Comments on: Race vs. Class pt 1000022

By: blacksmythe

blacksmythe — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:35:33 +0000

no. middle income families take the hit as well, as their wages are decreasing even as overall productivity increases.

By: Big Don

Big Don — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:13:55 +0000

“In 1947, the bottom fifth of wage-earners got 5 per cent of total income; today it gets 3.4 per cent.”
Makes perfect sense. Sixty years ago, anyone with a strong back could make a good living at manual labor. In today's high tech society, brainpower is required. Lefthand edge of the BellCurve takes a bigger hit…

By: blacksmythe

blacksmythe — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:19:28 +0000

There's a way to make this argument that is extremely counterproductive. I would never make the claim that nothing has changed. But once we control for the changed context (that itself comes from black activism), the relationships between different groups appear to be the same. And looking at the gini coefficients, one could argue that–again within the group–the numbers have gotten worse.

By: blacksmythe

blacksmythe — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:16:32 +0000

Answer to the first question? Obama's power to draft executive orders alone make him extremely powerful. Recall that until this year, Bush pretty much got everything he asked for. He lost on Social Security…but that's about it. We argue that Bush is a figurehead because he doesn't exhibit traditional markers of intelligence. I don't think this viewpoint is correct though. Obama won't be able to do everything he wants, but he'll have the power to do a helluva lot.

The second question is also a good one. I suggest that race and class are both important. However within black spaces by focusing on race we implicitly support intra-group class warfare.

By: Exodus Mentality

Exodus Mentality — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:14:17 +0000

REgarding P6 contention that no sane person could argue that there have been no improvements in economic inequalities, I believe Dr. Claud Anderson makes a very good argument for that very idea in Powernomics (or perhaps it was the other book). His position is that Blacks owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth at the end of the Civil War, and today we are at virtually the same, if not a lower level than 150 years ago. Relatively speaking the idea has some merit, although it is also clear to the plain view that many of us are doing much better than our ancestors ever dared hope we would be.

By: Exodus Mentality

Exodus Mentality — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:57:52 +0000

Could Michaels be right for the wrong reason? could electing Obama not make any difference because the Presidency is merely a figurehead position, and Obama will be just as constrained and controlled as some have claimed GWB to be?

On another note, is your position that class trumps race, or that race trumps class? I'm not sure if I got it (or for that matter if you said one way or the other).

By: uglyblackjohn

uglyblackjohn — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:46:36 +0000

The Fiddy/Obama comparison seems pretty fair to me.
If Obama were elected, he would still only have less than 1% of Curtis' net estimated wealth.
But Fiddy would still be considered ghetto while Obama would be seen as bourgeois by some and upper class by others.

By: blacksmythe

blacksmythe — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 02:56:10 +0000

I didn't see that comment.

What really struck me sometime ago that drove me to pursue this second project on neoliberalism was the conversation about class politics within black space. I remember reading early King, right after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. To him the country was perfect, with the exception of its segregationist practices. Once we got rid of segregation, America would be as close to perfect as we could get. He woke up, after being knocked in the head a few times, but I feel as if that's where we are now in black politics–both its study and its practice. We acknowledge the existence of institutional racism as intellectually being connected to class (and gender) but our practices–particularly those attached to even the DISCUSSION of Obama's election–don't reflect an interest in ending institutional racism. What the Jack and Jill folks do is ignore class in favor of pursuing race. What Michaels does is ignore race in favor of pursuing class. I've got the race thing down pat, which is why I'm now more drawn to class politics within black spaces.

By: P6

P6 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:07:02 +0000

That step would require Benn Michaels to give up his whole argument. An argument against neoliberalism that doesn't require lying about the impact of race in America is pretty straightforward to assemble. Benn Michaels wants to deny racism has any impact at all, or any important impact. You saw the comment the tourist left on P6…”what has anti-racism gotten us?”

No sane Black person can ask that question. Only a person unimpacted by racism (who, ipso facto, is unqualified to speak authoritatively on racism) could seriously claim no improvement in economic inequality since Jim Crow.

By: blacksmythe

blacksmythe — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:55:11 +0000

Putting them on different scales makes absolutely no sense to me. It isn't about exaggerating claims but figuring out how big of a gap there is between different strata, and then figuring out whether the size of this gap exacerbates other domestic problems. I don't have the social mobility data handy but i know it exists.