For many years black people in the United States have struggled for their rightsand their piece of the American dream. Now that the world is moving toward a newglobal era the African American person, worker and human has been left out ofthis turn in the century and, the system is letting them hang their selves. Globalization has made it so that anyone with the right equipment and knowledgecan chat or do business anywhere in the world with just a few clicks of a coupleof buttons.
Globalization is making the gap between the races bigger every day,and it seems that no body is slowing down to lend a helping hand. Globalizationhas placed a new standard on the way we live today. Because now that we havereached the technological revolution, you must have a computer or ready accessto one to be considered up to date with the world. There was a time when it wasunheard of not to have more than one television in your home. Or if you didnthave cable you must have been poor. Is being poor a new kind of crime, a crimethat says if you cant log on you are suppose to be were you are, at thebottom.
In ghettos across America I bet you can count on your fingers andtoes how many people have a computer in their house, and I am not talking abouta play-station or dream-cast. Is globalization the new apartheid in the UnitedStates? Is this away for our land of the free to keep the hold on the poor andlower middle class minorities? Are black people free in the coming ofglobalization? In Clarence Lusanes book: Race In The Global Era, he talks ofautomation and its effect on black workers. Lusane shows us that not all blacksare effected by globalization. For instance Michael Jordan and other ballplayers that have these big shoe deals. Now these sports super stars have theirfaces and name all over the product but have no say so in how, where, or whowill make the product. The funny thing about it is that some commercial ads areto catch the eye of inner city black youth.
I remember when I wanted that newMichael Jordan shoe, but my mother could not afford it. Now the commercials aregeared for the black youths but the unemployment rate of blacks is two timeshigher than whites, working the same job. Lusane has quotes from Rifkinnotes, Sidney Wilhems, and Holly Sklar that powerfully show the effect on blackAmericans in globalization. The story of automations effect on AfricanAmericans is one of the least known yet most salient episodes in the socialhistory of the twentieth century. The Rifkin notes Wilhems predicted thatAfrican Americans were being made obsolete as workers by new technologies. While some workers have jobs with no future, others have futures with nojobs.
Holly Sklar Automation has played a major role in the decline ofindustrial jobs for blacks. Rifkin calls automation a salient episode; it seemsthat automation is like a disease or even a plague for some black workers. Wilhelm also uses words like uselessness, and displaced Negro, to describe whatis happening to the African American worker, no future is said by Sklar. Theseare strong words being used here to describe the effect on the majority of aminority. Now Companys can us machines to do job in factories and all otherindustrial work that was done by blacks.
So if they have no jobs and they arebecoming useless and displaced than where and what are the blacks to do, whereis their future? Lusane writes about a study done in Ontario over an eight-yearperiod of time that showed that the black imprisonment grew 204 percent, and thewhite was 23 percent. Plus the whites that committed the same drug crimes werereleased at twice the rate of blacks. For the middle and lower class blacks isthis the new placement and their future, jail’since the 1970s themanufacturing employment in the U. S. has lost about 1.
4million jobs, from1978-1990. Some of the hardest places hit were Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, andmy hometown St. Louis. These are all places that have a high crime rate in thecity and of course predominantly all black. I can remember when GM closed downin St. Louis; it was the largest plant in the city.
The plant was more thanthree city blocks long and wide. Thousands of people lost their jobs and soonafter the crime rate jumped up. This was in the mid-1980s. The reason I rememberis because my grandparents house was broken two time in less than one year.
Thatwasnt the only factory that shut down either. My grandfather and both of myuncles worked in a packinghouse factory. Lusane also talks about how newinvestors seem to start new manufactures out in the suburban areas wherepredominantly only white people live. To add to it this is foreign and domesticinvestors that are doing this. Its not that they have less education,experience, or seniority. The difference has nothing to do with jobperformanceBlacks are fired more often because of their skin colorRankdidnt help.
Black senior managers went out the door as often as blackclerks. The Mercury News Now everything they tell you in school has nothingto do with nothing if you are black? All the hard work that a black person mightdo to move up in a company can all be taken away because of their skin color,and from this article quote is says nothing of class. Its just being black. The same study showed that only one out of every one hundred appeal wasover-turned. So black workers are in a no win situation. Lusane goes furtherabout how the National American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is taking more jobsout of the hands of black workers and placed these jobs over seas.
Black womenare also losing a sexiest and raciest battle in globalization. They are paid 56percent less than a black male doing the same job. Lusane also writes about howin the black community of Washington D. C. were blacks are 64 percent of thepopulation. But they own less than10 percent of the business.
It is sad that ablack high school graduate is more likely to be unemployed than a white highschool drop out. Some analysts have argued that African Americans and theworking population in general should prepare for the 21st century by reeducationthemselves in the areas of high technology and computer science. Who arethese analysts, and where are they to get the reeducating from? Because mostblack high school students dont have a good education in the first place. Young blacks need to understand who people like Dr. Martin Luther King andMalcolm X died. Even before their time know why black slaves were beaten if theycaught reading or writing.
I dont think the inner city black youth understand what and why it was against the law to educate a black slave. With outeducation of your past you cant under stand your present and cant see yourfuture. Frothier in this passage it puts numbers to what jobs will created ormore available in the 21st century. The top ten include cashiers, janitors,retail salespersons, waiters and waitresses, registered nurses, general managersand top executives, security guards, nurses aides, orderlies, and attendants. Most of these jobs are low paying.
Just a full time job to keep paying somebills, the majority of these jobs will keep those workers under the povertyline. To understand the classification of the black race we need to know howthey are put in to classes. In Exploitation and Exclusion Thomas D. Boston hasbroke down the way the black race is classified. Historically, racialsubjugation has created a unique class stratification among; blacks; one whoseinternal composition differs both quantitatively and qualitatively from that ofwhites.
This inferior status is constantly regenerated by economic dynamics andthe legal, cultural, the growing marginalization of the working class and thecreation of a so-called black underclass are the result of decliningmanufacturing employment and growing international competition, which hit blackshardest because institutional and employment discrimination have concentratedthem disproportionately in the most vulnerable occupations. To brake thisquote down I have to put it in my own words. Over time racial control orenslavement has created a special class formation or deposition among blacks. Their internal make-up is different in amount and quality of whites.
There arereminded of their lower status legally, culturally and by being confined to alower outer limit of social standings of the working class, the blackunderclass. This was used to explain to you in a different way the globalizationeffects blacks. Thomas starts on the 3 things we must look at in the race andclass analyses. First we must look at the boundaries of the class and whatfactors are placing these groups into their class.
Also we have to find thesimilarities to other classes. Then look at their interaction and see what theimpact is on the interaction. Then find the problems that are from the classinteraction. 2nd we must see what relationship the classes and their collectiveidentity have.
3rd we have to analyze the interaction among the race class andtheir ranking. Plus determine the effect of economic and social arrangement onthe existing classes. In putting blacks in a class many problems can come aboutin the analyzing process. One problem is putting the black capitalist class withthe black middle class. It is important to analyze the historical conditionsresponsible for maintaining its feeble existence because the blackcapitalists weak state could well be a major aspect of modern racialinequality.
The black capitalist is the victim of a long history of illegalproperty expropriation, financial discrimination and, for many decades, alegalized system of racial segregation. The inequality doesnt stop at thefront door of ghettos. It does reach the property owners and investors, whichare black. What is the black underclass? Is it a class segment, a class or auseful term at all? Who do we consider to be a black underclass? Would it be allthe poor useless displaced in the inner city? Because if this is so than how canyou take a single parent mother and a drug dealer that live on the same block?While she rides the bus to get to work or the grocery store the drug dealer isdriving a brand new Lexus truck just to ride the streets. So what is class?Pryor defines class as: the designation of a group into which persons areplaced by either objective criteria, subjective criteria, self-identification,or mixed criteria.
Depending upon the theory of social stratification that isproposed, class can be defined in terms of objective criteria (forexample income, wealth, position), subjective criteria (solidarity interms of social or economic interests; or self-identification with some group)or mixed criteria (for example, evaluation by others in society in terms ofesteem or some other scale of value). Depending upon the theory of socialstructure that is proposed, class can be defined in terms of a group thatis struggling together to change the structure; or statistically in terms of theposition or power of the group concerning the operations of the societalcausation that is proposed, class can embrace a difference defined termsof a single criterion or of some combination of set of criteria. Class dealswith political economy relations external and internal in the black society. Thecriteria of self-identification and wealth, income social structure, and theirroles in the economy, and the class ranking of the group or what political partyone group might stand behind. We can see in this definition how the black raceis singled out. Anything that deals with income, wealth and positioning blacksknow that they set at the bottom of all these categories.
Then if we look atwhat the middle and lower classes have evolved in it would poverty, crime, drugabuse, illegitament children, and a continuing failure in education. Blacks seemto one of the only groups who cant get it together. Because immigrants fromAsia and India seem to do exceptionally well in academics and economically. Itseems that white America has open arms of hostility for these other groups andthe underclass black is left to fin for them selves. In the definition of classboundaries are never brought up. But in America there is not suppose to beboundaries.
Anyone can move up and down the ladder of success. Although,different classes have over lapping characteristics for example consumer goods,political views, religion, and goals and dreams, plus there is variety with in aclass. The book uses the example of a core surrounded by fringes, which areattached to a core. In this definition I ask can the fringes leave this andattach to another core? Than can a fringe becomes a core? Better yet can a blackhomeless man or woman start a new computer monopoly and buy out Microsoft oneday? I think that this is a bit to far fetch for anyone to do. But growing upyou were told that you can be anything that you want to be, should your parentshave said but only if you are not black? Now that we know how to class blackpeople, we can move forward and show deeper into the prescription for thefalling poor black race. For my third prospective I use the text from Race andClass U.
S. the Black poor and the politics of expendability. This book waspublished in 1996 and the words are hitting home more than ever. Barbara Ramsbythe writer of this chapter, says that there was two major US political partiesthat combined for a campaign of terror against poor and working class people,especially poor Black and brown people.
For more than two generations thewelfare state as we know it is being eradicated. Unemployment andunderemployment rate has shot right off the charts. The aid from the governmentis being cut so rapidly and on such a large scale that more poor and middleclass working people will be out on the streets. Thirty per cent of themanufacturing jobs eliminated by downsizing in 1990 and 1991 were held byblacks. This economic trend, which has persisted for more than a decade withlittle abatement, means that there now exists a class of permanently unemployedmen and women are essentially surplus labuorers in an increasinglystreamlined economy. These are the men and women whom social scientistscondescendingly refer to as the Black underclass.
There have been billspast that are to effect the poor blacks the most the Welfare Bill and the CrimeBill. The welfare bill places a new degree of terrorism on single black mothers. You can only receive welfare for five years in your entire lifetime. Mothers arepenalized if they have another child while on welfare.
Colleges and Universitiesare closing their doors to exclude the poor. Funding has been cut for jobtraining to the poor, in a shrinking job market already. Analysts estimate that2. 6 million people, including 1. 1 million children will be under the povertyline by the year 2000, just 39 more days away. The Crime Bill has a threestrikes rule for provision for violent offenders treats a high-level drugoffense like a foul ball and this puts you away for life.
The new death penaltycan be applied to large-scale drug importers, sellers, manufacturers orcultivators even if no one is killed. This is basically for young black dopedealers. The system makes it seem as if poverty is the fault of the person andnot poverty itself. The attempt to reduce births out of wedlock and to getpeople off welfare puts a higher standard of moral on the poor than the peopleand persons whom enforce and made this system. While the rich stay rich and setback and call the lower classes lazy, the poor work even harder to keep food ontheir tables.
In the past, when new technologies have replaced workers in agiven sector, new sectors have always emerged to absorb the displaced laborers. Today all three of the traditional sectors of the economy agriculture,manufacturing, and service are experiencing technological displacement. The onlynew sector emerging is the knowledge sector. Made up of a small elite ofentrepreneurs, scientists, technicians, computer programmers, educators andconsultants.
The black underclass and displaced Negro are the words that cometo mind when I read this. This is permanent unemployment for blacks. Even jobsin fast food and other service sector jobs are becoming harder to come by. TheReagan administration in the 1980s began to make unions a thing of the past. This was another place were black could get a good paying job with benefits. While money for reform programs are being cut the prison budget have grown atunbelievable rates.
In Michigan led cuts for services for the poor it has a $200million dollar building project. In Missouri $94 million spent and just $50million in Maryland on new prison projects. This is supposed to be the answerfor the prison being over crowded. Its like the Doritos commercial you keepeating we will make more. You blacks keep going to jail we will build more.
Inall three books we can see that there is a serious problem in the way the systemis set up, aspecially for working class black people. There was a time when thesystems depended of the poor and lower middle class to do all the things thatthe upper class didnt want to do. The poor and lower class also depended onthe system so that the unfortunate could have something to fall back on. Withthe wide spread of the web and other technologies the black worker has be comeuseless and increasingly more or under the poverty line. For this gap to at theleast slow down and let some catch up a lot of reforms need to take place. Firstin the way blacks think, they must learn and know this system doesnt owe themanything.
Also they must stop being so dependent on the government system. Forthis to happen there has to be a change in the education of young inner cityblack youth, school reform is greatly needed. More teachers with the righttraining and education need to teach these kids. The schools should have theright to paddle kids for doing wrong in or around the schools, and do it infront of his or her pears.
Parents should be called if a student misses class orhomework, so the parent has more inter action and knowledge of what is going onwith their child. This should go on until the student is in college or some sortof technical training. Education should not stop just with the black youth; theblack men and women also need the schooling and training. We must set examplesfor the children, so we must educate the mothers and fathers and the neighborsof these children. Next issue would the lack of fathers in the household.
We arein need of a better system to find died beat dads. All of the little holes andgaps that they can escape threw need to be closed. Fathers should have to spendtime with their child. Next the prison system is losing and forgetting about alarge number of black males and females. The system that is in place now is notworking, it just helps make the gap between the races larger. We dont needmore prison or better prisons we need more reform and better reform.
Make itmandatory for en-mates to spend time in the library, and to take up some kind oftrade or skill on the inside. Make en-mates work out in a field or some otherhard labor job, even if it is just digging a 6 foot hole everyday and fillingback up. Let prisoners do some of the jobs that are being sent over seas likethe making of clothes and shoes. This way the working class is not paying asmuch for the prisoners to live in a 6 by 6.
This also gives them less time to dodrugs or to kill educating that is reform. Make jail the last place you want go. Make it so bad that when a person does get out that he or she thinks before theydo anything and say I am not going back and I mean that. Next our governmentsystem needs to look at. Funding for programs that give inner city youth moreplaces to go for free instead of the street corners. More places that parentscan take their children that dont cost an arm and a leg.
More events that ageared toward getting the attention of young black people. More block parties,neighborhood gardens, and have local DJ and rap contests. The pro-athletes needto get out in streets of the ghettos. At public schools let there be give alwaysfor grades and attendance tickets to football, basketball and baseball games. Atthe halftime show let these kids be announced and get on the court or field.
Make them fill like they have really done some thing special. Then at the end ofthe school year the pick two students in different categories to get to set inone of the box sets or set on the bench. These are just a few things to help thegrowing problem in the United States.Politics
