Losing What We Never Had: White Privilege & the Deferred Dreams of Black America, Part 2

Bill Quigley

04 Jul 2007

🖨️ Print Article

Losing What We Never Had: White Privilege & the Deferred Dreams of Black America, Part 2
by BAR contributing editor Dr. Edward Rhymes

The Great Depression, FDR & the "Old" New Deal fdr

Many people have often hailed FDR's New Deal programs as a shining example of progressive social programs that got the working poor back on track and created a more robust middle-class after the Great Depression. However, Ira Katznelson in his book When Affirmative Action Was White paints a different picture. In it he states that it was during the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman that such great progressive policies as Social Security, protective labor laws and the GI Bill were adopted. But with them came something else that was quite destructive for the nation: what he called affirmative action for whites (I like to say continued affirmative action for whites).

"Southern members of Congress ensured that national policies would not disturb their region's racial status quo."

Negroesfarmers
During the 1930s and 1940s, southern members of Congress controlled the gateways to legislation, policy decisions dealing with welfare, work and war. They used this considerable control to either exclude the vast majority of African Americans or treat them differently from others. Between 1945 and 1955, the federal government transferred more than $100 billion to support retirement programs and fashion opportunities for job skills, education, homeownership and small-business formation. Together, these domestic programs dramatically reshaped the country's social structure by creating a modern, well-schooled, homeowning middle class. At no other time in American history had so much money and so many resources been targeted at the generation completing its education, entering the workforce and forming families.

Additionally, Katznelson asserts that most Blacks were left out of all this. Southern members of Congress used occupational exclusions and took advantage of American federalism to ensure that national policies would not disturb their region's racial status quo. Farmworkers and maids, the jobs held by most Blacks in the South, were denied Social Security pensions and access to labor unions. Benefits for veterans were administered locally. The GI Bill adapted to "Southern sensibilities" by accommodating itself to segregation in higher education, to the job ceilings that local officials imposed on returning Black soldiers and to a general unwillingness to offer loans to blacks even when such loans were insured by the federal government. Of the 3,229 GI Bill-guaranteed loans for homes, businesses and farms made in 1947 in Mississippi, for example, only two were offered to black veterans. Katznelson further asserts that "at the very moment a wide array of public policies were providing most white Americans with valuable tools to gain protection in their old age, good jobs, economic security, assets and middle-class status, Black Americans were mainly left to fend for themselves. Ever since, American society has been confronted with the results of this twisted and unstated form of affirmative action." (I will be discussing affirmative action more completely in another section in this essay).

"Of the 3,229 GI Bill-guaranteed loans for homes, businesses and farms made in 1947 in Mississippi, for example, only two were offered to black veterans."

Jim Powell in his publication, FDR's Folly, further illustrates this dream deferred for Black folk called the New Deal. For example, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 authorized the secretary of agriculture to inflate prices by reducing farm acreage. This meant white farm owners were paid to let their land sit idle, often resulting in the eviction of sharecroppers and tenant farmers, a significant number of whom were African American. Powell reports that reduced acreage particularly affected sharecroppers, whose estimated annual cash income fell from $735 in 1929 to $216 in 1933. The Department of Agriculture, moreover, paid farmers to destroy crops and slaughter livestock. This occurred while millions of Americans went hungry (This was just the sort of thing that John Steinbeck protested against in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath).

Southern states, home to the nation's poorest citizens yet full of dependable Democratic voters, received less New Deal spending than comparatively richer Western states, whose voters perhaps required additional persuasion to support Democratic candidates. Powell cites one study showing that states with a higher percentage of black residents and a lower per capita income received fewer New Deal dollars than richer, whiter states. Thus Blacks were directly injured by New Deal policies; then ignored when it came time to dispense New Deal dollars.

NegroesWPALogoc
The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), in effect from June 1933 until a unanimous Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in May 1935 (in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States), was considered the hallmark of the New Deal. In addition to creating the Works Progress Administration, the NIRA authorized the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which organized cartels, fixed wages and prices, and, under section 7(a), established the practice of collective bargaining, whereby a union selected by a majority of employees exclusively represented all employees.

"Blacks were directly injured by New Deal policies; then ignored when it came time to dispense New Deal dollars."

While such compulsory unionism is routinely celebrated as a milestone for the American worker, many African Americans saw things differently. The NAACP's publication The Crisis, for example, decried the monopoly powers granted to racist unions by the NRA, noting in 1934 that "union labor strategy seems to be to obtain the right to bargain with the employees as the sole representative of labor, and then close the union to black workers." Members of the Black press took up the charge, attacking the NRA, rechristening it the "Negro Removal Act," "Negroes Robbed Again," "Negro Run Around," and "No Roosevelt Again."

There was also a counter-narrative during this time. European immigrants were learning that whiteness was more than skin color. It was the privilege of opportunity and above all, exclusive. There was this very standard narrative of the European mobility model. We came here with nothing. We worked hard. We, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. And it's offered up as proof of the openness of the American economic order. Left out of the bootstrap myth of European ethnics was access to opportunities closed to non-whites. Roosevelt's New Deal reforms offered many Americans a path out of poverty.

NegroScottsboro
The New Deal's Social Security measure gave at least some protection to 30 million citizens, but it excluded farm workers and domestics, most of whom were non-white. Many unions locked Blacks and Mexicans into low paying jobs, or kept them out all together. Perhaps the best example of how European ethnics would finally gain the full benefits of whiteness, to the exclusion of others, would come with an innovation in housing at the end of World War II.

It was a time when hundreds of thousands of GIs came home ready to start families, but had no place to live. FHA came to the rescue by insuring long term, low monthly payment mortgage loans. Home ownership was made possible for additional millions of families and stimulated a tremendous volume of construction. Veterans needed homes for families. They turned to the revolutionary New Deal housing program. It would, however, racialize housing, wealth, and opportunity for decades, in ways few could have imagined.

"The FHA underwriters warned that the presence of even one or two non-white families could undermine real estate values in the new suburbs."

In the 1930's the federal government created the Federal Housing Administration, whose job it was to provide loans or the backing for loans to average Americans so they could purchase a home. In order to purchase a house in America prior to 1930s, you had to pay 50 percent of the sales price up front. The new terms of purchasing a home was that you put 10 percent or 20 percent down, and the bank financed 80% of it - not over five years but over 30 years at relatively low rates. This opened up the opportunities for Americans to own homes like ever before. The average person could own that home.

Almost a million Black GIs came home after WWII. They had fought for the country in segregated ranks. They returned hoping for equality and at least a small slice of the American pie. For many, that slice was (potentially) a new home for little money down and some of the easiest credit terms in history. The FHA underwriters warned that the presence of even one or two non-white families could undermine real estate values in the new suburbs. These government guidelines were widely adopted by private industry. Race had long played a role in local real estate practices. Starting in the 1930's, government officials institutionalized a national appraisal system, where race was as much a factor in real estate assessment as the condition of the property. Using this scheme, federal investigators evaluated 239 cities across the country for financial risk.

So those communities that were all white, suburban and far away from inner-city areas, they received the highest rating. And that was the color green. Those communities that were all Black or in the process of changing, they got the lowest rating and the color red. They were "redlined." As a consequence, most of the mortgages went to suburbanizing America, and it suburbanized it racially (this practice is still with us).

"Between 1934 and 1962, the federal government underwrote 120 billion dollars in new housing. Less than 2% went to non-whites."

This racial logic adopted the principle that an integrated neighborhood was a bad risk - a financial risk; that an integrated neighborhood was likely to be an unstable neighborhood socially. Unstable socially translated into unstable economically. For example, in the 1940's, when the white residents of Eight Mile Road in Detroit were told they were too close to a Black neighborhood to qualify for a positive FHA rating, they built a six foot wall between themselves and their Black neighbors. Once the wall went up, mortgages on the white properties were approved. Between 1934 and 1962, the federal government underwrote 120 billion dollars in new housing. Less than 2% went to non-whites.

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal increased poverty and joblessness among Blacks; empowered discriminatory labor unions; and when the Supreme Court overturned Lochner v. New York (the right of the individual to contract their services), removed an effective legal tool to challenge segregation laws and other racist state actions.

The Short Life of the Great Society and the Forgotten Kerner Report

An enormous deal has been said about the Great Society programs of President Lyndon Johnson - especially as it pertains to Black America. And I would agree with those who say that opportunities that were not thought possible before 1964 (when Johnson rolled out the first of his Great Society programs), were beginning to be realized. There were three major pillars of Johnson's agenda: a war on poverty, addressing racial injustice and urban renewal & conservation. Nevertheless, these strides were short-lived. Yes, programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, PBS and federal education funding (albeit with minimized funding) continue with us to this day, the initiatives that were specific to the Black community were (and have been) effectively neutralized, diminished or were constantly in peril. This onslaught is not of recent origin, but began at the genesis of his Great Society.

"Initiatives that were specific to the Black community were (and have been) effectively neutralized." NegroesWithJohnson

In 1964 the Civil Rights Act (originally authored by President Kennedy) met a filibuster in the Senate by southern senators that lasted 83 days - a sign of opposition to come. Although Johnson worked tireless to make sure that as many pieces of legislation was passed as possible (partly because he was competing against the ghosts of two Presidents, FDR & JFK), he was hampered in his efforts by an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam - which effectively ate away any political capital he may have had. As a result, the progress of these programs was slowed or they were neglected altogether.

Another critical turning point in the Johnson administration was the appointing of the National Commission on Civil Disorders, chaired by Governor Otto D. Kerner of Illinois (thus the commission came to be called the Kerner Commission). The Kerner Report was released after seven months of investigation by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and took its name from the commission chairman, Illinois Governor Otto Kerner. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the commission on July 28, 1967, while rioting was still underway in Detroit, Michigan. The long, hot summers since 1965 had brought riots in the black sections of many major cities, including Los Angeles (1965), Chicago (1966), and Newark (1967). Johnson charged the commission with analyzing the specific triggers for the riots, the deeper causes of the worsening racial climate of the time, and potential remedies.

The commission presented its findings in 1968, concluding that urban violence reflected the profound frustration of inner-city blacks and that racism was deeply embedded in American society. The report's most famous passage warned that the United States was "moving toward two societies, one black; one white - separate and unequal." The commission marshaled evidence on an array of problems that fell with particular severity on Blacks, including not only overt discrimination but also chronic poverty, high unemployment, poor schools, inadequate housing, lack of access to health care, and systematic police bias and brutality (these problems are still with us today).

"The Kerner commission concluded that urban violence reflected the profound frustration of inner-city blacks and that racism was deeply embedded in American society."

The report recommended sweeping federal initiatives directed at improving educational and employment opportunities, public services, and housing in black urban neighborhoods and called for a "national system of income supplementation." Dr. King, pronounced the report a "physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life."

I feel that it is necessary that several excerpts from the report be highlighted here:

"The summer of 1967 again brought racial disorders to American cities and with them shock, fear and bewilderment to the nation. The worst came during a two-week period in July, first in Newark and then in Detroit. Each set off a chain reaction in neighboring communities.

"On July 28, 1967, the President of the United States established this Commission and directed us to answer three basic questions:

"What happened?

"Why did it happen?

"What can be done to prevent it from happening again?

"To respond to these questions, we have undertaken a broad range of studies and investigations. We have visited the riot cities; we have heard many witnesses; we have sought the counsel of experts across the country. This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate and unequal.

"Reaction to last summer's disorders has quickened the movement and deepened the division. Discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American. This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. Choice is still possible. Our principal task is to define that choice and to press for a national resolution.

"To pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and, ultimately, the destruction of basic democratic values. The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society. This alternative will require a commitment to national action- compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will.

"Segregation and poverty have created in the racial ghetto a destructive environment totally unknown to most white Americans. What white Americans have never fully understood-but what the Negro can never forget-is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.

"It is time now to turn with all the purpose at our command to the major unfinished business of this nation. It is time to adopt strategies for action that will produce quick and visible progress. It is time to make good the promises of American democracy to all citizens-urban and rural, white and black, Spanish-surname, American Indian, and every minority group."

The report goes on to recommend a number of initiatives based on three principles:

To mount programs on a scale equal to the dimension of the problems;To aim these programs for high impact in the immediate future in order to close the gap between promise and performance;

To undertake new initiatives and experiments that can change the system of failure and frustration that now dominates the ghetto and weakens our society.

"Johnson believed that the violence and riots were caused by radical groups such as the Black Panther Party and not the white racism that the report pointed to."

These pronouncements and recommendations were fundamentally ignored. Lyndon Johnson was not a big fan of the conclusions that the Kerner Report had reached - for all the work he had done to ensure the passage of his Great Society legislation, he was still very much beholden to Southern legislators. Additionally, he believed that the violence and riots that served as the genesis for the creation of the Kerner Commission were the cause of radical groups such as the Black Panther Party and not the white racism that the report pointed to. Finally, as previously stated, Johnson was embroiled and entangled in the Vietnam War that was becoming more and more unpopular; and was being viewed, increasingly, as unjust.

NegroRiotPolice
However, Nixon had a hand in the suppression of the commission mandates as well. He essentially won the presidency through a conservative white backlash that insured that the Kerner Report's recommendations would be largely ignored. This conservative backlash could be seen as early as 1968 (after only a little over three years of Johnson's initiatives) when thousands of Southern Democrats helped former Alabama governor George Wallace - and ardent segregationist - carry five states and 13.5% of the popular vote. Indeed, Nixon employed what was called the "Southern Strategy" that attracted conservative "Dixiecrats" by appealing to their unhappiness with federal desegregation policies. Nixon spoke of a "New Federalism," which would return power in many areas of government to state (which translated into the nefarious "states rights" mantra that has been used to oppress Blacks for centuries) and local levels. He cut back on the money for many of Johnson's Great Society programs, while he turned others over to the states who could decide to continue them or not.

"Nixon cut back on the money for many of Johnson's Great Society programs."

(A side note: with all of Nixon's talk concerning a scaled-back central government, it actually increased while he was president.)

So without Presidential backing, diminished Congressional support, and the loss of the champions and powerful advocates (Bobby Kennedy & MLK) of the goals of the Great Society programs and Kerner Commission's findings, legislation and programs that were sensitive to the needs of the poor and the disenfranchised languished under the heat of governmental and societal suppression. And it this truth that is missing from the current debate concerning the progressive legislation of the 60's: programs that were put into place to address over 350 years of injustice against Blacks (and other people of color), were given only a little over three years to operate and function.

Misdirections and Misconceptions: Welfare & Affirmative Action

There is a photograph that has become inextricably linked to the narrative concerning the Great Depression; a woman (white) sits staring into the distance with two (of her seven) children huddled around her; her face looks weathered, yet proud. This became the face of poverty during the Depression and it persists to this day. It created a narrative regarding the (white) poor of their sense of dignity and nobility in the midst of their economic deprivation, overwhelmed by circumstances beyond their control. Contrast that image with that of the Black poor. Reagan used the stereotype of the Black "welfare queen" to great advantage. Over a period of about five years, Reagan told the story of the "Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and collected benefits from "four nonexistent husbands," bilking the government out of "over $150,000." Even after certain members of the press pointed out that no such individual existed, he persisted in telling the story. Ronald Reagan, considered the "Great Communicator," was able to make the racist stereotype stick, thereby cementing the already-hardcore prejudices regarding the Black poor. Let's face it, when one is asked to picture a welfare recipient they usually see a Black woman with too many children using her EBT card in the grocery store line (even though statistically there is no difference between the birth rates of families who need welfare and those who do not). Maybe they envision a Black person lacking the desire to work hard enough to get out of poverty.

"Reagan used the stereotype of the Black "welfare queen" to great advantage."

Going back to my aforementioned "triple p" paradigm, we see how these individual and personal prejudices generated public opinion which created and supported the initiative called "welfare reform." Here we see how the diabolical combination of Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative (which by no means was a new phenomenon), Clinton and Gingrich came together for this assault on the Black community at-large. However, let us deconstruct the myths from which this initiative sprung. Although at the height of the discussion concerning welfare reform the most Americans believed that welfare was causing a financial hardship to many working-class Americans, the actual cost of welfare programs was about 1 percent of the federal budget and 2 percent of state budgets (McLaughlin, 1997), which is proportionally less than generally believed. During the 104th Congress, more than 93 percent of the budget reductions in welfare benefits came from programs for low-income people (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1996). Ironically, what created real financial hardship on working- and middle-class Americans was the rising percentage of American wealth gravitating to the top 1% of the population. Spending on AFDC or TANF, the programs normally referred to as welfare, totaled less than $500 billion from 1964 to 1994 (compare that to one year of Pentagon spending).

As the myth of the Black "welfare queen" took root: in the heat of the offensive against this nation's poor and Black folk, the belief was that the majority of welfare beneficiaries were Black women when in fact children, not women, were the largest group of people receiving public assistance. Less than 5 million of the 14 million public assistance recipients were adults, and 90 percent of those adults were women. The majority of the welfare recipients were white (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1995). The breakdown of the ethnicity of the recipients were White (38 percent), followed by 37 percent African Americans, and 25 percent other minority groups (Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans) (McLaughlin, 1997). This reality flies in the face of what was (and still is) bandied about concerning Blacks and welfare.

"The majority of the welfare recipients were white."

Barbara Ehrenreich in her TIME piece titled, Welfare: A White Secret (12/16/91), stated "So our confession stands: white folks have been gobbling up the welfare budget while blaming someone else. But it's worse than that. If we look at Social Security, which is another form of welfare, although it is often mistaken for an individual insurance program, then whites are the ones who are crowding the trough. We receive almost twice as much per capita, for an aggregate advantage to our race of $10 billion a year - much more than the $3.9 billion advantage African Americans gain from their disproportionate share of welfare. One sad reason: whites live an average of six years longer than African Americans, meaning that young black workers help subsidize a huge and growing ‘overclass of white retirees.'"

In this same article, Ehrenreich goes on to say, "Whites, near poor and middle class, need help too -- as do the many African Americans, Hispanics and ‘others' who do not qualify for aid but need it nonetheless."

Christopher Federico, assistant professor of Psychology and Political Science at the University of Minnesota, in his essay Racial Perceptions and Evaluative Resources to Welfare (October 2005), details "a growing body of research that indicates that welfare attitudes may be strongly shaped by negative perceptions of Blacks. This raises questions about what might inhibit the racialization of welfare attitudes. In this vein, a long line of work indicating that education leads to increased tolerance suggests that the relationship between negative racial perceptions and welfare attitudes may be weaker among the highly educated. However, recent studies suggest that the role of education may be more complex: While negative racial perceptions may be less prevalent among the highly educated, the relationship between these perceptions and policy attitudes appears to be stronger among highly educated individuals. The present study attempts to extend this finding by examining the hypothesis that the presence of a racial cue would be more (rather than less) likely to strengthen the relationship between negative racial perceptions and evaluative responses to welfare among college-educated Whites. Data from a survey-based experiment included in the 1991 National Race and Politics Study provided a clear pattern of support for this hypothesis."

Furthermore, Mark Rank, professor of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also challenges the widely-held views of welfare being a program for Blacks (and other people of color) and that it is frequently passed on generationally: "About two-thirds of people who receive welfare are white. Overall, there are more whites than blacks. When we think 'poor,' we think 'city.' We forget there is severe poverty in parts of rural America." According to Rank's research, only 1 out of 4 welfare recipients had parents who also used welfare, while 1 in 20 recipients using welfare frequently grew up in a household that frequently used welfare as well.

"Only 1 out of 4 welfare recipients had parents who also used welfare."

To be sure, there are many programs that function for the same purpose and to the same end as welfare, but are not stigmatized in the same way. Let's consider the roughly 30,000 cotton growers in America who receive billions of U.S. tax dollars every year through government subsidies. Economists say that without taxpayer help, some of America's cotton growers would lose money growing cotton. And with price guarantees and a wide array of other payment programs, the farmers receive this layer of protection. The taxpayer makes up the difference between many cotton farmers operating at a profit or at a loss. Yet, this is not considered a "hand-out" or an "entitlement." There are no questions being asked about what impact these programs will have on the self-esteem of farmers - and in my opinion, there shouldn't be. On a related note concerning these subsidy programs, is the assertion by some critics who contend that this generous financial support may be ruining the livelihoods of tens of millions of cotton growers in the poorest parts of the world.

Finally, during the run-up to welfare reform, a more expensive form of "entitlement" programs was largely being ignored: corporate welfare. According to a Boston Globe series on corporate welfare in 1996, the $150 billion for corporate subsidies and tax benefits eclipsed the annual budget deficit of $130 billion. Furthermore, that $150 billon price tag for corporate welfare was more than the then-$145 billion paid out annually for the core programs of the social welfare state - AFDC, student aid, housing, food and nutrition, and all direct public assistance (excluding Social Security and Medicare). Here is a breakdown of corporate entitlement programs form 1990 to 1994 comparing and contrasting the monies received to the number of layoffs:

Welfare Received	Employment/Layoffs
GM: $110,600,000	-104,000
IBM: $58,000,000	-100,000
AT&T: $35,000,000	-1,077
GE: $25,400,000	-80,000
AMOCO: $23,600,000	-8,300
DuPont: $15,200,000	-29,961
Motorola: $15,100,000	+9,600
Citicorp: $9,600,000	-15,700

For all this money that was channeled into the pockets of corporations, only Motorola added more workers during the four year period, while the others laid-off a total of 339,038 workers. Corporations are frequently cursed by the masses, but rarely challenged. The lobbyists and Congress not only made sure that this most expensive welfare program stayed in place, but helped it grow and expand as well.

Note: the welfare and affirmative action section will be continued in the next installment in the series. Dr. Rhymes can be contacted at edwardrhymes@yahoo.com

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories