Low Black Employment Rates and Tariffs Not the Answer

11 Apr 2018

“Capitalism is the problem, not less or more tariffs.”

The Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the black unemployment reached record lows in January at 6.9%. For whites, it was 3.7%. Currently, the Black rate is still hovering near 7.7%.

President Trump quickly took credit for its drop. Together with Trump’s increasing tariffs and with his promise to create more jobs, do blacks need to jump for joy?

The gap between black and white unemployment lingered at the same gap for over 25 years, said the Harvard Business Review. The Harvard Review said bias and discrimination cause the gap. Black folks say racism. Capitalism breeds racism.

White families have 13 times the wealth of blacks. The Institute for Economic Policy says that it would take 228 years for black families to obtain the same amount. More blacks live below the poverty line according to the Pew Research Center.

Blacks receive less pay than whites. More experienced blacks with higher education still get paid less than whites. Overall, blacks are the last to be hired in upward business cycles and the first to be fired off during downturns.

President Trump says more tariffs and former president Obama was a so-called free trade advocate promoting fewer tariffs. Trump and Obama’s aims are the same. Both sought to stabilize and increase the U.S. hold on its world turf. It is about the drive for profits.

“The Institute for Economic Policy says that it would take 228 years for black families to catch up to whites.”

Obama’s TPP was meant to limit China’s trade penetration in the Pacific and knock down tariffs. Trump’s strategy was to hammer China for so-called dumping steel on the U.S.

Imperialism continues to batter semi-colonial countries. According to the UN, over half of the least developed 47 nations come from the African continent. Interest rates and perpetual trading inequalities will keep them in perpetual debt.

No, Black folks should not jump for joy. Either way, working people get screwed, and the black working class gets doubly screwed. Plus workers still get sent to kill and die to fight U.S. world imperialism’s turf wars. It is capitalism that is the problem, not less or more tariffs.

It is clear that Trump won the presidency because the white working class thought Trump, the rich white man, had the answer to restoring and increasing jobs. These workers are backward, clinging to notions of white privilege, relying on one of the ruling class parties, the GOP, to save them.

Blacks still rely on the Democrats for salvation. Struggles of the post-WWII civil rights and black rights movements lessened the employment gap. Clinton or Bernie Sanders would have been no better in curing capitalism’s ills.

What Black people need is an independent, struggle-action oriented, Black worker-led party and an independent working-class party -- both anti-capitalist.

Dr. Morgan is a black internationalist activist scholar. Contact him at [email protected].

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