It
is apparent from the sheer size and fervor of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations
that African Americans are demonstrating in response to more than the vicious murder
of George Floyd by callus policemen. Although they demand that police stop
killing young black men, they are really crying out for much more. They desire
to change the whole culture of race in America. They want to change the system
in which they are the lowest class in America (or, as the scholar, Isabel
Wilkerson would say, “ the subordinate caste”), the poorest Americans with the
lowest paying jobs, the residents of the poorest slums, the recipients [JEL1] of the worst education and the
worst medical care, the people with the highest proportion of prison
incarceration, and the victims of the most police brutality. They get no
respect from White Americans.
While
elimination of these disadvantages would be wonderful for Blacks, and wonderful
for America, achievement of these goals in the near future is very doubtful.
Over the eight decades of my lifetime there have been many similar
demonstrations and riots in every major city in America. They have accomplished very little. Just look at what African Americans have to
overcome.
According to the
Economic Policy Institute, African Americans are paid less
than whites at every education level. While a college education results in
higher wages—both for whites and blacks—it does not eliminate the Black-White
wage gap. Since 1979, the gaps between Black and White workers have grown the
most among workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher. On average, Black men earn
87 cents for every dollar White men earn.
As a result of
the wide financial gap between Whites and Blacks, the entire life and culture
of the two races is dramatically different. According
to Forbes, African-Americans have only a fraction of the wealth
that whites have. At the median in 2016, non-retired African-Americans
had $13,460 in wealth or only 9.5% of the median wealth of $142,180 that whites
had at that time. This huge discrepancy in income and wealth affects everything
in the lives of Black Americans.
Lack of income and wealth dictates the kind of
neighborhood Blacks can afford to live in and the public schools they attend.
Children of color are frequently afforded less educational
opportunities. According to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), Black
children often attend schools with less qualified and lower-paid
teachers. Teachers (particularly non-black teachers) have lower
expectations of black students. That can send children the message that they're
unable to perform as well as children of different skin tones.
Black children are less likely to be ready for college.
For example, 61% of the black high school students who took the ACT in 2015 met
none of the four ACT college readiness benchmarks. That's almost twice the rate
of all students who took the ACT that year.
Often, Black people cannot afford to
live in predominantly White neighborhoods. They are relegated to areas where housing
is marginal (in other words--the slums). The neighborhoods Blacks live in
account for many of the other problems of African Americans including gangs, drugs,
crime, arrest, and incarceration.
It would be nice if White people changed
their attitudes toward African Americans, if large employers started giving
Black employees the exact same wages as white employees, if police stopped
profiling Black drivers, and stopped all brutality toward Blacks. It would be
nice if we suddenly had real equality in America. But that is not going to
happen. For hundreds of years Blacks have suffered at the hands of Whites from
slavery, segregation, discrimination, hatred, prejudice, racial profiling,
police brutality, and other things. On a daily basis ordinary middle-class and
poor Blacks confront nasty little acts of racism. These acts by Whites are
frequently subtle and even unconscious.
I have a modest proposal. Because so
many of the problems of African Americans come from low income and lack of
wealth, one partial solution would be for the government to pay the less
affluent Blacks substantial reparations. After the hell they have been through
they deserve it. Local reparations won’t cut it. This is a job for the federal
government in Washington. I’m thinking from $500 thousand to $1 million for
each adult person, paid in large installments over a period of a few years. You
think that’s impossible? Well, financially, it should be possible. A government
that can pay trillions of dollars for the CARE Act, including stimulus checks
to over 200 million Americans and billions for bailouts to thousands of
businesses, with another round of stimulus checks and bailouts to come, should
be able to come up with reparations for its approximately 24 million Blacks.
On the other hand it may be
impossible to get the benighted people in Congress and the Government to even
consider something that has a chance to partially solve the problems of Black
America. Yes, this would be only a partial solution. There are so many things
that have to be done..
[JEL1]Very n
