama to the hilt. It is so sad! It is clear our reality is shaped by whites. As Franz Fanon explained, blacks seek white validation. Ironically, these same black leaders used to assail Bush for making policies inimical to blacks. Now when their 'own' is there doing nothing for them, they excuse it with this nonsense. Jokers! I gave up on our people long ago. Whether they are in Africa or America or Europe, their minds are owned by white realities.
Sad Indeed
"I gave up on our people long ago.."
I can understand the sentiment, I'm getting pretty damn close to that conclusion myself. I would guess 92% of Blacks would follow Obama straight to hell. Of the other 8%, 2% are folks like us and 6% are Republican or Conservative.
I was talking to the "resident" Black militant last couple weeks, a young man with much anger at the "system" and the absentee local Black (mis)leadership. He talked about how he had seen Obama mentoring young Blacks in the South Side of Chicago, and I guess because he saw it with "his own eyes," his reality cannot be questioned. When I tried to articulate how Obama allowed Acorn to be f***ked, here was his response, in his own words, emphasis mine:
"From a tactical standpoint, silence appeared to be Obama's strongest response to the attack on Acorn. As we know, there are clear and obvious difference between Obama and both Bush 1 and 2. In that, both are white, rich and out of touch with the needs of poor America. Neither have advocated for the poor, nor have either affiliated themselves with an Acorn or similar organizations for that matter.
To defend accusations stemming from acts committed by members of Acorn would have been an act of political suicide. As a lawyer, he did what he was trained to do, gather the facts first and respond if appropriate afterwards.
In closing, I don't think that we need defend Obama for what he did or did not do. In the end, Acorn has an opportunity to come back bigger and better by highlighting the lies that was used an attempt to destroy them and the rationale behind the same."
Now this is the same Bro. who talks cash shit about the purported weakness, cowardice and ineptitude of local Black leaders who don't have a Harvard law degree nor a scintilla of the power of Obama. Sounds like a f***king lawyer himself: "In closing, I don't think we need to defend Obama for what he did or did not do." WTF? Break that down please??
I'm pretty much at the towel tossing point myself Fanon, the schizo shit that Blacks engage in to defend a "symbolic" Black who acts like a White boy is staggering. Let Obama save their asses, I'm done. I only blog here to kick it with like-minded folks, the dying minority of us who recognize it is what it is. When you email these sad Negroes or wannabe militants something that describes in detail how Obama's foreign policy is Bush 3, they shrug and dance a jig. They all Obama's Stepin Fetchit Club members. The Conservative rag the National Review calls Obama "Bush w/o a Stetson," how right they are. But tell that to the Stepin Fetchit club members.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/09-4
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWY3NTQ0MDc4ZWY0MzJlYTU4ODM1MDF...
Here's the intro paragraph:
"There is much to criticize about President Obama on foreign policy, but increasingly, despite all the “reset button” rhetoric and the obligatory nods to the Left, his anti-terrorism policies are becoming near identical extensions (if in cynical fashion) of George Bush’s."
Now, if only the lying ass "Liberals" were as honest as the Conservatives. But don't count on that happening soon if at all.
p.s. Watch Obummer nominate some milquetoast White Boy or Girl to the Supremes, some bullshit "centrists." He wouldn't dare appoint a true liberal or a Black man or woman, but that's fine with the Stepin Fetchit crowd, they understand his "constraints," lol apparently the "King can do no wrong.."
My brother, I feel you!
Wife commented to me yesterday that I was the only black person who did not support Obama. It is clear any time you get in a gathering of brothers and sisters, 99.9 percent of them will be sing Obama choruses. Often, they are quick enough to claim how he is 'fixing' things while the right wing attempts to impede him. One African guy who was visiting from Holland attacked me for not being proud of our having a black President. The fact is most of these people are not intelligent enough. Or, they succumb their intelligence to delusional racial solidarity. These days, when confronted with these 'zombies', I turn the table on them by asking them whether any of them, when confronted with the gallows, would prefer a black executioner to a white one. They employ hackneyed lines to express their support for Obama while the evidence clearly shows there is no progress for them. At the victory ceremony in Chicago when Obama was elected, there was this brother who ran up and down on Michigan Avenue in Chicago shouting 'we are free; we are free'. Yes, a lot of blacks assert that with the ascendancy of Obama to the Presidency, we have shaken down the livery of oppression. We are a joke! I have lost a lot of friends because of my critique of that joker in the White House.
Barack, the magic Negro.
Barack, the magic Negro. What a fitting term.
You're right about the Supreme Court nominee. Bet good money it will be another corporatist disguised in "liberal" clothing.