Over the past couple of days I have been following articles at The Washington Post that I believe have utility for Rogers Park. There has been ongoing discussion in the local blogosphere about the poor, and about the criminal element. Some draw a distinction between the two, others appear to believe it is a merely an opportunity for racist beliefs to rear their ugley heads. Well it seems that the facts may trump the assumptions, which is nothing new.
The PEW Charitable Trusts have released a report on the Economic Mobility of Black and White Families. Go here for the actual report. The bottom line: black children are more likely to fall behind their parents in terms of economic mobility than white children. They aren't "moving on up" so much as they are "moving on down."
As if that wasn't enough, a Pew poll indicates a growing values gap between the black middle class and the black poor as articulated by blacks themselves. The full report is here. Juan Williams comments on this poll at the Washington Post (free subscription may be required).
Why should we care? Well it should be fairly obvious. If black children are falling behind their parents in economic mobility, and if there is a growing values gap between poor and middle class blacks, what does that imply for Rogers Park, which has its fair share of poor citizens, including the black poor? How do we stop a trend that may lead to increased criminal behavior as people struggle to survive? What incentives exist today to ensure that our children, currently in school, stay there and complete at least a high school education? How do we infuse them with the hope that a better life does exist and crime is not the only path to achieving it?
I don't particularly care to have gangbangers in the 'hood. But I do wonder if there is anything we can be doing differently to offset their influence and bring forward a generation of young people who live with hope in their hearts and have an opportunity for a bright future. Surely what the Pew Trusts have uncovered is not the last word. Or is it?
3 comments:
I think you're misstating the objections. I haven't heard anyone dispute the contention that people (black, white, or otherwise) without money have hard lives, or that children who grow up in poverty are more likely to be caught committing crimes than children who grow up in families with more money. If blacks who grow up in poverty are more likely to be poor and/or commit crimes than white children in the same financial situation, that's interesting, but it doesn't change the basic fact we all understand: poverty sucks. It sucks for people who are around it, and it sucks even more for people who are in it.
The objections I have heard (and for that matter, made) are to some of the solutions people are proposing. "Move the poor out of Rogers Park" is one proposition I object to, and "Move the blacks out of Rogers Park" is another. The objection I have is how the problem set is defined. If the problem is defined as "families are living in poverty," then moving them from one place to another is obviously not a way to solve the problem. However, if the problem is defined as, "I don't like being around poverty," then moving poor people to another place does solve the problem. I just object to defining the problem in that way. Ditto for those who don't want to live near blacks.
I also think you define the racism issue in an overly convenient way, or perhaps skim past it without really looking at it. The most common problem I see causing disagreements is that people who behave in racist ways don't want to talk about the effect of their actions; rather, they prefer to discuss their subjective and conscious intent. If the effect of a chosen course of behavior is to perpetuate the low social status of blacks, then it doesn't really matter what the intent of the actors may be. Somewhere along the way, people decided not to notice racist effects, and thus the intent to avoid or ameliorate racism has been rejected as a matter of their personal value system, whatever the individual might consciously tell themselves about their subjective, conscious intent. People who object to racist behavior rightly focus on racist effect, leaving the question of racist intent alone.
I don't think I have it totally wrong. I have never proposed moving the poor out of RP. In fact I have stated more than once that poverty is not the issue; criminal behavior is. Given the economic demographics from the 2000 Census, the notion of moving the poor out of RP is ludicrous. It simply cannot be done if that is indeed what has been proposed. Moving the poor out is a morally repugnant idea to me. Moving the criminal element out is not. I do not accept the notion that moving criminals out is implicitly racist, but I have read posts elsewhere that suggest as much.
Poverty sucks, on that we can agree. I grew up in a large family that scraped along until my mother went to work and brought in a second income. As adults, members of my family have qualified for food stamps, filed for bankruptcy, lost jobs through downsizing, lost pensions through corporate bankruptcy, and about half are making $30K or less a year and raising families. They fit right into Pew's scenario of folks experiencing downward mobility, with stagnation as the best case for one or two. Much as I would like to change that, I can't.
The Juan Williams piece on the divergence of values in the black community, which appears to be based on economic status, is more than interesting. We cannot afford a permanent underclass (of any race) that has no hope of a better future, let alone the skills and opportunity to attain it. It is a loss of energy and talent that could undermine our future as a society and a nation.
We may very well need to redefine what 'a better future' looks like and what 'the good life' is given the changes that will come about as the economy evolves away from a petroleum base and all that it entails. Otherwise the alternative may be a further downward descent leading to despair and possibly violence. The radical behavior and violence we see in the Middle East has its roots in despair, political reppression, and the lack of options for the poor who are young or middle-aged. I don't believe we want to replicate that here.
Deal with it now or deal with it later, we will have to deal with it.
Hey Christine,
Thanks for reporting on this PEW Foundation research on Economic Mobility of Black and White Families and then relating it to issues in our own Rogers Park community.
Over the years, I’ve often relied on PEW research in relation to my community development work. They always do an excellent job of documenting the "who, what, when, and where" of trends in America. I’ve found their work to be reliable and extremely valuable. Unfortunately, while documenting race-based disparities in economic status, it seems PEW didn’t set a goal of pinpointing answers as to "why" this was happening.
The closest references I found in the study as to why so many Black families (and I’d bet similar stats could be found in relation to all People of Color families) lag behind whites were some slim notes in the appendices. One researcher concluded that race is a determining factor for economic outcomes, but PEW said he "cannot distinguish whether this is a result of outright labor market discrimination, differences in quality of schooling, differential attitudes of children, or other unobserved factors." Another researcher they cite stated the obvious, "Not only do blacks have much fewer assets than whites, but intergenerational transmission of wealth from parents to children is the largest factor explaining why whites have higher levels of wealth than blacks."
Hmmm. Labor market discrimination? Inequities in quality education? Well, duh! It would have been for PEW to do some formal research about this. Yet, I do not believe we need more studies in order to lay the blame for the lion’s share of American racial disparities squarely on modern-day institutional racism and other manifestations of our nation’s racist historical mindset. The status quo has always enforced second -class status for Blacks and the communities in which we live.
The results of this study were not surprising in that they follow on the heels of a more important and more widely reported PEW study last May. In Is the American Dream Alive and Well? PEW reported that, "American men have less income than their fathers’ generation did at the same age . . . men who were in their thirties in 1974 had median incomes of about $40,000, while men of the same age in 2004 had median incomes of about $35,000 (adjusted for inflation). Thus, as a group, income for this generation of men is, on average, 12 percent lower than those of their fathers’ generation. While factors other than cash income also contribute to economic mobility, these data challenge the two-century-old presumption that each successive generation will be better off than the one that came before." In essence, as all our boats either rise or sink together, it makes sense that Blacks would be even harder hit by the economic trends facing America.
What can, should, or will we do about it in Rogers Park? I honestly believe we can make a lot happen here, but ONLY IF enough of us agree that the economic conditions facing our Black families and neighbors is a problem for us all – and not just their problem. That suggests the need for a community-wide conversation about this, one that also leverages the resources and political will of all our neighbors and institutions. Thanks for putting it out there and initiating the dialogue.
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