I am puzzled by the writer's assertions regarding the 60 percent of blacks who are considered middle class. Is the writer claiming that all of or a substantial portion of blacks who can be designated as middle class, based presumably on their household incomes, attained this ranking due to affirmative action and minority set-aside programs? Or is the writer declaring that creating the next generation of middle class blacks will be extremely difficult without affirmative action and minority set-aside programs?

Has anyone compiled any research or survey data that would tend to support the view that the growth of the black middle class is directly related to affirmative action programs or minority set-asides? I don't doubt that some black people have been beneficiaries of these programs (and many deservedly so) but it seems unreasonable, without some supportive data, to suppose that the increase in the size of the black middle class is primarily an outcome of affirmative action and minority set-asides.

I belong, for example, to an extremely large extended family through both my paternal and maternal lines. I have 34 first cousins, for example, and, although none of them are millionaires, none of them are living in poverty or close to that line. They are all gainfully employed even the one or two who had to be locked up for awhile before they saw the light. I can state without fear of contradiction that none of them have been favored by affirmative action programs or minority set-aside provisions.

One of the things that needs to be done in order to gauge the actual effects of affirmative action related programs is to identify and survey a representative sample of blacks and other minorities as a means of ascertaining exactly how these programs have benefited them. I think, for example, that the chief beneficiaries of affirmative action have been, by and large, white women, which is to say white people. It is a pity that blacks have to expend a lot of our own political capital in fighting for programs that may provide only marginal benefits to us.

The delusions about the alleged role that affirmative action plays in black success are so great that when I was in graduate school many white students thought that the large presence of blacks in the program was the result of affirmative action. None of them were aware, apparently, that the school had no affirmative action program. Blacks were admitted to the program because we applied, took and passed the required exams and paid tuition like everybody else. I attribute this confusion not to affirmative action but to the continuing need of whites to look askance at the achievements of black folks. As Albert Murray wrote in his book "Omni-Americans" black people in this country don't suffer from a lack of accomplishments but from a lack of recognition of their accomplishments.

Yes, I'm aware that your original post was not about affirmative action.

I thought the post P6 was referencing was an opener, to a it's not race, it's really class thing. Also, the thing about AA to me is not so much the program itself, but what oppisition to it reveals about white attitudes. The idea that merit only resides in white people. and that discrimination only matters when it happens to whites it troubling.

Also, while we have made gains, in spite of discrimination, I would still like more to be done- and you can't exactly do more when even the smallest pittance is being withheld.

The idea that merit only resides in white people. and that discrimination only matters when it happens to whites [is] troubling.

Can you cite an expample of this, Shannon? Or maybe just an expansion of the thought?

I know a lot of opponents to AA, none of them would say that. That doesn't rule out that we might be doing or saying something you interpret this way.

I agree in part. The black middle class would have been significantly larger than it is today if it perhaps had risen earlier in the 20th Century, say, following the second world war and during the early 1950s; and, it would almost certainly be in a less precarious position economically and psychologically than it is today if race was still not a preponderant factor in determing who gets what and why in American society.

I am beginning to suspect that class tends to serve as a metaphorical shorthand for explaining away the lack of achievement among certain blacks but it is difficult, too, to ascribe their problems solely to class issues without also factoring in the cumulative effects of race. This does not mean that race always serves as the overarching reason for failure or mediocrity but if, for example, you can't move into a better neighborhood because of racial discrimination in the rental housing market then this could have a debilitating effect on your children's life chances no matter how hard you may strive to keep the forces of negativity at bay. Granted, you still have to struggle against these elements but things can go awry at the most unexpected time and for the least anticipated reason.

So we have two completely different topics in one here.

1. Will the black middle class decline along with the decline of AA?

2. Are poor American Blacks really poor?

Personally, I don't find (2) to be all that interesting a question, except in the context of how tolerant we should be of panhandling. I don't want to live among indigent people. I agree, every American should have the opportunity to have a bed to sleep in and an electric light to turn off.

(1) Is interesting.

I suggest thinking back. What if... what if there were to have been no federal civil rights act which affected the private sector. No more Jim Crow, but no AA, not even a law which barred companies from discrimination.

It's natural, normal, all that stuff, to assume that we would be stuck in 1962. I don't believe that at all. Because 1962 was radically different, race & employment wise, than 1952. And 1952 was revolutionary compared to 1942. And 1942 was better than 1932. Before that it slows down. The point is, progress was occurring.

So let's at least agree that we wouldn't have been stuck in 1962.

Let's also agree that discrimination was becoming socially unacceptable on a national level. Not in certain locales, of course, but on a national level even in 1962 one could not operate a company which overtly discriminated against Blacks.

Let's also agree that goverment discrimination had to go, absolutely. No more segregation in state universities. No more.

We'll even agree that rule by thugs (e.g. KKK) cannot be tolerated in the USA, ever. Sometimes the federal government has to get that stopped.

What would be different?

Y'all can jump all over me, but I'll offer one thing which would be certifiably different. Before 1962 if one observed a black man in a job, one assumed "hey, he must be really good". Everyone knew that Blacks were discriminated against. After AA, it became really tempting to assume "he's in that job because of AA, and he's probably not very good". Combine this with the fact that one doesn't have to look very far to find someone judgeable as incompetent, of any race, and finding a black person such becomes apparent confirmation of the trend.

No, I don't recommend that we go back to discrmination such that we can reclaim that positive shine on successful Blacks.

It's natural, normal, all that stuff, to assume that we would be stuck in 1962. I don't believe that at all. Because 1962 was radically different, race & employment wise, than 1952. And 1952 was revolutionary compared to 1942. And 1942 was better than 1932. Before that it slows down. The point is, progress was occurring.

There's actually a cycle in race relations. There's a reason some folks call this timeframe "Reconstruction II."

I don't think that anyone is arguing or suggesting that we can or will return to, say, 1962 if affirmative action programs are ended. Yes, things were changing but the rate of change and the rate of return to black folks on the investments they were making in bringing about change was extremely slow and, no, it does not depend on your point of view.

I don't know how old you are but I can assure you the utterance of the expression of "hey, he must be really good" was confined almost solely to black people. And this sentiment always carried an undertone of sadness because we knew that white folks could be mediocre and have a good paying job whereas a black man or woman had to be exceptional and could never falter. I was born and grew up in a western city that has an undeserved reputation for being liberal but I am old enough to remember when the greatest baseball player of his time, Willie Mays, was booed by the home folks simply because he wasn't Joe Dimaggio and Willie Mays was really, really good. (I also went to the same barber shop that he did and he was an extremely nice and quiet man.)

Overt expressions of racial discrimination were perhaps becoming unacceptable by 1962 but racial discrimination was still heavily practiced in 1962. The trade and craft unions never openly declared that Negroes weren't welcome but we were not and we knew it. One west coast maritime union, Marine Firemen, Oilers and Wipers (MFOW) was so racist that it closed its books to all new members in the late 1960s rather than accept black seamen, many of them Navy veterans, into their ranks.

The fire department in my hometown had no black personnel; not even janitors or drivers. A few years earlier a small group of black leaders had gone to see the chief of police to complain that the four black patrolman on the force were virtually invisible; i.e., nobody ever saw them. A few days after this meeting all four of these officers could be found at Third and Market Streets wearing white gloves and directing traffic. I'm sure the brass and their bosses in City Hall got a chuckle out of that one but black folks didn't think it was funny. And I can assure you that none of their white colleagues thought that they were "really good". They were probably just seen as niggers in police uniforms.

I can still recall that in 1962 my late father always carried a gun with him when he went on jobs in the field, i.e., work that required him to be away from home during the week because he did not trust most of his white union brothers. Many of them had resisted his efforts to get into the more lucrative welding jobs in the field as opposed to ones in the shipyards and local in-town shops and velied threats were made. None of these people thought they were discriminating against black people. I think P6 is essentially correct when likens racism to forms of mental illness. I don't, for a moment, think any of these people thought they were doing anything wrong. They still don't.

I think P6 is essentially correct when likens racism to forms of mental illness.

Racism produces a mental illness, both in those against whom it is practiced, and, by those who practice it, as well. Once established, it is a nearly intractable and self-perpetuating memeplex which greatly diminishes individual and collective cognitive functioning.

My father was born in 1907 (d. 1986) and was an exceptionally nice, reserved, patient and quiet man, who always and everywhere carried a gun or two when he went about his business among the mentally ill. For years he worked in the meat packing industry in the midwest, and after WWII for the federal government. In this part of the country, racist thuggery was subdued compared to that experienced by his contemporaries in Mississippi, but, sufficient to warrant packing heat as a matter of course.

dlw, it's not what you SAY, but it's what you mean. Perhaps it's a cultural difference, but that sort of thing sometimes make people seem like they are lying. The thing is that they keep talking about what if 'unqualified' people get in, as if white skin itself were a qualification- I mean, how is it that nobody black is ever considered qualified?

Not to mention, there are a lot of white men who are terrible at their jobs. I have heard white boys complain about AA, and they didn't have the grades to compete with me. I know a white girl with a 1.9 GPA- they won't be asking about how she took 'their' spot- it's apparently my fault (3.1 gpa) that they can't get into their desired college. And PTC is right- many whites are mediocre and doing fine- whereas all blacks are expected to have exemplary performance. It might not be as bad as 1962, but definately not all sunshine and gumdrops.

I'm disinclined to try to decipher what he meant concerning AA. The VC piece was pretty fuzzy in that section. But as far as the relative poverty statement(s) - I'm not sure how much this clears it up, but somewhere in here I suspect Cobb is making the point that the mental illness of racism, or, more specifically the effects of the mental illness and cultural pathology of racism - when measured in purely economic terms - not relative American economic terms mind you, but in relative global economic terms - have now become negligible. If we are to progress, our political activity must now become focused on economic rather than collective identity issues and efforts.

Methinkst it is a gross simplification of the problem. Racist pathology is still very much in effect, it's simply that black Americans are not the primary object du jour of the condition.

I don't know how old you are but I can assure you the utterance of the expression of "hey, he must be really good" was confined almost solely to black people.

I'm old enough PT to recall thinking it myself.

dlw, it's not what you SAY, but it's what you mean. Perhaps it's a cultural difference, but that sort of thing sometimes make people seem like they are lying. The thing is that they keep talking about what if 'unqualified' people get in, as if white skin itself were a qualification- I mean, how is it that nobody black is ever considered qualified?

Would you say Shannon that you've observed this in all white people, or all white people who oppose afirmative action, or just some white people who oppose affirmative action?

Not to mention, there are a lot of white men who are terrible at their jobs.

No dispute there. None at all. We could put a few white women in that category as well.

Racism produces a mental illness, both in those against whom it is practiced, and, by those who practice it, as well. Once established, it is a nearly intractable and self-perpetuating memeplex which greatly diminishes individual and collective cognitive functioning.

An alternative view is that it is a more phenomenom, common ignorance combined with the willingness to speak and act from a position of ignorance, yielding a result much as you describe.

I agree, this is a more hopeful perspective. It suggests that at least some racists recover over their adult lifetimes. I think it happens.

I'm actually willing to make the case that most of us are born racists. You look out there and see people who look different. Why would we expect everyone to know what matters? Wouldn't people who don't look like me be the ones with a problem? We need to learn not to be.

There are statistics ( http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2002_May_1/ai_88679449 ) that 80% of whites oppose AA on the racist 'qualification' grounds. Black people have statistics, and studies, but whites ignore them to focus on stories about how Bob didn't get into college, and they saw a black person on campus, so they must have 'stolen' his spot. They are willfully ignorant, unless there's some law against white people on the internet or in the library that I'm not aware of.

Not to mention, while many white females are incompetent, they aren't allowed to be as mediocre and terrible as white men- they hit a glass ceiling at some point- even if they actually have talent. And don't use the stupid "we're all racists" thing to try to distract from white racism, I may be a young buck, but you're not talking to stupid people here.

"An alternative view is that it is a more phenomenom, common ignorance combined with the willingness to speak and act from a position of ignorance, yielding a result much as you describe."

I beg to differ. My father's interest, for example, in wanting to work in those areas of his industry where he could maximize the return on the use of his labor grew solely out of his desire, as he said many times to me, to take care of his family. His white fellow union members knew for a fact that my dad was a skilled and highly competent worker. He didn't goof off and he always pulled his own weight. His view (and one I completely share) was that these white men wanted to keep my father and other black people in the lowest paying, least desireable jobs. In other words, create a permanent underclass within their own union(s) composed almost entirely of blacks. Class and race are inextricably bound together in the United States.

His view (and one I completely share) was that these white men wanted to keep my father and other black people in the lowest paying, least desireable jobs. In other words, create a permanent underclass within their own union(s) composed almost entirely of blacks.

That's the nature of a union, PT. To restrict the supply of workers available to do a job, to restrict it to current union members and those they pick to join the gravy train. I'm not disputing your father's recollections at all, but I would point out that such unions discriminated against me too. No doubt I only had one barrier, I didn't know anyone in the union, while black people had two.

To the more general question, do whites resent job competiton from blacks? Of course. Everyone resents job competition from said competition. It's an emotional topic, and it's tempting to process it on emotion. Intellectually, one sees job competition in terms of individuals competing for the job, in terms of a hiring manager who seeks to get the job done at minimal cost. Emotionaly, one looks around for something to blame.

Is that common ignorance? No, but it's not primarily a racist mechanism. It's primarily a me first mechanism, with the racism being secondary.

There are statistics ( http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2002_May_1/ai_88679449 ) that 80% of whites oppose AA on the racist 'qualification' grounds.

Ok, here's the exact quote:
And even more whites (80 percent) and Hispanics (71 percent) contest affirmative action, because they say it gives special preference to some people over other equally qualified individuals.

I'm wondering if we're at a definition problem. When you discuss affirmative action Shannon, what mechanism would you be referring to?

How about this: if you're not discussing racial preference among closely qualified people, then you're not discussing AA as I would define it.

I think your understanding of what my father struggled against and the nature of the trade union movement is deeply flawed. If my father was a full fledged member of the union, that is, he was a journeyman and could satisfactorily perform the tests that are administered to workers in his class then there was no justification for his fellow workers conspiring to prevent him or any other qualified welder from working in the shops, shipyards or fields. If the goal was to restrict the supply of labor as a means of artficially maintaining the wage rate then please let me inform you that white welders were not being similarly excluded, only black ones. DWS, my father and other black men and women like him were not engaged in job competition with white folks. They were trying to feed, clothe and house their families. By the way, DWS, these were not my father's recollections. These incidents were part of our discussions at the dinner table and elsewhere. Your desire to ascribe the behavior of whites to a naturally occurring competitive nature is too cavalier and implicitly dismissive of other folk's experiences.

I once belonged to a maritime union that was run by crooks and thugs; some of them were white and some were black. (They were not gangsters, i.e., if you crossed them no one would find you with a bullet in your skull or floating face down in the bay. You might get blackballed or your ass whipped until times got better but you would still be alive.) Despite their failings they were absolutely committed to making sure that all of their members were gainfully employed without regard to race or national origin. Sure, sometimes you had to grease the palm of your patrolman (business agent) to ensure that he went to bat for you with the shipping company but any promises made were kept. It was a bad system but everyone -black, white, brown, yellow, male and female - got equally fucked in the same way which made it reasonably tolerable. What my father and his black colleagues faced was a system in which they were the only ones who got fucked despite the fact that they paid the same union dues every month.

If preference over equally qualified individuals was really the issue, they'd be all for gov't AA, because whites got and still get preference over equally qualified individuals. They only start crying when the stupid, incompetent and idiotic whites can't get jobs just because they are white. You see how that is racist there? They are perfectly happy with preferences- just for whites only.

The point of AA is a program that evens out the playing field- that reduces the amount of preference that whites get.

The point of AA is a program that evens out the playing field- that reduces the amount of preference that whites get.

Ok, so come a bit toward me, Shannon. Let me understand how this applies to an individual hiring decision. I've got it, America is somewhat rigged against black people. Where we get hung up is trying to solve that issue with identifiable, one-by-one hiring decisions. Can you explain your view in this context?

If the goal was to restrict the supply of labor as a means of artficially maintaining the wage rate then please let me inform you that white welders were not being similarly excluded, only black ones.

I'm 86% convinced, PT.

Let's agree on that as the problem statement. Not only is is plausible, I've read enough of your writing to know you as not being given to wild exaggeration.

So why would they do that?

Now we're going to mostly agree again. They did that because it bothered them that a black man could weld as good as a white man. And a substantial part of that bother had to do with a superioricist view of human races. If a black man can do what I can do, then, um, I'm not inherently better, am I.

This is close to your main thesis, right?

I don't think their reasoning was quite so logical and consequently our notions about why they acted the way they did can't be quite so logical either. I don't think they cared if a black person could weld the sections of a water tower as competently as they did. I suspect that they just didn't think that a "nigger" should make as much money as they did. In their view, blacks had no right to have economic parity with whites despite the fact that one's ability to have and hold a job was dependent on so many factors that had nothing to do with skin color. Things such as the national economy, interest rates on bonds, infrastructure needs, cost of steel and labor etc.

I think they are sick at some level and their sickness, unfortunately, can't be cured. I am reminded of a story that an Italian girl who I went to high school with and witrh whom I am still in occasional communicate with once told me about her father. She related this tale to me a few days after it happened. She and I were in the same journalism class and one Saturday we were at our school putting the finishing touches on our school newspaper. When our work was done our journalism teacher, who was a black man, offered to give several students a ride home including this girl. This girl told me that as she was being dropped off in front of her home her father happened to pull up in the cab he drove. He was apparently taking a lunch break. My classmate got out of our teacher's car and went into the house. Her father followed her in a few minutes later. When he saw her he asked her who was driving that car she was in. She told her father that it was her teacher. Her father's response to her was, "Next you'll be marrying one of them."

This teacher, by the way, is an honorable and well respected man. His offer to provide his students a ride home was made with the best intentions. He also possessed three college degrees and taught English literature. Despite all this, my classmates' father, who might have finished high school and who drove a DeSoto cab for a living, thought this black man was simply a lecherous nigger. He obviously didn't think much of his own daughter who was only 17 at the time. He didn't like black people and it didn't matter what they did for a living. We were trash as far as he was concerned. He would have never said said anything like that to his daughter if the teacher had been white. Now tell me what chance did any black person have for getting at job at the DeSoto Cab Company. Can we try next door to nil?

I don't think their reasoning was quite so logical and consequently our notions about why they acted the way they did can't be quite so logical either.

I don't find my explanaion "logical", PT; I do observe that focusing on personal insecurities is a common human trait which explains a lot of undesired behavior. Far more than malice, which exists of course but is less common.

Despite all this, my classmates' father, who might have finished high school and who drove a DeSoto cab for a living, thought this black man was simply a lecherous nigger. He obviously didn't think much of his own daughter who was only 17 at the time. He didn't like black people and it didn't matter what they did for a living. We were trash as far as he was concerned.

PT, I know this is long in your past, so take this as a general response. I'll reiterate the intellectual answer: don't grant such people an ounce of power over you. Write them out of your life, they have nothing of use to you. Look through them as if they don't exist.

I understand it's not that simple, but that's the goal. Don't let them consume your energy. Seek experiences with people who provide energy. Good people exist, a lot of them. Some of them are one's own race, some are other races.

I'll reiterate the intellectual answer: don't grant such people an ounce of power over you. Write them out of your life, they have nothing of use to you. Look through them as if they don't exist.

Hard to do that when it's your shop steward. You're talking about not letting them get in your head when we're talking about keeping them out of our way. Or we're talking about all the manuvering we have to do just to stay safe on the same road as these guys...road hogs, that's what they are.

It's been interesting following this discussion without being all up in the middle of it.

I don't get how hundreds of years of preferences, and the accumulation of those(like now Bob can get his son a job in the company because he knows people, but blacks are less likely to have that chance) will be solved by doing nothing. The thing is that many people just don't care about abstracts- we see a problem, we want it fixed.

The thing is that the individual decision counts because thousands of individual decisions locked blacks out, and we can't counter balance those decisions by hoping. I think the thing is that many people don't think that action and doing things is important in race issues. It costs them nothing to say they like black people, or even to pass them a beer.

However comforting that might be, that won't solve the problem, work is required. I understand that not taking responsibilty may be a core value, but that's not adaptive in this situation.

"PT, I know this is long in your past, so take this as a general response. I'll reiterate the intellectual answer: don't grant such people an ounce of power over you. Write them out of your life, they have nothing of use to you. Look through them as if they don't exist.

I understand it's not that simple, but that's the goal. Don't let them consume your energy. Seek experiences with people who provide energy. Good people exist, a lot of them. Some of them are one's own race, some are other races."

Maybe I walked in through the wrong door but I wasn't aware that these people hold any power over me. I was simply relating a story from my past in order to illustrate a point. I have a wide and extensive network of friends. Some are black and some are white and some are neither. In fact, some are not Americans. I appreciate your advice but I think you might have misunderstood my point. Or, perhaps, I wasn't clear about the point I was making.

I suspect that they just didn't think that a "nigger" should make as much money as they did. In their view, blacks had no right to have economic parity with whites despite the fact that one's ability to have and hold a job was dependent on so many factors that had nothing to do with skin color.

"When the colonies were first established, the British common law, which the colonists brought with them, lacked any law of slavery.11 The [*PG181]legal framework for chattel slavery was constructed by colonial legislation.12 After Bacon’s Rebellion, slavery was given a racist character.13 The colonial elite, which understandably felt threatened by the uprising of black and white servants acting together, decided that their security and privilege required them to divide and weaken the multi-racial servant class. Slavery was then restricted to people of color, and became a condition into which white servants were assured they could not fall.14"

In seeking to ascribe causal factors, one is ever at risk of gross oversimplification. Nevertheless, Bacon's Rebellion seems a compelling moment in the history of racism as an instrument of governance, while what James Baldwin said directs us to its pathological dimension with stunning clarity. One of the things that has been fascinating to me to watch is the way in which something very closely related to this mechanism of governance is being utilized to justify the middle eastern, african, and central asian oil control wars. I find this a most interesting and troubling backdrop to Cobb's call for us to get over the race politics and get on with the money politics. Evidently, colonial era assurances remain evergreen....,

It appears that both a black conservative and a black progressive see very much eye-to-eye on the theme that global standards of poverty are now being held up to black americans as the economic condition into which we are assured we will never fall! The former says drop the race politics and get with the American politics, the latter says, "he's tired of being told to settle". priceless....,, Proof once again that above all else, your way of life IS your polity!

There is definitely a reason why the last three years of MLK's thought exteriorization have been flushed down the memory hole. Some truths spoken to power can be terribly inconvenient, and so must remain unspoken.

I appreciate your advice but I think you might have misunderstood my point.

Agreed, I was off target. You didn't solicit any advice, nor demonstrate any need for such. I simply reacted.

I don't get how hundreds of years of preferences, and the accumulation of those(like now Bob can get his son a job in the company because he knows people, but blacks are less likely to have that chance) will be solved by doing nothing.

Agreed. Doing nothing is not the solution.

The thing is that the individual decision counts because thousands of individual decisions locked blacks out, and we can't counter balance those decisions by hoping.

So what do you suggest?

I've got an idea.

Fully fund the EEOC. Give it the staff, AND THE TEETH, to punish civil rights violations.

Alternately, sell discrimination credits. Make discrimination legal, but make it costly. Redistribute those costs to the areas where the discriminated tend to reside.

Another idea. Organize to create public policies which address common desires. Like fully funded college education for qualified students.

Clearly, I didn't know this discussion was going on here.

What I believe about Affirmative Action's effect on the size of the black middle class is that its success pushed black America over a key point of inflection in an otherwise steady rise. To the extent that white racism works out of ignorance of a plurality of whites (in a crowd, 4 white supremacists, 20 ignorant whites, 4 competent blacks) the real success of blacks that ignorant bigots personally witness can turn the tide. I argue that there are a few radical blacks and a few radical whites fighting a battle over the perceptions of a majority of ignorant whites. Over the past 50 years, the blacks have won the day. I think this is irreversable partially because once blacks got in under the tent, so did white women, gays, browns, yellows and others. The fixed set of existential models of a middle class wage earner has been permanently changed, and now 'diversity' is a corporate slogan.

However change about the perception of who can be middle class has nothing to do with hardball economics. So issues about economic empowerment have remained largely unanswered by black leadership. That's why arguments about 'selling out' sound so thin. I think everybody knows you can 'sell out' and get a middle class job. ITS EASY. But that does not fulfill the black power fantasies of today's political activists, so they are dismissive of simple middleclass strategies and tactics. Instead, they want to 'elminate poverty' or 'eliminate racism' or some other ungodly impossible task, and they use their focus on these problems attendant to 400 years of black history in America to suggest that nothing else has value and/or the same racism that operated with slavery operates today - hence the possibility however remote that white supremacy could make slaves of successful middle class blacks, thereby invalidating integrative strategies.

As long as there exists some nation of millions of blacks who do not overcome, then these black power fantasy activists can hold sway without having any fundamentally operative economic strategy. Unfortunately, those who do not overcome are unwilling and unable to force these activists to come up with a reasonable, logical plan. The black polity is held in limbo for a lack of cosmic justice, and the blacks who succeed in any dimension are demonized.

Did you ever wonder why black power activists hate Nelly as much as they hate Condoleeza Rice? Because both of them have power, influence and money gained from their mastery of systems that deliver such things. Black power activists have no mastery of any systems which deliver power, influence or money. That's why they're such strident moralists - its the only realm where their rhetoric works. And so they use tools of shame and pride as stick and carrot on the black masses. They have nothing else to give. They are the enemies of competence.

To answer the question 'So What' is to give some perspective on the size of the domain that America cedes to the black power activist. This is the default 'black vote', who unlike the rest of the country, is unable to separate issues like slavery (and whatever else) from their bread and butter issues. Why? Because 'black leaders' tell them so, they have a separate and distinct moral universe from the rest of the world. And so they continue to believe that what the rest of the world knows or has learned does not apply to them. It's a trap.

Now Lester,

If the federal government NEVER enforced constitutional provisions that would have made slavery and jim crow illegal until loooooong after the fact, it only stands to *reason* that installing teeth in the EEOC is a pipe dream (oh until around the year 2065 judging by historical rates of federal law enforcement, that is). Hell, the USOSC (office of special counsel) - there to enforce laws against waste, fraud, and abuse in government and to protect whistleblowers - is barely funded. Even the conservatives believe in the righteousness of THAT mission.

On the credits tip, racial discrimination is mental illness and thus analogous to pollution only when you understand it as such. Absent that specific understanding, it's just freedom of association. Enforcing laws prohibiting "freedom of association" would be a political 3rd rail of monumental proportions. Seldom do the mentally ill recognize that they operate with less than sane normal capacities....,

Seems to me that your last idea, i.e., organizing to regain control of public policy is the only available option.

I'm down for Johnnie Cochran heading up the EEOC, and putting Jesse Jackson out of his shakedown business. If the EEOC were doing it's job, Jesse wouldn't have one.

"Agreed, I was off target. You didn't solicit any advice, nor demonstrate any need for such. I simply reacted."

That's okay. No harm, no foul. Let's just keep moving west.

All this talk of perception is lovely.

And it has to change to that of economic reality, because them that have the gold make the rules. The question is whether or not enough blackfolks are aimed at making the gold such that a permanent black upperclass can be established. Who has a stake in the ownership society and what are the perceptions blocking them? I say there is nothing real blocking them from having a stake, that the infrastructure is in place and perfectly accepting of blacks. It's simply the *perception* that this infrastructure is in fact racist that deters many from using it. This operates in the same way as ignorant white bigotry.

I'm not interested to determine the pathology of racism. I'm interested in learning what those who are not defeated by racism accomplish in the wake of a successful Civil Rights Movement. Some of that is new, and that makes it exciting, and I say it represents the progress of the black race - to the extent that anybody need concern themselves with that.

Racism is not mutating into something that is destroying black success in novel and crushing ways. It's the same as it ever was.

"I say there is nothing real blocking them from having a stake, that the infrastructure is in place and perfectly accepting of blacks. It's simply the *perception* that this infrastructure is in fact racist that deters many from using it. This operates in the same way as ignorant white bigotry."

The infrastructure is in place in black spaces like Detroit, D.C., hell, even Gary. But the hurdles are not psychosomatic. They are very real. If being old school means anything, it means recognizing the barriers and taking the existential leap (using group initiative, group loyalty, and group cooperation) ANYWAY.

I think you are, unfortunately, exaggerating the degree of influence and sway over black Americans' consciousness and opinions by those whom you describe as black power activists. You are far too smart and perceptive to offer us what is, at best, an incomplete and, at worst, a crude psychological analysis of the resistence or disdain that many blacks may have with respect to Ms. Rice or Nelly. (Am I being rude by not referring to him as Mr. Nelly?) I can't speak for any of these activists but I strongly suspect that leaving aside those of this group who suffer from what you have implied is a vulgarized form of penis envy with regard to Ms. Rice that the majority of them actually have substantive objections to the policies that she espouses. Their objections may be founded on shaky philosophical or ideological grounds but that is the same basis, in part, upon which they find Ms. Rice's policies wanting. As for Nelly, I have to throw up my hands here. I imagine that those who don't rush out and purchase his music do so for aesthetic reasons as opposed to their envy of his ability to coax cash from the intersection between art, popular music and commerce. In all fairness, however, I'm sure that none of these activists ever begrudged Miles Davis his Ferraris or Gull Wing Mercedes. Which leads me to believe that it must be something other than Nelly's ability to make money that leaves these black activists so full of bile for him. I am, personally speaking, profoundly ignorant about his music and still too enamored of the Duke, Mingus, Stevie Wonder, John Hurt, Son House, the Clovers, Dinah and Billie to care one way or the other.

By the way, I agree with you compeletly about the need for focusing on economic development. This issue, however, is not a problem of recent occurrence within the black community and the blame for our collective failure to address this problem can only be, in part, placed on the doorstep of black power activists. The NAACP, for example, which is an overwhelmingly black middle class organization and has been so since its inception nearly 100 years ago has, for most part, long resisted efforts on the part of members and outsiders to focus on economic empowerment issues. I think pretty much of the same can be said of the black church, too, despite its three centuries of existence and the overwhelming mythology that has grown around this institution particularly since the Civil Rights movement.

And what is that, Michael?

Racism is the same as it ever was, yes. And it was never just a matter of opinion. It was never just a matter of self perception or perception by others.

There are concrete actions taken against Black people for reasons. We inherit a structure that sets us at a disadvantage. And you want to know what those who overcame it learned?

They learned to identify the areas the mainstream needs filled to keep it running exactly the way it ran when they found it. They learned to communicate well with white folks. They learned the taste of bile when they walked in on that conversation where they didn't know a Black guy was around, and learned to treat that as powerless.

I'm still interested in knowing why I should be satisfied as long as I make more than a guy in Haiti, but the conversation was turned in another direction long ago.

By the way, I agree with you compeletly about the need for focusing on economic development. This issue, however, is not a problem of recent occurrence within the black community and the blame for our collective failure to address this problem can only be, in part, placed on the doorstep of black power activists.

I don't think the failure (and failure it is...) can be placed on Black Power advocates at all.

I think that some elements of this group lost focus and became too enamored with their media images rather than keeping their eyes on the people's needs. Their portion of blame is fairly small, both in absolute and relative terms, but they aren't blameless.

To the extent that they moved away from public policy, from mid-range political benefits that made life better for their constituencies, and moved either towards pro-growth policies (andrew young, jesse sr.) or towards pie-in-the-sky solutions (amiri baraka, louis farrakhan), blame can be placed on their shoulders. It isn't as if people haven't recognized this to one degree or another. The day isn't over yet--check out King's Where Do We Go From Here if you can find it.

The day isn't over yet--check out King's Where Do We Go From Here if you can find it.

I have an article King wrote for Life or Time, I forget which for the moment, where he analyzes their understanding of the techniques they used (which was strictly practical) and looked at what was needed to establish and grow power in the USofA. I need to find it, I think.

I just got off the phone with the man who came up with all of the ad campaigns, starting with "Mo' Better Blues" through "Bamboozled" for Spike Lee, in the days that Spike Lee used to matter to black Americans. What he's telling me is that P Diddy ought to start a film company, and that right now, today, he is capitalized as well or better than anybody who ever made a buck in the business. I have a distinct feeling that if Combs never won an award from the NAACP for the rest of his life, it wouldn't bother him at all.

I bring this up because what I believe about current black empowerment strategies is that they essentially stop at the 'high school' level, and that they don't have anything constructive to say to black Americans who go much beyond that (except maybe 'gimme'). They don't have pull at upper levels of society. I beleive that Combs, if he were to go into the film business, would always try to get a Palme d'Or, or an Oscar. Is that because the people who award it are white and he hates himself? No, it's because they understand the highest levels of the craft.

We (black policy thinkers) are not appreciating the highest levels of black America, and so we are giving them no reason to want to deserve our praise.

It begs the question of black success. Understand that if you define black success as keeping black kids out of jail, nobody is going to fault you for that, but not if on the other hand you keep beating up the middle class for not focusing on gangbangers all the time. When black policy is dominated by empowerment strategies for and about juvenile delinquents...

What I'm saying is what I've been saying for a long time, which is that until such time as a powerful and capable black upperclass is established in this country, the prospects for black self-determination will be limited to socialist politics. And I think we know enough about what Republicans have done to turn the tables in this nation to understand that is not a winning strategy. In the meantime, nobody else on the planet cares about the Negro Problem.

Kelley is right. No new ideas.

We (black policy thinkers) are not appreciating the highest levels of black America, and so we are giving them no reason to want to deserve our praise.

What have they done that's praiseworthy?

This is the same thought process that has the Black community looking for someone to vote for rather than having folks looking for our vote. If we have to make them want to deserve our praise them, they by definition don't deserve our praise.

It begs the question of black success. Understand that if you define black success as keeping black kids out of jail, nobody is going to fault you for that, but not if on the other hand you keep beating up the middle class for not focusing on gangbangers all the time.

I love hyperbole.

Folks can decide if that what they are doing.

But I literally have left the question of black success unasked. That's intentional. Nothing in this thread, including the idea that we should be cool because we're not an Indian bricklayer, had anything to do with Black success.

And I think it possible to discuss Black success without tying it to abandoning a huge swath of folks...long term, anyway. Short term, we're the shock absorbering crumple zone on this economic vehicle, and we're mid-crash as we speak.

What I'm suggesting is that if you want to keep kids off drugs, you can vote funds and politic for policy. That's government dependence, not self-reliance. Every kid that has a D.A.R.E. t-shirt on is a ward of the state. Until such time as black churches, for example, have schools that everybody wants to get their kids in, as do certain sects of Catholicism, then black pgrogress is dependent on liberal politics. Is this what Malcolm wanted? I'm saying it's going to take a black upperclass to do this, but we haven't got the critical mass yet.

Somebody is going to have to corral the new Cosbys and give them something worth contributing to. That's where I'm going to be. And when it comes time to pass the torch to the next generation, I'm going to be looking to leaders of the public corporate world to hand off my private business.

"It begs the question of black success. Understand that if you define black success as keeping black kids out of jail, nobody is going to fault you for that, but not if on the other hand you keep beating up the middle class for not focusing on gangbangers all the time. When black policy is dominated by empowerment strategies for and about juvenile delinquents..."

If black policy, at least in terms of the activities of black thinkers is dominated by an over concern for the problems of gangbangers then the only way that we will get out of this tangle is by going through it. What I mean is that we should spend a little bit of time and brain power in examining how we became ensnared in this process. I have some opinions and ideas about how this process occurred but since you have already expressed your aversion to looking at the pathology of racism, which I interpret as having an anti-historical approach toward problem solving, I don't know if offering my views on this important issue would be worthwhile. I think a discussion on this point is needed because it will help us to better understand the obstacles we face. I spent time in DC during the mid-1990s working as the policy and legislative director for a national trade association that represented community development corporations. The resistence to having blacks focus on more than gangbangers is a complex problem that is also rooted in race. This doesn't mean that we can't create a space for looking at other issues but it is important to understand the nature of the opposition.

"What I'm saying is what I've been saying for a long time, which is that until such time as a powerful and capable black upperclass is established in this country, the prospects for black self-determination will be limited to socialist politics. And I think we know enough about what Republicans have done to turn the tables in this nation to understand that is not a winning strategy. In the meantime, nobody else on the planet cares about the Negro Problem."

The prospects for black self-determination is limited to socialist politics because the very ground out which this question arises is based in socialist politics. There is no elite class in any advanced capitalist nation anywhere in the world that is concerned about the self-determination of any ethnic or racial group. The Chinese-American elite in this country is not remotely concerned with the self-determination of the Chinese people in the U.S. or anywhere on this planet including China. This is not a criticism of the Chinese elite nor am I singling them out for any special reason other than as an example.

The issue of self-determination grew specifically out of the efforts of the Bolsheviks to address the concerns of the various ethnic and racial groups that were annexed either through threats or violence into the Russian Empire under the Czars. The Bolsheviks made a fainthearted effort to address this issue by creating so-called semi-autonomous regions, which collectively became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Later when the Communist Party of the USA began looking for organizing opportunities in the United States the Party and its masters in the Kremlin came to the conclusion that Negroes in this country in terms of the problems they faced etc. were not too dissimilar from those ethnic and racial groups that now comprised the various republics of what had once been Russia.

I don't know anything about what the Republicans have done that leads me to believe that their electoral victories have somehow become a fixed and glacial aspect of the political firmament like the stars in the constellation Orion. The Republicans will, too, have to begin to address the Negro Question and they, too, will discover that it cannot be separated from whatever this nation purports or seeks to become. After all, when has anybody on this planet ever been concerned about the Negro Problem except those of us in America?

"Kelley is right. No new ideas."

No, Kelley is only partially right and he wasted more than half the ink and paper allotted to him by not advancing any new ideas himself. Endless ad hominen attacks on people like Michael Eric Dyson and Henry Louis Gates, for example, does not help to clear the thicket even if I am as puzzled as Kelley as to why Dyson is writing books about Marvin Gaye and why he loves black women.

What I'm suggesting is that if you want to keep kids off drugs, you can vote funds and politic for policy. That's government dependence, not self-reliance.

You know there's no suggestion to limit attempts to (to settle on your example) keep kids off drugs to government action.

Why do you feel the need to reject the "lower class" so completely? How would YOU benefit by all Black middle class folks declaring the lower class null and void?

I know we're at the very limit of what white folks are willing to give up. I know there would be more left for the middle class if we abandon th elower class. I know that's not your reason...so I have no idea what your reason might be.

Briefly, I'm not so sure that Kelley or I are actually correct or on target in asserting that there are no new ideas. (Then again where are Bolsheviks today? Why follow them? Further isn't Zionism, pro-self-determination?) Rather, I think that the value of our critique is that it draws lines of deliniation which are more accurate and appropriate than the simple racial lines which determine so much of the conversation.

I think there is a point at which certain sons and daughters of slaves step out of the aegis of the problems defined by duBois. At the very least, there are a good number of us saying 'not me'.

I have no intention on being ahistorical, I'm just not so interested in the history of racism because I believe that for my segment of black America limiting the effects of racism are not going to be a leading strategy. It would be useful to come up with a list of 50, say, metrics of self-determination and list the top three proximate causes in order to prioritize a political agenda. I think you will find a different set of priorities which are class appropriate. How many of them are going to say 'racism', I wonder?

OH. Well I think my reason is simple. And I'll use the example that my man gave at the seminar the other day. Every African American history museum in th country is in danger of going broke. Why? Because they are all government funded, which means their very existence depends upon government largess and the politics of pity.

Spence may have an update as regards the Detroit meuseum, which was the best I've ever been to. I heard several black business men kicked in several million dollars to save it.

What I am saying is that there is nothing politics at the 'high school' level could have done to raise those millions. When it comes to philanthropy, you need to have millions to spare. And just like all the politics of protest against Hollywood during the blaxploitation age could never hold a candle to even the first Spike Lee film, there are things that are never going to change for black America until black Americans step up and take control.

So while there is a desparing and disconsolate black politics that aches for a way to make public schools work, there will continue to be black families that send their kids to private schools and don't concern themselves with those politics. If it turns out that public education is truly inferior, what good are the poltics of protest for having weighed in against the private solution?

In the end, you have to recognize that there are a host of issues and problems that are never going to be solved on the public dollar.

What you're saying is there's a class divide and you've decided which side to stand on. Okay.

You keep suggesting Black folks abandon attempts to counter the systemic biases that exist. You haven't given a reason why. Why shouldn't those who are NOT wealthy upperclass Blacks not continue to press their own case? And why shouldn't wealthy upperclass Blacks support their efforts? You are building the case that they are necessary for Black self-determination (an undefined term, btw, so yuou know how I'm using it). What will this upperclass do to support Black self-determination is they are not supporting the non-wealthy majority's efforts to address the problems they see?

The issue isn't whether you and Kelley are correct or not. I think Kelley is mostly correct about black leadership in this country but I tend to think that leadership in this country whether black, white or orange is fairly bankrupt. The problem here for black folks is that it makes our collective position much more precarious because we are collectively at the lowest rung on the ladder.

Limiting the effects of racism may help your stratum of black America to hold onto your gains through successive generations. I don't have any problems with you and others seeking to find a place in the sun different from what du Bois found in his day. There are other paradigms or metaphors that are available for black people to use and incorporate into their lives than dual consciousness or invisibility. Maybe Sean Coombs might explore some of these themes if he decides to emulate Louis B. Mayer or Jack Warner.

Your question at the end can be easily answered if history is a reliable guide. These new Negroes (I am not being sarcastic here) will avoid using the term "racism" as long as they are making money. If this stream dries up and they begin to suspect that the reasons for the drought has nothing to do with their products or services being inferior to the products and services of other entrepreneurs then they will begin to make noises about racism. What will be far worse, I suspect, is that they will make every effort to enlist the support of the same black underclass that they once found so wanting in appeal.

On to "Unforgiveable Blackness".

That's silly. That's like saying Rodney Peete makes noise about racism because he's not Randall Cunningham. What Rodney Peete needed was more skill than he had. And what you see in black sports dynasties is what you are going to see in more and more fields. And if the economics for those fields dry up (yeah right) it will have been the mastery of those fields that let blacks know, just as everyone else knows, what the critical factors are for success.

I don't think that the black upperclass is interested in suppressing the political efforts of the underclass. I agree with Ed Brown that a lot of folks on the left and right are talking out the sides of their necks and producing more heat than light. What I'm trying to address is the ways in which a conflict between socialist and capitalist theories battle over hearts and minds of the black middle class. I'm trying to combat the presumption that the black middle class is hurting the black nation by choosing moderate or right politics.

I think in the end that I am choosing capitalism over socialism, but I think I would be a lot less strident about it were it not for the overwrought anti-business rhetoric of the left, and the impoverished nature of black grass roots organizations.

Quite frankly, I think that by defaulting to the black church as a grass roots political organization, we replicate the exact lack of accountability decried in cases like Enron. Recall that Kelley calls for: "organizational efficiency, political accountability and self-generated economic mobilization". These are things which I think the white-collar black middle class is learning, even if it hits glass cielings.

All that said, I wonder when it all will end, this tiresome quest for black leadership. Look at banking for example. Once upon a time, racism was such that blacks could get no service from banks. So we founded our own black banks. After much struggle and progress, mainstream banks offered better services than black banks. Blacks had no reason for black banks any longer, and today they are a dying business. At the same time, I recognize that nobody has gone into the non-profit mortgage business as a solution to working class black home ownership, not even the black banks. So is there a solution which lies outside the box of mainstreaming? Surely. Nevertheless, I think the only people who are going to make a not for profit mortgage business to help blacks would be those upperclass blacks. That's self-determination. The question is whether or not the aims of anti-racism is a sufficient reason to found a non-profit mortgage business.

Dlw, let me talk about the best affirmative action program I have ever seen. It was the Health Careers Oppurtunity Program. Half the summer we took classes in chemistry, medical terms, anatomy, etc. The other half, we had internships in hosptials. Not only did this encourage people who actually wanted to become doctors to go with UT(I want to be a psychologist- but one can't pass up an internship in a mental hospitial) it also added in job training, and extra school.

There's also the idea of college recruiters going to all schools, not just certain ones, and the idea(hard to implement) of not expecting perfect performance from a black, and letting medicre white performance slide.

Now, if whites want programs like this, they need to work for it. We worked for AA, whites merely were violent, and we all know that they were wrong now. If they want constructive stuff to help their kids- they better stop whining and start working.

I don't think that the black upperclass is interested in suppressing the political efforts of the underclass.

I asked why should they not support those less fortunate Black folks. I haven't suggested suppression.

What I'm trying to address is the ways in which a conflict between socialist and capitalist theories battle over hearts and minds of the black middle class. I'm trying to combat the presumption that the black middle class is hurting the black nation by choosing moderate or right politics.

We have different issues, you and I.

My issue is, Black folks catch shit for no reason and suffer physically, emotionally and financially for it. I'm trying to figure out how to stop that.

Nevertheless, I think the only people who are going to make a not for profit mortgage business to help blacks would be those upperclass blacks.

No one would object.

What's stopping them?

And what you see in black sports dynasties is what you are going to see in more and more fields. And if the economics for those fields dry up (yeah right)

What precisely leads you to suppose that the economics of a Ron Artest'd NBA and Randy Moss'd NFL are impervious to decline? One might have imagined that jazz would be impervious to the shifting whims of popular fashion. In retrospect, that notion would now be understood as mistaken.

No, it's not silly at all. Ethnic Chinese business owners in countries like Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia have cried foul when their predominance in certain enterprises began to be challenged by so-called native Indonesians. I appreciate your integrity but simply because you might take the John Galt route doesn't mean that many of your black business colleagues would follow suit.

The analogy regarding Rodney Peete and Randall Cunningham is a little flawed because Peete, no matter what his desire or income is, cannot purchase or manufacture any more talent than what his genes, training and heart have provided to date. If you and I were selling the same products or services I could lower my prices and take away a portion of your market share. This is much easier to do as you are aware if I had more capital at my disposal or if you entered the market slightly undercapitalized, which is not an uncommon occurrence for black business owners.

BTW, I am not arguing against black business ownership. I'm a business owner and like it. I think that we need to have more black folks in business. I just don't subscribe to right-of-center policy prescriptions. As a parent, for example, I don't mind paying additional taxes to ensure that some of my children's classmates receive the medical care they need in order to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

I also didn't quite get your reference to the Bolsheviks. I was trying to make the point that anytime you engage in a discussion regarding the issue of self-determination for black people in America you have automatically immersed yourself in a socialist paradigm or construct. I wasn't suggesting that you follow them anywhere but I do think it is important to understand where their pursuit of that question led and its subsequent influence on the black left in this country.

"Nevertheless, I think the only people who are going to make a not for profit mortgage business to help blacks would be those upperclass blacks."

This is symptommatic of the confusion. We don't need a not-for-profit mortgage company to assist more blacks to become homeowners or to increase the supply of affordable housing available in predominantly black communities. A for profit mortgage company would work fine if its owners and investors were creative enough to accept and nurture a different paradigm for creating and selling housing in urban areas. The current approach simply drives up various costs and results in producing housing that is only affordable because of subsidies, grants and discounts added in during the underwriting process. There is a more productive and less costly means of providing more housing while enhancing the cities' revenue base. The problem, as I see it, is that the left and right are stuck in the past arguing about market rate versus affordable housing. Neither group understands that you can produce market rate affordable housing by changing the terms upon which the market is created. Everyone can still make money; people canget housed and the cities can restore blighted communities and rebuild their property tax bases. As long as the current cast of characters are running the show, whether they be left or right of center, not much is going to happen save in the brochures of non-profits and the press releases of developers.

Dlw, let me talk about the best affirmative action program I have ever seen. It was the Health Careers Oppurtunity Program. Half the summer we took classes in chemistry, medical terms, anatomy, etc. The other half, we had internships in hosptials. Not only did this encourage people who actually wanted to become doctors to go with UT(I want to be a psychologist- but one can't pass up an internship in a mental hospitial) it also added in job training, and extra school.

Do you beleve that when 80% of whites are concerned about AA and unfair advantage based on race, that this is the kind of program they're thinking of when they give that answer?

For what it's worth, I'm all for it.

Cobb wrote:

"Nevertheless, I think the only people who are going to make a not for profit mortgage business to help blacks would be those upperclass blacks."

P6 replied:

"No one would object.

"What's stopping them?"

Developing affordable housing is not a sufficiently sexy product. It is time consuming and lacks a lot of the bells and whistles this particular black upperclass seeks in their commercial pursuits. In addition, and this is probably much more important than any other factor, those members of that yet-to-emerge black upperclass are stuck in a system not of their making with regard to developing affordable housing. Consequently, they are not able to see that all of the resources and tools that they need are currently available and readily accessible to them. They have the ability right now to create their own market and exploit its possibilities but this requires some willingness on their part to think outside of the box. The financial risk they could potentially incur would be substantially less than what they would face by pursuing the more conventional processes used in developing affordable housing.

I think the same thing that is stopping them is relative isolation. As far as I can tell there simply doesn't exist a coordinated political strategy for wealthy black individuals. I don't believe that there are any scholars working on it. I really don't know. I sure as hell would like to find out.

PT you may be right about changing the housing market, but nobody is walking away from what NACA offers. I don't mind at all that it's run by a Jewish guy, but I strongly believe that if there were blackfolks with similar assets and experiences then when we talk about a black political agenda, this would be one of the top items up for discussion.

Remember what I'm saying. Cosby got into a controversy pretty much single-handedly, and Cosby only represents Cosby. Plenty of folks have said he could have done a much better job, and I think the kind of success we expect from somebody like Cosby is going to come when there are 100 Cosbys and a think tank. But there is still going to have to be some acknowledgement that black philanthropy is going to be a major factor in moving us forward.

But there is still going to have to be some acknowledgement that black philanthropy is going to be a major factor in moving us forward.

Oh, hell, if that's all you want...

But they won't be a major factor unless we make them want to help us, right?

Two ways to the top...seek submission or bring leadership.

Just an observation from a disinterested party.

Nobody needs to walk away from what NACA offers but what NACA offers does not address en masse the needs of urban blacks and the cities that they live in. The programs that NACA offers are good and it doesn't matter if SpongeBob Squarepants were running the organization. I am not concerned with changing the housing market in any global sense but in changing how the market functions in certain specific locales. What black people need to do is not to replicate NACA but to design and implement housing programs that are specifically geared to address the housing needs of the communities where substantial numbers of blacks currently reside. Trust me, Cobb, this has very little to do with garnering a sufficient pool of assets and it does not require the participation of one Bill Cosby or a hundred Bill Cosbys or a black think tank. Black philanthropy will be a major factor in moving us forward only on those issues that require the infusion of donor money. The housing program I am referring to does not require donors because the funding mechanisms and other pieces already exist and the beauty is that the system (laws and regulations etc.) allow you to reconfigure how the pieces are assembled. Think of it as regulatory arbitrage.

Two ways to the top...seek submission or bring leadership.

Insightful, p6.

That's precisely how it goes in corporate America, and not just for black people.

You start your own company.

Or you submit to the whims of the boss so that you can eventually get to his level. Some, many find it unacceptably degrading, and thus never climb the ladder, let alone make it to the top.

Others submit. And are rewarded with money, lots of money.

And I understand all those options. That's why I phrased it as non-judgementally as I could. I'm pretty sure my opinion leaked through though.

Dlw, yes, unless they are so stupid to say they are against things when they don't know what they are. Although some are so dumb they think AA means quotas when quotas have been illegal since I was like 4 years old- I like how they didn't care when the quota for blacks was 0, but are trying to ruin the memory of our civil rights leaders with their whining now that they get a small dose of their own medicine.

I don't get why they are against any justice or amends at all for blacks, but that's their problem. I don't see anyone keeping them out of the library or off the internet at gun point. If we're expected to fight against the weight of oppression with nothing more than a few insults, they can pick up a book, even if it's haaard.

Also, I think while assets are important, work is even more important. We got the rights we enjoy today because of work. We need to do some more work to fix things.

You know, I've been thinking about a black woman whom I saw on TV several years ago. She was one of the rising stars of the WNBA and was interviewed on TV. She grew up here and in Italy and spoke fluent Italian, a very poised and intelligent woman. And I think about Eastern European Jazz musicians in the same context as the old funk stars who make their money in Japan these days. If American popular culture and politics devolve, what is the point of spending time on it?

At the core of this discussion is my interest in making the politics of uplift accountable to reality-based economic strategies. As I tire of reahsing the subject, I shake my head at what I see as a willful blindness on the part of those whose hearts and minds are closest to those in need.

In the end I really have to ask myself, do I really care about a black legacy? Is it a real responsibility?

I don't think that any of the people who have participated in this thread, regardless of where they shake out on the political spectrum, are either willfully or involuntarily blind. We are all trying to make sense of out the reality that confronts us on a daily basis. And sometimes like the old blues songs says we win, sometimes we lose and sometimes we have to choose between the two.

American popular culture is worth preserving in my humble opinion because a hugely significant part of it contains the contributions of an untold and told number of black artists who struggled in large and small ways with the chaos of existence in order to create something of beauty. Many of them may not have realized what they were doing and may have even discounted their efforts during the process but what they left behind speaks to the best in human beings and that is always worh preserving.

I was in a bar in Kobe, Japan in 1972 and the bar's owner had several mint condition copies of several albums by Horace Silver including, of course, "Song for My Father". This is the reach and power of American popular culture and black people have played a fundamental role in its creation and dissemination all over the world.

In the end I really have to ask myself, do I really care about a black legacy? Is it a real responsibility?

POW!!!

Having reduced blackness to a psychological garment;

that we did not invent

inside whose constraints we psychologically and behaviourally adapted our humanity

whose cut and fit are clearly subject to the dynamic of fashion drift

which is often erroneously confused with africanity

..,and whose utility invariably gets reduced to a unique form of musical and athletic expression and competency

I believe the read/write head just came crashing down onto the ceramic disk. The answer is NO. It is not and cannot be anymore real a responsibility than the value we collectively ascribe to it. In my now nearly two year quest to have that ineffable value spelled out, the sum total of all the feedback obtained to date condenses to "unique form of musical and athletic expression".

All popular culture devolves. The only truly long-lived cultural productions are religious in nature. In the case of blackness, it doesn't qualify as a culture, a religion, and I'm damn hardpressed to ascribe much more utility to it than an interesting and oppositional American pop-cultural style. There it is, *blackness* is an oppositional American, popular cultural style, period.

Historically, i.e., the history occuring during my own lifetime, despite the admonitions of exemplars, MLK and Malcolm, the bright, articulate, and attractive have fled the black community in droves, in pursuit of $$$ and relative interpersonal isolation. The isolation is so great in fact, that we find ourselves sincerely discussion ways to solve the problem of isolation. Black communities collapsed in the wake of post-integration talent flight.

That flight away from the community is the number one coefficient of elevated levels of chaos and dysfunction in the black community. Moreover, those bright, articulate, and attractive folks who were able to cash in in the larger American marketplace, they now find themselves isolated to the extent that they cannot effectively integrate their philanthropic, policy, or other capabilities with sufficient gravity to make these meaningful to the community that they left behind. Given the profusion of so-called black greek organizations, 100Men, Links, etc...., on and on and on ad nauseum - in which long-standing lip service has been paid to the objective of giving back in uplifting ways, one wonders what the hell have these folx actually been doing?

Having now reduced it to a bare naked kernal, I'm nevertheless not content to simply leave my black suit by the side of the road until we dissect the root cause of black oppositionality. Something in my self-identified blackness deeply mistrusts purely commercial or economic drivers. History teaches that the overwhelming majority of American reality-based economic strategies are dehumanizing and invariably usurp other collectivizing impulses.

American commerce breeds moral and cultural degeneracy and is thermodynamically unsustainable. Why otherwise would it ever have been necessary to steal labor or violently appropriate resources? If it works, and works well, why such an inordinate historical and current American dependency on massive criminality?

In the end I really have to ask myself, do I really care about a black legacy? Is it a real responsibility?

Do you have to answer yourself?

Nice try Craig.

It's just that ever since I read Gwaltney in '92, I pledged to stop second-guessing blackfolks. So if 57% of blackfolks decide to follow Stalin, I have to say that it must make sense to them and let the devil take the hindmost. At the same time, I never question my own authenticity nor betray the black family that gave me the values I have.

The question is what right do I have to assume the mantle of the post-talented tenth, talented tenth and go climbing the wall beyond the stereotypical Ernie Banks wall? Everything in my heart mind and soul tells me to go 'head, but I know that doing so brings out all the crabs. I got middle class crabs. I'm dealing with reactionaries with no existential understanding of where I'm coming from or going to.

And yes race is a farce. Except to tell me that the people in my vicinity with which I deal with the same love and respect my momma taught me ain't black [enough]. It's precisely like what the Hutu militia were telling Paul R.: Your life with those cockroaches has no value.

I don't have to answer myself, because I will become inspired one way or another, maybe just not this week. Since I am a writer, I am not embarrassed to take my confusion public. It's what I determined to do on the internet in 1993. I'm still here.

As for the essential soul-destroying nature of American commerce, I simply don't buy it. The more I deal with money, the more I deal with human nature. It's a fascinating lesson.

Dlw, yes, unless they are so stupid to say they are against things when they don't know what they are. Although some are so dumb they think AA means quotas when quotas have been illegal since I was like 4 years old-

So now it all makes sense what you say.

But in all sincerity Shannon, I don't believe your cited respondents (that 80%) are thinking that at all. They may be stupid, but when they hear "Affirmative Action", they hear hiring discrimination. They don't hear "enriching internships and pre-medical coursework familiarization".

Do you personally observe very many whites to oppose such a program?

Actually, there's not lots of money on the corporate ladder, relatively speaking. This is the perception I spent a lot of time fighting when that was my thing. The money is in capitalism..when you can figure out how to make a dollar out of 15 cents.

But I am surprised to see the nonchalance at NACA. All the blackfolks in America who are unbanked and getting ripped off by predatory lending, this is their solution. It's the single largest investment most Americans make in their lifetime and the NACA program is specifically targetted at black and latino communities and lower to lower middle income people. NACA is saving these folks tens of thousands of dollars. Everybody who has beef with 'corporate banking' , this is your revenge. Oh well.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you had some concern about black brain drain from traditionally black communities as well as gentrification, NACA addresses that better than anything I've ever seen. So it's not about trying to keep the blacks who want to be MBAs in the 'hood, it's about doing a massive investment in the people who want to stay. That's how I see NACA.

Actually, there's not lots of money on the corporate ladder, relatively speaking.

It depends on what you're relating it to.

Consider that a single company, Walmart, pays more to people on its corporate ladder than the salaries of all NFL and NBA players combined.

The real point though is that any of us could go get some of that money. It's available to ordinary people.

There is something very important and real about the connections between the powerful and the middle class that completes the cycle of humanity. If those links fail, then there can be no progress. There must be mutual trust and respect.

The connection between the powerful and the middle class is simple. The middle class comprise a skilled labor pool whose purpose is to serve the powerful and buffer their congress with the poor and the oppositional.

If by money you mean powerful people, it would be nice to suppose that they too are as variable as human personality in general is variable. However, among the incumbent powerful, there are established methodologies [CRIMINALITY] for objectifying others in order to maintain the status quo on which their wealth is based.

I have personally seen incontrovertible evidence of significant malice shaping the governance practices of two very powerful incumbent families - particularly as it pertains to persons of color. Not historical, but contemporary practices that would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. One of these days, we'll talk Mike and I'll tell you exactly what I'm referring to.

Among the *self-organizing* powerful, I have only ever met one individual with a genuinely evolutionary or developmental motive. I believe it noteworthy that that individual earned a PhD in Physics and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from IIT - and he became powerful over the last 40 years working in concert with like minded others.

Enormous intellect coupled with deeply held religious and cultural convictions {and no history or experience of racism} have shaped this gentleman's nouveau perspective which - though demanding and hardcore - I have observed to be genuinely benign. With such a one as that, there can be mutual trust and respect.

I believe American power is too deeply rooted in soul destroying practices to ever redeem itself. Surrounded by legions of middle class just-so-story tellers whose role is to buffer the exceedingly harsh truths underscoring American wealth and power, it's sometimes tempting to just snooze a minute and believe like we're taught to believe, but NAAAAHHHHH!!!! Got to say the nayno on slipping like that brah.

Mebbe if the last three years of MLK's life and work were as celebrated as the civil rights drama, I'd be tempted to think otherwise, but then, they're not, and in my lifetime, never will be.

I personally observe many whites to be all hot and bothered about the possibilty that there might be a black man on the job or in their school. I also observe them to whine and cry about blacks getting scholarships to school.(instead of studying so they can get scholarships) The thing is that whites really simply don't care about hiring discrimation. That's just the lie they tell people. Otherwise, they'd be fighting against real hiring discrimination instead of crying because Muffy saw a black man on campus- which means he took the spot a white person DESERVED.(because in thier minds, blacks never deserve anything} You often hear it. He took MY spot, as in all the spots are supposed to be reserved for whites.

What whites care about is keeping things lily white and keeping blacks on the bottom. When have you seen these oh so concerned about racial discrimination white people do a thing to improve black schools? Or to train black kids for jobs? Or to fight discriminatory practices(real ones) in the workplace? They can't even be bothered to read more than a sentence about MLK, yet somehow they are 'experts' on racial discrimination and can cry to take attention from real causes.

Cobb, with all due respect, I suspect that your have been wandering so long in the polemical wilderness of the blogsphere that you have either lost a degree of perspective or perhaps see little need to actively engage someone in a serious discussion about a serious issue. My response to the information you posted about NACA was not one of nonchalance. I happen to know a great deal about the affordable housing industry and what makes what and why.

NACA represents a possible solution for a certain group of people who are in the market to purchase a house. As someone who has designed and implemented housing programs, I do have a concern about some aspects of NACA's program but I refrained from expressing these concerns because posting criticisms of NACA in a public forum when I have have not able to verify my suspicions seemed to me, at least, petty and unfair.

I have to admit that your further post on the subject may not be in reference to my earlier posting on this subject. If so, then I apologize but I am disturbed at the degree of presumption you seem to project regarding what my attitude is toward "corporate banks" and gentrification. In fact, what I have noticed in your messages here and at your own website is a great tendency to assume that folks who may disagree with you in part or in whole are muddleheaded idealistic liberals or wooly-headed socialists who don't really understand how the world works. I would very much like to have an exchange of ideas with you but I think you need to lay your sword down sometimes.

By the way, I suspect that what you find attractive about NACA is the scale of its capitilization and the scope of its ambition etc. but on the for real side please tell me how folks who can't afford a downpayment, for example, are going to be able to pay for a new roof on their house or buy a new furnace if the one that came with the house dies 90 days after they've closed? It is not that difficult to move very low income people into a house. The difficulty is in making sure that they have the means to stay there for the long haul.

In fifteen minutes of face to face discussions, I can cover more ground than in several days of blog bloviation. I am accustomed to overwrought polemics. Then again I have been writing online for more than a decade, so I am not really bothered by a little overproduction or underproduction. I am not offended by anyone calling me on my polemical excess or straight bullshit, in fact I remain in order to stand corrected.

I am very interested in any criticism of NACA because I haven't heard any. What impressed me about the program is not only its scope but its comprehensive approach to mainstreaming and establishing fiscal discipline. I consider it a point of light and the proper way to establish an ownership society. I find it a useful touchstone because in much of the talk I hear about whom in the business world can be trusted. Again, in the context of the standard of living available to African Americans, I am convinced that home ownership is central when we talk about the working and middle class. As concerns empowerment, I would be much more encouraged by any and all means that enable home ownership, than say privitization of retirement programs. The same goes for just about all community involvement/improvement schemes. Or as Pops used to say, black nationalism was all about Law, Liberty, Love and Land. For the urban dweller / skill seller, Land means home ownership.

I didn't mean to presume anything about your own personal beliefs about corporate banking, but I am accustomed to dealing with people who are quite anti-business, and anti-capitalist. So I often offer the question for my interlocutors about when was the last time any bank stole their money. I see banking as a fundamental part of the infrastructure that gives Americans of all sorts a leg up in this world, not to mention the entire infrastructure of credit, which informs my original question about absolute vs relative poverty. There are a great number of these kinds of institutions which enable us to do what we Americans do.

Again I don't understand how it is that many folks don't see the connection between private property and self-determination. I do honestly fail to see the causal link between exploitation and commerce, and I generally presume such associations to be a sign of a character flaw. I think that folks who say that business is crime are those people who always cheat when playing Monopoly. Of course I am not naive, in fact I understand implicitly that those with assets have more to lose than those without (unless one instinctively discounts the human value of people with money, again back to all Monopoly winners are cheaters axiom). And it is this very vulnerability of those moving between wage slavery and producer status that I am trying to protect. Yet this is mine and the PDiddy dilemma. Haters. Anyone who doesn't mind your failure is an enemy. But there is something particularly insidious about the assumption that those who pull the payroll out of their own pockets are enemies of the people. And this is what I contend with in facing the emnity of many who claim the benefit of black people to be their political concern. They cannot reconcile the kind of success I talk about with black life or politics.

That makes me cranky, and I have been particularly cranky this week partially because of my inability to express the volumes that have been going through my head since Saturday morning, and finish my review of Hotel Rwanda..

We'll get around to all of this in due time. Patience. Cool heads.

I personally observe many whites to be all hot and bothered about the possibilty that there might be a black man on the job or in their school. I also observe them to whine and cry about blacks getting scholarships to school.(instead of studying so they can get scholarships) The thing is that whites really simply don't care about hiring discrimation. That's just the lie they tell people.

Shannon, I don't know the white people you know. I do know a lot of white people who are different than your observation.

I do wish that you wouldn't tightly associate "opposes AA" with this description. Sure, there are some people which match any pattern we might imagine, but I can assure you that there exist huge numbers of white people who oppose AA, but what that means to them is purely racial discrimination in hiring or admissions decisions.

I'm regularly reminded that I exist in a special context. I'm surrounded by highly intelligent people of all races, all well paid. Lily white it ain't. About half women. Of the white people in this context, some support AA, some oppose it. But no one opposes the success of black people. That would seem downright anti-social.

I also hope you can find some experiences with such a context, if for no other reason than an existence proof.

Well, okay, Cobb, let it ride and let it slide.

There is nothing that I've written during this thread that should have lead you to think that I don't see a connection between private property and self-determination. In fact, I think that probably everyone who has contributed to this thread has an appreciation of this connection. I also strongly suspect that most participants on this list don't regard business as a crime either. I think that what many of us would like to do is to create businesses that actually add a degree of social value to our communities. This does not mean ignoring economic realities or being irresponsible in terms of taking care of business.

Home ownership is absolutely essential when we talk about self-determination. If we don't have some control over the real estate in our communities then we can't ever realistically hope to control our destiny. NO LAND = NO BLACK POLITY. Many people don't realize, for example, that in the late 1940s when a lot of so-called communists and fellow travelers were being purged from the ranks of organized labor that many of them opted to go into the real estate business. I personally knew several elderly black men, all of whom have since died, who had been fiery union organizers and agitators. When the federal government and its police agents made it impossible for them to work in their chosen fields anymore they shifted into the real estate business. They didn't see any contradiction between their previous work and beliefs and selling and buying houses because there wasn't any conflict.

I do honestly fail to see the causal link between exploitation and commerce, and I generally presume such associations to be a sign of a character flaw. I think that folks who say that business is crime are those people who always cheat when playing Monopoly.

Red Thomas Redux

to take one that's as topical as conservative politics, do a google search on biodefense companies, ken alibek, and or bioterrorism + products - compare and contrast the results of that google pull with the Red Thomas article you posted on VC in the early days.

guess we needn't consider the chronic larcenous appropriation of black cultural production, the plight of black farmers in America, Arthur Anderson ne Protiviti - Enron debacle culminating in Sarbanes-Oxley, Savings and Loan scandal, Chiquita Banana and Banana Republics, Bank of Boston felon corporation (facinating this one, as it involved massive money laundering through the Rhode Island Hospital Trust coin and currency and gold leasing operations, had much to do with the mass importation of bullion from Hong Kong into America and thence into the hood as bling ish), the list goes on, and on, and on, and on.....,

I think that what many of us would like to do is to create businesses that actually add a degree of social value to our communities.

as contrasted with jingoistic cheerleading for Wal-Mart in the hood...,

I think it was entirely reasonable at that stage in America's development for blackfolks to see their future in organized labor. But the difficulty organized labor has today in this nation has a lot to do with a real and genuine improvement in business management practices. Who, 50 years ago, could have predicted that a black woman could be paid one hundred dollars an hour to lecture white men on how to manage diversity at General Motors?

When I step back and look at labor in the context of the global marketplace, I wonder how much of what we have learned in the science of business management as goosed by Drucker that can and will alter business permanently. I often have some difficulty distinguishing the ethics of mere sensitivity and from smart working. Granted, there is a new class of professionals in America who are on the cutting edge, and what we experience may be isolated, but I am hopeful that this new white collar paradigm will spread.

To the extent that America's geopolitical interest in keeping its ability to pay the salaries and benefits that it does to this new class of workers is leveraged strictly by...hmm how shall we say it.. coersion, then I recognize the criticism of American Commerce. From that perspective it is entirely reasonable for black politics to strongly suggest an organic route rather than one leveraged by American advantage. But I am not certain that other nations & Europe are not planning to develop their post-industrial economies in a sufficiently novel form from the American model. So if engineers at startups in Bangalore and Singapore are going to have the same bourgie expectations as those in Seattle, then we may be on to something. I've always hedged this expectation however, based on my respect for the technical prowess and equivalent achievements of Russians, on their shoestring budgets. But now it is not so clear that their system was as sustainable as ours. Pity the poor brains behind the Iron Curtain.

Additionally, I am acutely aware of how the nature of the social contract between the employer and employee has changed into a legal contract. Both labor and capital are much more fungible these days. Companies rise and fall quicker, and people flow in and out of companies a lot faster (and from longer distances), both management and staff. At the same time, I can see all of this as a consequence of a transparency which never before existed.

Again, I am hedging against the virtual corporation and its contract labor in favor of those with lower margins, core infrastructural businesses and ties to the land.

There is a part of me that really doesn't know what to make of the real estate business.

I'm not sure that black people saw their future in organized labor but they had more relative opportunity to become a member of a union than they had to become a member of the management team at General Motors. The fact that things have changed to some degree (e.g., the team that created Chrysler's P.T. Cruiser was led by a black man) hasn't eliminated the need for labor to organize itself into unions no matter how this generation of business people are committed to modern day management practices. Organized labor is a relevant player in the commercial process and at some point business owners and managers who see themselves as progressive are just going to have to accept this fact. If it is okay for the owners and managers of capital to organize themselves then it is okay for those who rent or sell their labor to capitalists to organize themselves too. Sooner or later Wal-Mart stores will be organized. It may happen here or in Mexico or China but it will happen.

Re: NACA

This morning I went to the website of the state housing finance agency where I once worked as the head of strategic planning and policy. This agency, by the way, receives no local, state or federal funding; it is entirely self-supporting. It's principal business involves selling housing bonds to Wall Street investors and using the proceeds from those bond sales to provide below market rate mortgage loans to first time homebuyers in this state. I wanted to see what interest rates it was currently charging very low income, first time homebuyers. The rates are 5.00% and 5.35%, which makes them competitive with NACA. The issue of predatory is not a factor in the mortgage loans the agency approves and buys because the agency does not do business with predatory lenders who, as a general rule, are not involved in providing loans to first time homebuyers as much as they are seeking to make second and third mortgage loans to existing homeowners.

None of the above should be read as a knock on NACA or its work. Since there is an existing national network of state and local housing finance agencies that provide billions of dollars of mortgage loans every year to first time homebuyers I suspect that the prospective buyers that NACA is targeting don't even meet these agencies generous qualifying standards. This fact, again, does not mean that NACA is not doing the Lord's work. What it probably does mean is that NACA is focusing on a group of buyers who are considered even by the most liberal underwriting standards to be poor risks. That is, buyers with a history of mortgage defaults, bankruptcies, spotty work histories etc. I could, of course, be quite wrong and way off-base but this is what my experience and intuition tells me is likely. I am not implying anything at all, however, about the character of these buyers because there are a multiplicity of reasons why people experience financial difficulties and it is seldom because they are shiftless or lazy.

I have long believed that in order for a housing development program to really work in the inner-city that that program must be part of a comprehensive strategy that focuses on economic development, job creation and providing attractive, safe, quality affordable housing. (To be continued this afternoon. I have to attend a meeting.)

NACA does focus on subprime, first time buyers.

I think we could go on forever talking about living wages.

I have no intentions of talking about living wages. I think, again, that you need to resist your tendency to presume that you always know where folks are coming from.

The overwhelming majority of first time homebuyers who receive mortgage loans from my former employer are not considered subprime buyers. NACA focuses, as I suspected, on buyers who have signficant credit and job history problems. The private market would demand much higher interest rates from these buyers. NACA is able to charge these buyers lower rates because it incurred no appreciable costs in securing its funds. Ain't socialism wonderful!!

I don't even know your name, so how could I possibly know where you are coming from? Wherever that is, do they not associate the issue of labor unions with living wages? Here in California they do. We, meaning anyone who cares to in this forum, could talk about living wages forever. Stop being so sensitive. I don't care enough about you to insult you. This discussion goes on for the benefit of people who might reference it years in the future, not your ego. Engage or dont. It doesn't matter to me.

NACA cont.

The generic and historical approach toward addressing these issues in poor black urban communities has been to aim toward creating a critical building and infrastructure mass that would, provided the constituent elements were appropriately aligned, produce housing, job and commercial activities. Clearing a block or several blocks of land in the hope of luring one or two or more major retailers in the hope that these stores would attract shoppers into the area and that this in turn would persuade smaller retailers to open shops etc. The unemployed or underemployed resident of the community are expected to go to work in these new retail outlets.

These activities often begin with a great deal of fanfare and excitement. Politicians come out and cut ribbons, ministers offer the accustomed benedictions and leaders of uplift organizations are quick to tell the press that all of this hubbub represents a new day for the community. By and large, however very little of what is promised comes to pass. Developers promise more than can be delivered; major retailers grow leery either because of the economy or the project no longer quite fits into the company's strategic plans; lenders grow nervous. Within the community the agreed upon project is generally seen as an opportunity for every hustler, grifter and bourgeois nationalist to make a buck and woe to anyone who looks as though they intend to stand in their way. In short, to update an old line, even Stevie Wonder can see that this approach has not worked very well at all.

I believe there is a far simpler and more manageable approach to this process that can deliver affordable housing, provide real jobs and training to the residents and will result in the development of commercial activity in the community. This plan will not work in every city because it requires a unique set of circumstances that is not common to every city.

Let's use a city, for example, like Detroit, Michigan. Detroit has an enormous number of abandoned residential properties. The current mayor would like to see these properties seized by the city and turned over to developers to build market rate housing. The president of the city council, on the other hand, shares the mayor's enthusiam for seizing these properties but would prefer to see more housing built for poorer residents. This disagreement between two major political players (and, by implication, their supporters and others) virtually, if not absolutely, ensures that the city will spend more time debating about this and other related questions than in building housing or creating jobs in these neighborhoods.

Here is what Detroit should do:

1. Take 15 to 30 of the properties it has seized to date and build modular housing on these sites. Modular housing manufacturers have developed their products to such an advanced state that in many instances you cannot tell the difference between modular and stick built housing. Modular is less expensive than stick built and will last just as long. Buying 15 to 30 houses at one time from a manufacturer will significantly reduce the costs of these homes. (The costs of these homes can be reduced even more by using low income housing tax credits that can be sold to investors through various syndicates. The tax credit investors provide equity in the project while getting a tax write-off for the life of the credits, which is usually ten years. There are some additional requirements if this process is used but it is still doable.)

2. Recruit and train neigborhood residents to do the necessary construction and fitting work required to build these houses. Secure the involvement of the local building trades unions by brokering a deal with them in which the city (or a developer that the city hires) agrees to hire a certain number of journeymen if the union agrees to take these neighborhood residents into their unions as apprentices. The traditonal practice of having 6 to 8 journeymen for each apprentice is impractical here and will not work. One of the underlying principles here is to provide these apprentices with the type of training that wil give them both vertical skills - moving up the ladder to higher paying positions - and horizontal skills - the ability to take their skills and union cards and certificates and move to another region or state if circumstances require it. Members of the Laborers' Union, for example, can receive training and certificates in abestos and hazardous materials removal.

3. Create a non-profit organization or find an existing non-profit housing organization or a "for-real church" that will assume responsibility for identifying and training a pool of prospective homebuyers. These homebuyers could also include some of the apprentices. Pre-qualify these potential buyers by using Michigan's housing finance agency. The idea here is to purchase all 15 to 30 homes at one time from the developer. This will result in even more additional savings to the homebuyers because any developer who understands the game would be more than happy to sell 15 to 30 homes at a time rather than one at a time. The discount to the buyers would probably be somewhere between 10 to 15 percent if not a little more. Don't forget that this discount is also additional equity that accrues to the benefit of the homebuyer. This additional equity can be pooled by the homebuyers and used to fund a community center, childcare facility or an improvement district that can be utilized to assist in attracting small retailers, e.g., drycleaners, coffee shop, drug store etc. into the community

There are a lot of other details that I haven't listed here but I think what I have presented represents a practical and eminently doable departure from the past. The important thing is that it is not capital intensive and does not require an investment of millions of dollars from the city. In fact, if the city found a developer with a large enough balance sheet and a modicum of vision then the developer would assume the risks provided the developer is allowed to call the shots. In the end, the city would, among other things, have succeeded in putting properties back onto the tax rolls, reduced blight, created real jobs, revitalized a neighborhood and laid the groundwork for creating a middle class resurgence within the city. Detroit could replicate this process throughout its most run down, crime ridden communities.

Okay, I'll just make a note to ignore any of your comments in the future.

(yeah but you can't shut me up)

That's interesting, and it sounds innovative enough to be politically controversial. I like it. I think it would be a fair assumption to say that it is not too different from the methods employed by Habitat for Humanity to keep construction costs at a minimum and engage ordinary folks in the process of homebuilding. The spousal unit was recently working one site over in 'North Long Beach', which is essentially Compton.

One of the safeguards built into the NACA plan is that there are certain penalties for turning over the house before a 3 or 5 year period. I assume that the area is zoned so that speculators can not cash in.

Are there shorthand terms for this kind of arrangement that major developers and municipal zoning authorities are used to? I think it would be relatively easy to communicate these terms broadly to constituents if there were about a half dozen major components.

What immediately comes to mind is building such a small nabe around a park. One of the annoying habits of LA is that they tend to like to put a police station of some sort on new developments of this sort, but they have gotten better over the past decade. More often than not, however our conversations focus on rental properties. Real estate values our here are stupefying.

(yeah but you can't shut me up)

Is that a challenge?

Don't know if I want it to be or not, but you know it's possible.

dayum! y'all is touchy.

I'll go back onto my side of the planet for a time out, but I'll be back.

dayum! y'all is touchy.

Knowing that, you should deal appropriately. Much respect, but no restraint...in that order.

DLW, even if your friends didn't complain about them banning dixie outfitters(i.e. shirts with big fat confederate flags on them) at school, you probably know the same whites that I do. Here's how to see them- compare words and actions. If they don't match, thier actions are the true measure of their intentions. Compare what they say the reasons for their actions are, and what will come out of them. They say they are against racial discrimination in hiring? Why are they mobilizing to protect white privilege over actually doing something? Why are white workers the only ones that count?

Also, to Cobb, while they are at that, this may be silly, but why not special loans to businesses(especially small buisnesses, owned by minorities) who settle in the area? Is that too too unfeasible?

This plan shouldn't be politically controversial save for, perhaps, the use of modular housing. The unions, for example, might balk because they see it as cutting into their work but it's hard to believe that many members of the trades and crafts unions are doing much work right now in, say, Detroit's ghettos. Significant controversy might arise from the neighborhood preservationists especially if they can create an alliance with certain black homeowners who hate the current conditions but fear change of any type. If the development team designs and implements an appropriate outreach and community-based education program then it should prevent or greatly minimize any opposition. The key to making this project work is for the development team to reach out to a broad spectrum of people and institutions - government, unions, community development corporations, lenders, churches etc.- and engage their support.

This program is markedly different from what Habitat for Humanity does and does well. There is no sweat equity, donated labor, donated land or donated building materials. My thinking about this kind of project actually grew out of my looking at public housing authorities and what they could do to reinvent themselves in light of the Diaz decision, which declared that they could act like private entitities and sell bonds. (I can explain all of this later.) Some measures could be instituted to prevent speculation but these policies shouldn't be so stringent as to prevent the homeowners from realizing some return on their investment should the need arise to purchase a larger home or to relocate.

This plan shouldn't be politically controversial save for, perhaps, the use of modular housing. The unions, for example, might balk because they see it as cutting into their work but it's hard to believe that many members of the trades and crafts unions are doing much work right now in, say, Detroit's ghettos.

On Staten Island they just hire illegal immigrants. We got Mexicans like El Paso does and not all of the are illegal but enough are to make profits from the housing boom exponentially greater.

This program is markedly different from what Habitat for Humanity does and does well. There is no sweat equity, donated labor, donated land or donated building materials. My thinking about this kind of project actually grew out of my looking at public housing authorities and what they could do to reinvent themselves in light of the Diaz decision, which declared that they could act like private entitities and sell bonds. (I can explain all of this later.)

It's different than the condominium program San Francisco ran for a while there too. That was a nice idea but the residents have to put up with as much government nonsense as they would in the projects. Plus being condos rather than co-ops market value lags because the propety isn't truly liquid...which made the latest round of negro removal much cheaper.

I can't resist writing this comment. The latest round of Negro removal in San Francisco was facilitated by the city's longtime HNIC and, at that time, Mayor, The Honorable Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. What should not be forgotten is that 40 years ago when Br. Willie was first elected to the state assembly what made his victory possible was the very large number of black voters living in the Fillmore District (city planners, gentrifiers and old school cartographers refer to it as the Western Addition).

By 1968, however, Br. Willie in his capacity as a private attorney, although he was still in the assembly, was representing developers before the city's Redevelopment Commission who were seeking to gain the development rights to parcels of land in the Fillmore that had recently been occupied by the same blacks who had supported Br. Willie's efforts to unseat an old racist Irish Catholic pol named Ed Gaffney. It was not for nothing that Kathleen Cleaver ran as the Peace & Freedom Party's candidate against Br. Willie a few years later. She and others accused him of having betrayed his promise.

The so-called redevelopment of the Fillmore was the city's first phase of its Negro removal program. Admirers of Br, James Baldwin will especially appreciate this fact: Baldwin came to San Francisco and did a documentary film about the destruction of the Fillmore in which he served as the narrator and the interviewer. You can see an excerpt from the film at this link: http://www.pbs.org/kqed/fillmore/movs/baldwin.mov. In the American Experience links that P6 posted on King, Malcolm and Baldwin he (Baldwin) makes specific reference to this documentary during Part 2 of his interview with Dr. Clarke. Baldwin's film has largely disappeared from view because the rights are controlled by that so-called public television station in New York City, WNET, and they will not let anyone see it without going through the most unbelievable rigamarole you could ever imagine. I bet that the executors of Baldwin's literary estate don't know about the existence of this film. Maybe they could pry WNET's hands off it long enough for others to see it.

Here's how to see them- compare words and actions. If they don't match, thier actions are the true measure of their intentions.

That seems fair.

They say they are against racial discrimination in hiring?

Yes.

Why are they mobilizing to protect white privilege over actually doing something? Why are white workers the only ones that count?

I don't know a single person who is "mobilized". I'm not mobilized, for example. I post here on p6. I offer my opinion in other contexts too. I vote. But that's about as aggressive as I get.

The whites I know range from "support AA" to "support pure fairness". They do care about workers who are not white. Now agreed, that's what they say, but I've never seen them do anything which seemed contradictory to that to me. Is there some particular kind of action I might recall?

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To be fair Shannon, I've encountered the kind of whites you reference. There's no dispute, they exist. However, I've not encountered one for maybe 25 years. That says something about the context I live my life in. I don't hang out in bars, for example. The point not to assert that your experiences did not or do not occur. The point is that alternative experiences are available.

To be fair Shannon, I've encountered the kind of whites you reference. There's no dispute, they exist. However, I've not encountered one for maybe 25 years.

It hasn't been quite that long for me.

I got stuff going on today, but I must remember to write aboout Ben Hoffman, who was this little Jewish accountant from the L.A. area that probably saved all your lives by intercepting the development of a TOWERING RAGE in me that was inspired by a clique of just such people.

Baldwin came to San Francisco and did a documentary film about the destruction of the Fillmore in which he served as the narrator and the interviewer.

I've seen that documentary. It certainly explained how San Francisco could accurately predict the reduction of the Black population 15-20 years in advance.

I bet that the executors of Baldwin's literary estate don't know about the existence of this film. Maybe they could pry WNET's hands off it long enough for others to see it.

Right and wrong having so little to do with law and order, I doubt it. Interesting thought though...a friend of mine is Baldwin's god daughter. Maybe I can screw up the courage to approach them about rights to some sort of Baldwin memorial site.

No, they don't care about non white workers, or else they wouldn't support real unfairnes- you know with actual unfair results? Whites still own everything, and us trying to get a toehold gives them tanturms. If they really did care, they'd actually do something for justice.Real justice. The very assumption that the whole world revolves around white people's feelings is racist.

By moblilzing, I mean complaining all the time and basing their votes based on who can keep the darkies out most. There are only two ways we can go with this- either whites are so stupid that they don't know the difference between hundreds of years of real discrimination and the idea that a black person might be able to get a job if they jump through a million hoops and thus hurt white self esteem. If so, why are whites allowed to be president or have responsible jobs if they are so unintelligent? If they are that stupid, it's time to put them in institutions.

Or we can gift them with responsibilty for their actions and say they know just what they are doing. They were perfectly happy with unfairness before and they are trying to get back to that level of unfairness.In fact, before this discrimination, as they lie and call it, took place they were plenty happy to kill blacks to keep them in their place. And there are still many making excuses for that. (I personally don't get the idea that just because a few whites decided to have sense, we should act like they are all whites. It's kind of insulting to the work the decent ones have done)

Please don't insult me. If I open up the newspaper, there is invaribly a letter from one of those whites(happened last week). I can't even go and volunteer in inner city schools without ignorant whites talking about their stupid assumptions(happened last semester). I can't even get a job without getting a tirade about lazy black people and trailer park trash(happened last summer)and I have to hear white people whine about AA when they don't have grades or scores as high as mine(like about 2 years ago). I'm happy you live in la la land where the only instance of racial discrimination in the entire world is AA, but the rest of us have to live in reality.

In reality, the 'discrimination' whites face under AA is about as important as the discrimination I face when I can't find pants that fit right. Probably less important.The fact that they even think this is a real issue, let alone a main issue, shows their real colors.

Also, P6, do tell us that story. I'd feel better about taking up your space.

I can't even go and volunteer in inner city schools without ignorant whites talking about their stupid assumptions(happened last semester).

Can you tell us more? It's a space I take personal interest in, and one which others on this forum have experience as well. How did it go? How did you handle it?

Screw up the courage. I can't imagine his family and executors saying no. Yes, you're probably right about law and order regarding WNET but this film is part of the legacy of an important American writer and throwing up roadblocks seems silly. In fact, let me expose myself here. WNET wasn't even aware that it had possession of the film until I contacted the station. I contacted WNET because when I initially called KQED in San Francisco I was told that the film was in the archives at San Francisco State (California State University at San Francisco). I telephoned the archivist, who has since retired, and was told that, yes, her department had the film but it was on two inch tape and the college no longer had a machine that could be used to view the film.

Foolishly undeterred I called one of my closest friends and former college roommate who is a producer at California Newsreel. I told him about the Baldwin film and he immediately said that Newsreel had access to a 2 quad machine and could transfer or convert the film into a beta VHS format (I may have the technical process assbackwards here but you get my point) at no charge. We contacted the archivist again and told her that we had solved the problem and when could we pick up the film. Two months go by before we get a response. The archivist apologizes for the delay but explains that she was preparing for her retirement and, oh, by the way, we can't let you have the film because the rights are owned by WNET in New York.

I will not bore you with the details of our efforts to get a copy of the film from WNET. WNET claims that it has transferred the film into a VHS format. They're probably telling the truth but I don't believe them. WNET is also telling me that it can't show the film again unless and until it resecures all the original rights from people who appeared in or whose music was used in the film etc., etc. Besides Baldwin there are at least two other people who appeared in the film who are now dead so I don't know how this can be accomplished. This is a situation in which if I was wealthy (although I am far from poor) I would simply have my lawyers talk to their lawyers until the situation was resolved. I am, however, quite persistent, which may not count for much in the planned "Ownership Society" (and, no, I don't want to own 2500 shares of either AOL, Enron, World Com or their successors) but it beats a blank.

Shannon, I will tell the story later; probably a new post because this comment thread is getting out of hand. I can't imagine how long it will be Feb 15th when it closes automatically.

But don't even think about being concerned over taking up space.

And PT, you may have accidentally started something because WNET is saying the same thing about rebroadcasting Eyes on the Prize. This is one reason I needed to get that DVD recorder. And I'll have a video capture card before February.

"And PT, you may have accidentally started something because WNET is saying the same thing about rebroadcasting Eyes on the Prize."

Are you putting me on. Is WNET saying that it will have to resecure all the rights to "Eyes on the Prize" before it can be rebroadcast again? Is this the revenge of the FCC?

So Lester sparked a slow burn on the subject of the Detroit mayoral race a week or so ago that caught fire on the other side of the world. Speaking of techmobiles, on an exploding thread over at P6, a...

Ok, P6- it's just that I am so rambly, and don't want to be disrespectful.

DLW, they just didn't have any hometraining. Don't assume that all the kids from this area(Cleveland elementary in Atlanta is in a kind of run down area) have learning disablities. Don't assume that just because a woman has 6 kids that's she's on welfare(maybe I am a bit sensitive because my aunt has 7)and don't make fun of black names. I hate that. Especially don't repeat stupid urban legends about black names.

I am a young buck, and I'm not wise beyond my years. I tried to gently talk some sense, but I do admit that when the driver talked about how scared she was because some hispanics were standing on the side of the road, I did call her a sexist insult that connotated all the special wimpiness of privlege. That reminds me of another thing- I was standing in front of a bus stop with a lot of other people(we were on the black tour of the college- these tours are to encourage us to come- this one is actually staffed by a lot of students in the black clubs showing us the vibrant black life) Some others noticed a guy locking his doors as he drove past us, and were annoyed. I thought "we're going to COLLEGE".

I am a young buck, and I'm not wise beyond my years.

You're a player, Shannon. You're in there doing something. You're critiquing your own performance. You're sharing your experiences with others. You express yourself well. That's near center on the path to success.

It also means you have a lot to offer younger kids. Kids who are, like you, doing well benefit from confirmation from college students. Kids who are off to the side benefit from an example of what it means to succeed. An example they can relate to.

You'll notice I'm not going to critique your performance, nor offer advice as to how you might do better. I don't need to. You're not lacking insight. Perfection isn't the goal, progress is.

I also thank you for expressing how people, even well meaning people, can behave thougtlessly. It doesn't come natural to think about how others will perceive our comments, but indeed we need to work at getting better at that.

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I'm curious though. I tried to think of an urban legend involving a black name, and drew no hits. Can you tell me one?

dlw, I am not an example they can relate to. I'm a sqaure, a dork, a geek. They'd be better served with some of my more outgoing and cool peers. Also, it's not as accidental as you protray it- it takes serious work to be that stupid.

Oh, it was the old and crusty one about how that person's brother's girl friend's dog walker's room mate was a nurse and they saw that two twins were named Orange Jello and Lemon Jello. (but spelled differently than that) Oddly enough, what one's brother's girl friend's dog walker's room mate says about black people is supposed to be more reliable than actually picking up a book...

I'm a sqaure, a dork, a geek.

Aren't most of us? Even amongst highly successful people, most would have described themselves this way when they were 18. What occurs naturally though is that small social successes, even accidental ones, yield a bit more trust of humanity. The hint of a willingness to like people without fear of rejection. That in turn becomes the basis for taking genuine pleasure from interactions with others, and creating such pleasure for them.

I had to analyze this because when I was in high school, and even later, I was a dead-on social loser. I couldn't have carried on a dialog as you have here. I knew that it would only result someone else who didn't like me; it was true. I didn't really like them, and acted like it, and sure enough got rejected. It was painful. It resulted in serious behavioral problems. Knowing a person like you might well have made a big difference.

What you can do that I can't do is to show success which seems close. Attainable. Attainable for ordinary kids, kids who don't see themselves as cool and outgoing. Kids who know they'll never be a professional athlete or entertainer, but don't see any obvious alternatives. That covers about 90% of kids.

I'm 20, and the class geek is likely to be already acheiving. The people I end up tutoring are the kids that are having trouble in school. Not to mention, with people being as they are nowadays, I am unlikely to be more cheery or open.

The people I end up tutoring are the kids that are having trouble in school.

Shannon, if five years from now you recall one singe thought from our exchange, let it be this: teaching someone something useful for life is a fucking achievement.

Feel pride.