Not to engage in enormous detail, the statistics for West Indian descended and born blacks in America show that their mean income is identical to that of whites. They're very black, they had a history of slavery, and everything you've said here should apply to them. Bottom-line: It's culture that makes the difference not race. Thanks to the welfare system American born blacks have been shorn of their work ethic and family structures and therefore can't take advantage of the opportunities that are there for them. They have progressives to thank for this. One other thing t think about. Black unemployment in South Central Los Angeles was 48% before the recent boom. I don't have the figures but it's probably above 20% even now. Yet there's all those Mexicans, poor, many of them illegal, can't speak English, who are pouring over the borders to take advantage of the opportunities that are there. The problem isn't racism (not that there aren't racists around-- there are). The problem is a victim culture, which the left has done a lot to reinforce. Paul Lauter wrote: > Someone (DH?) wrote: > > >The > point is that in a framework where the laws are race neutral, the > economy will work to eliminate economic disparities based on race.< > > It would be pretty to think so. It would be better to check out a book like > George Lipsitz' "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness" or Micaela di > Leonardo's "Exotics at Home." > > The problem is that racist policies of the past have created disparites, > particularly in wealth, that "race neutral" laws and policies today do > nothing to overcome. For example, the main source of personal wealth for > most middle-class Americans has come from buying and selling homes. But in > the post WWII period agencies like the FHA and the VA implemented policies > that were by no means race-neutral. In fact, they tended to maintain > housing segregation, which meant that whites were able to buy property in > areas where values appreciated significantly, whereas most blacks and > Latinos were confined to areas where values declined or did not > significantly appreciate. Most--not all, of course. But the result of > this--among many, many other such policies--is an enormous discrepancy in > wealth (far greater than in income) between most white and most minority > families. And that translates into continued profound inequality in > opportunity and life chances. It would take years, if not centuries, of > "affirmative action" to overcome such deeply-engrained disparities. > It also, btw, translates into some of the violent opposition in, for > example, white working-class suburbs (see, for example, Thomas Sugrue's and > Mike Goldfield's work) against blacks moving in, since many whites did > believe (wrongly) they were protecting their investments as well as their > jobs. That's the vote Wallace (George, that is) cultivated. If you think > Flint, it's not hard to see how unrestrained corporate greed (aka, the > marketplace) led to a situation in which jobs were being moved out (they > didn't just disappear--people fixed on profits moved them out) precisely at > the same time that blacks were moving in, trying to get out of the racist > and economically crumbling rural South. It don't take a rocket scientist to > understand how the "market" in such instances produces rather than > alleviating economic disparities based on race. > Not to recognize the continuing impact of these and many other > institutional factors is, well, naive at best. Someone else can name the > worst case. Paul
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