Buried deep in the nearly 90 page report are perceptual realities that have caused black optimism to wane. White attitudes (and to a lesser degree, Latino attitudes) are diametrically opposite those of Blacks, in their analysis of why the state of black America has regressed. More than twice as many Blacks (as Whites) surveyed, felt racial discrimination was the reason Blacks could not get ahead. This refusal to acknowledge racism in its various forms, overt and covert, continues to be a dividing point in the nation. The pathology comes in when asked, two-thirds of all the people surveyed, including 71% of Whites, 59% of Latinos and even 53% of Blacks, felt that Blacks themselves were responsible for their own condition in not being able to get ahead.
The victimization of Blacks and their socio-economic circumstance has been historic and persistent over the past 140 years (since the end of slavery). The reality is that 220 years after the three-fifths compromise was effectuated at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the study affirmed that black median income as a percentage of white median income has dropped from 65% to 61% since 2000, back to three-fifths (actual average income is 57% of whites, less than three-fifths). Economic subjugation continues to be the prevailing discriminator in our society that directly affects one’s quality of life.
The other factor that uplifts quality of life is education, and again where 56% of Blacks feel that it is more important to go to racially mixed schools, only 23% of Whites feel that way. Conversely, 65% of Whites feel it is more important to go to local community schools, and only a third (33%) of Black surveyed feel that way. The barrier then becomes de facto segregation that creates the invisible lines of separatism and discriminates according to where one lives.
In the battle for racial equality in America, many people forget that while De Jure (separate by law) segregation lost in the desegregation fight, De Facto (separation by social norms and residential patterns) segregation WON. As long as Whites could keep their neighborhoods separate, they could advocate for local school rights and keep their schools separate. That’s where housing discrimination (where 65% of Blacks stated in the Pew study that they always face racial discrimination in renting or buying a house) plays large. Yet, white attitudes rarely (15%) acknowledge anti-black discrimination as a factor in the black state of affairs. 71% of Whites say Blacks are responsible for their own condition. Dismal as it is.
To further feed this pathological mindset of black retrogression is how the study plays the “immigrant card” against Blacks, as if immigrant workers are really the problem in black unemployment. The survey even indicts the black “work ethic” by suggesting that everybody across the board (including Blacks) sees immigrants as working harder in low wage jobs than Blacks. This is a false indicator because employers use immigrants to undermine livable wages, then once immigrants have the jobs-they unionize and advocate for higher wages. If the jobs were offered at higher wages, maybe the jobs would be more attractive to Blacks. Wage suppression is the issue here, not the black work ethic.
This brings the black class conflict full circle, as one witnesses the bifurcation of income within Black America - you also witness the struggle to stay above the “class line,” while ignoring the “race line.” In plain terms, Blacks are now fighting the “effects” of racism instead of the “causes” of racism. It’s misguided to even suggest that middle class Blacks would be a cause of the circumstances of poorer Blacks, except to infer that if middle class Blacks didn’t leave the community, the quality of life of poor Blacks would be different. Again, a false assumption but one created to take attention from the real issues of lack of change in white attitudes over the past twenty years or the retrogression in socio-economic circumstances tied to hidden biases.
Whether or not the study substantiates black optimism fading, or black progress in regression, the state of Black America is really the state of some harsh racial realities in America - realities that Blacks see one way, Whites see another and everybody sees somewhere in-between. To ignore that Blacks are still disproportionately discriminated against, and to say the victim is victimizing himself, is to look at the situation through blinders. Where optimism once reflected the world through “rose-colored” glasses, reality, even pessimism, has framed this new world order through colorblind glasses. With the Pew Study, society, through its researchers and academicians, is preparing to validate colorblindness in the same ways slavery and segregation were validated. Now it’s up to the black community, the most conveniently studied population, not to co-sign the pathology.
- Reprinted by permission of The Black Commentator.com
- BC Columnist Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of the new book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com.
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