The African American Dilemma:
Freedom Without Resources is Meaningless!
(The Need for a Marshall Plan for United States Inner Cities!)
The epic struggles of the civil rights movements in the 1950’s and 1960’s culminated with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally guaranteeing the equality of rights to African Americans. It was the formal ending to the blatant and manifest discrimination and segregation that historically plagued these dominated, disenfranchised, downtrodden communities. Yet, Dr. King’s attempt to widen his revolution to cities in the north, by going and living in a Chicago ghetto educated him to the realization, that with all the political freedom already realized by many northern African Americans, there still existed widespread devastating poverty resultant from extant inequality fostered by discrimination and segregation. It was discrimination and segregation, now consciously, now unconsciously, now latent, now manifest, created and maintained by a racist society that exploited and depressed them through an economic ghettoization. In those times and today, in communities all across America, African Americans became a class of citizens to be exploited through higher rents and substandard housing, under funded and ill equipped schools, poorly maintained streets and other public utilities, lack of opportunity in jobs and skills training, inability to pursue higher education, or to save money, given the low wages most of them made, in order to improve their life chances and a police surveillance system that marked these communities as harboring the worst criminal elements in society. The litany of economic discrimination that ramifies throughout and diminishes these African American communities is virtually endless. The summary essence of King’s experience in Chicago further radicalized him and transformed his mission from one of politically freeing African Americans in the south to one of addressing the economic injustices that all poor peoples suffer regardless of race. He came to realize that the key problem in a democracy that promises universal rights, yet allows widespread exploitation by its economic institutions, is at base an inherent contradiction. It was and is a contradiction that inevitably results from combining two incompatible systems: one based on equality, the other on inequality. The fundamental enduring fact is Freedom is meaningless without resources! The inherent connection between freedom and power, that is access to resources is a profound reason that a disproportionate amount of African Americans continue to languish in an island of poverty amidst a sea of national prosperity. In short, freedom without resources translates into freedom to fail; one has no power to address their problems of living, their grievances against the malfeasance of a heartless market economy or the indifference of an ostensible democracy. Our inner cities became economic ghettoes where people were increasingly unable to extract themselves from a culture built out of the ruins of their predicament, formed as they were from a multitude of enduring deprivations, born from omnipresent forces of domination. King’s realization is summed up in his quote; ”Call it a democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.”
Many White people today suffered from the “severe recession” that undermined their economic prosperity in 2008 and they began to blame the system for their personal problems. Personal problems became public issues. This, only because White middle and working classes that were affected had resources to cry out and address the deprivations emanating from that recession. But for many African Americans, who have lived largely without political or economic resources for generations, their cries for redress fell largely on deaf ears. Their personal problems were simply their personal problems. Society forced them to own their failures as personal and deprived them of the rights to redress. Cynical politicians have long had a tradition of blaming the victim when it comes to their understanding of how it is that many Black communities continue to languish economically within American Society. This is true of both liberals and conservatives! Indeed, most politicians and even many social scientist historically configured the problems endemic to the African American situation as a result of their culture of poverty or what is worse their personal failures; They simply are not equal to the task of living successfully by the rest of societies standards. For far too long rhetoric of politicians offering promises and hope have served to quell the leadership of the Black community while serving to condemn a disproportionate amount of African Americans to persistent poverty and hopelessness. Political rhetoric rarely translates into fundamental change. Change comes from the increasing insight that the impossible has become possible, that what seemed to be universal laws are simply manmade and serve largely those who hold the reins of power, even in an ostensible democracy!
For far too many African Americans, and for far too many generations, the trajectory of freedom arced toward an elusive hope that things could get better! But hope is a thin gruel that barely sustains life. It is usually a cynical ploy to satiate the desires of an oppressed people whose deep deprivations always leaves them yearning for more. Hope that does not produce results turns inward to despair and spirals down to self-destructive behaviors: alcohol and drug abuse, spousal abuse, child abuse, robbery, rape and even homicide. Persistent profound inequality and generations of poverty, as well as the destruction of Black families and personal identities, by robbing them of their ancestral roots: the ground that nurtures people’s security and allows them the possibility of creating a meaningful life. 153 years after the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation, the dream that King spoke of, where African Americans could live lives of full participation in American society, unfettered by racism and prejudice, remains for many a dream deferred! The episodic nature of the larger society’s recessions where many of the White middle class and working class suffer is usually transient. Their understanding of failure does not typically span generations because the economy usually picks up and reabsorbs their number. Not so for a disproportionate number of African Americans. Their plight remains unchanged with a more or less permanent economic depression inside their economic ghettoes with their nature becoming essentially a forgotten underclass. The failures that many White middle and working class people feel when the economy falters is but transient compared to the enduring suffering of African Americans within these economically deprived communities. If you are White, it is difficult to imagine what it would be like to be Black and live in our inner cities where they have suffered for generations from economic depression. It’s hard to imagine how Whites could long maintain their values, their nobility, their sense of meaning and purpose under such despairing, devastating, demoralizing, circumstances. The connection between economics and life is critical and all consuming. The inability for many Blacks to use the freedoms won in the 1960’s because of the lack of economic power is the critical factor that defeats the best intentions of the African American community! Freedom without resources is meaningless! To echo FDR “Necessitous men are not free men.” Life in these communities becomes one of mere survival! It becomes a Herculean task to raise oneself up and defy the social and political constraints that keep many African Americans unequal and in poverty. This is what many in the White community realized in 2008 when their houses disappeared, their jobs disappeared, their businesses disappeared, and their retirements disappeared. Their lives became shattered and meaningless simply because the economic rug, that held their polite middle-class lives together, was pulled out from under them. Their lives, their dreams became diminished, their sense of accomplishment and their sense of meaning disappeared, as did in many cases, their sense of dignity and hope. On the surface of their lives when things are going well they felt emboldened and there was a sense of power and promise in their stride! But once the economic rug was pulled out from under them the fabric of their lives began to unravel. What they once thought was a life created and maintained by their own individual wills and sense of empowerment, that they were in a sense self made now came to haunt them as so much uncritical superfluous thinking. Many people came to think that their new more impoverished lives were their fault they began to doubt themselves and even their importance. They floundered and fell from a grace they thought they had earned and created for themselves. Some came mimic the despair of those African Americans that have suffered economic deprivation for generations. The critical difference is that many impoverished African Americans never had a rug of security in the first place. Until we realize our newfound conditions are predicated on the failure of the larger societal mechanisms of manufactured wealth in short the political/economic establishment, then we, as people, will continue to allow others to dictate the conditions of our lives. As Frederick Douglass said…”Find out what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be heaped upon them and this will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” Many misunderstand the crucial dynamics of the economy that underlies every aspect of our sense of well -being, our sense of meaning and our sense of purpose. There is no meaningful freedom without resources!
This brings us to our main query...How do we address the historical and contemporary need for changing the economic dynamics within these impoverished African American communities? We are proposing then a plan to reorganize and support these inner city economies by creating a Marshall type Plan that will rebuild these communities and their infrastructure by training and hiring the people that live within them. Because of the civil rights and voting rights acts and because of programs like head start and affirmative action there has arisen a generation of African Americans who are equipped to “assist” the rebuilding of these communities. Indeed, because of programs like these many African Americans have been able to escape these economically ghettoized communities, but far too many have been left behind. Never-the -less these more impoverished communities, however aided, shall be the leaders in their own movement to improve their despairing economic environments. First and foremost, the “first needs of life” must be addressed. This means the needs for proper shelter; proper nutrition, health care and clothing come first. Then, the needs of the self can be addressed. The needs of the self include the need for security, the need for response/love, the need for recognition/self-esteem, the need to make sense of the world/ need for meaning, and the need for transcendence. The need for security is fundamental because without existential safety, the resultant insecurity can be paralyzing for any further development, whether it be individual or institutional. For many African Americans who suffer from the lack of existential security, life becomes a daily psychological struggle that insidiously invades their consciousness making them always vigilant to possible repercussions from violating the most prosaic of social norms. Life becomes existentially precarious. Hence, to begin to balance the scales of justice for African Americans and to more fairly level the playing field we offer the following suggestions. The police should be demilitarized and their presence made minimal, community policing should become the new norm. Policing was created originally to control people and serve and protect the middle and upper classes and those in power. For instance one of the original functions of the Texas Rangers was to steal the homes and land from Mexican immigrants, as well as hunting down and killing them. Police routinely thwarted efforts of union organizers and their members were hounded, beaten and even killed. And for African Americans sundown towns, prohibition of sharing water fountains and sidewalks and not giving proper deference to Whites and periodic lynching of Black men and the raping of Black women were common affronts or tragedies either ignored or what is worse endorsed and/or abetted by the police. The litany of police abuse is long and notorious. So, control is and has always been the main function and reason for the police. Still, to this day, control of those in the working and lower classes and the African American and Hispanic communities remains a paramount reason for their existence. Hence, in these African American communities police should get to know the people living in them as human beings and not just as stereotypical profiles. Police should be hired out of these communities and trained to communicate with the residents and not just control them. African Americans should own the businesses in their communities and they should hire within these communities as much as possible. Street lighting should be expanded and streets should be re-paved and cleaned. Schools should be upgraded and outfitted with the best teachers, supplies and equipment. Schools should be clean, void of rats and heated an/or air-conditioned. Bullying in all its nefarious forms should be prohibited whether it is being done by fellow students or by their teachers! Schools should become sanctuaries where children are safe and inspired to love learning as a way of appreciating life and its mysterious, and not just threatening, ways of being. Schools should function primarily as a means of giving the children a critical education so that they can come to see the difference between what those in power say is in their best interest versus what is actually in their best interest. Schools should be places for character development by learning impulse control, and enhancement of executive functions so that they can act and not just react to life, so that they can develop a sense of responsibility for becoming who they are and are to further become. Children in these communities must become cognizant that their interests are best served, in the long run by critical learning so that no one can any longer take advantage of them. Children need proper enlightened environments to flourish. Health care, both mental and physical should be provided free for these communities. Mental health problems and illiteracy are two of the most salient reasons besides, devastating poverty, for so much violence in isolated parts of these communities. Further, efforts will be needed to remove the predators in these communities and particularly the economic predators and hustlers who charge gross profits compared to similar institutions working elsewhere. One of the main economic predators that continue to plaque inner cities is the landlord. Something has to be done by the government to reign in the terrible abuse and exploitation by landlords who over-charge for rent, yet invest little of their profits to maintaining and upgrading their properties. Related to these concerns but far worse and more tragic are the abuses committed by the banking and lending institutions who have engaged in both redlining and reverse redlining in order to literally fleece African Americans out of billions of dollars! How are African Americans expected to build wealth, when the biggest investment they make occurs in a matrix of relationships that are racists in origin and designed to set them up for failure by creating vehicles of theft such as sub prime lending, land contracts that can be canceled for failure to make one monthly payment with subsequent repossession, and of course inevitable foreclosure on properties that couldn’t be paid off because of variable and outrageous interests rates? Old decrepit housing should be razed and new housing built, or the plots they stood on turned into gardens or safe havens for children to play. Each child should be guaranteed a continued education, be it college or skill training, so that hope is not just some pie in the sky but tethered to the real possibility of escape to a better life in the future. Further, there should be felony forgiveness so people who have committed “forgivable crimes” can continue their lives without being further punished for crimes for which they have already paid the penalty. In essence to have a history that follows a felon for the rest of his or her life that keeps them from flourishing: not being able to rent a place or get a decent job because of his or her past criminal history is against the eighth amendment of the constitution that states the federal government should not impose cruel or unusual punishment. Stripping felons of their rights, for example voting rights, and yet making them pay taxes to support a government that continues to punish them is tantamount to a crime against the individual committed by the state. The debt paid by a prisoner for a crime committed should be completed as the prison door slams behind them on the day of their liberation. Further, recidivism should be seen for what it is namely a reaction to a corrupt vile system: that is the economic ghetto that strips bare the humanity of those living under such desolate conditions because of gross inequality and systemic racism. To put an individual back into an environment that is largely responsible for creating the ‘need for crime” in the first place is tantamount to aiding and abetting him to commit further criminal behavior. So recidivism is as much an artifact of the way society isolates and deprives certain individuals so that it becomes literally impossible for them to meet their needs inside the system, than it is an inherent inability of individuals to improve or control their impulses. Lastly, stipends to buttress the incomes of individuals in these communities need to be paid in order to provide people with more than mere subsistent levels of living. For life to have purpose beyond meeting the everyday first needs of life, then monies need to be provided that allows them to flourish to the point where they can be lifted out of these economic ghettoes and begin to own their success to their own efforts.
For far too long people have held to false beliefs like there is a moral arc to the universe or that justice will, in the end, prevail. Nothing could be further from the truth. More apt is another quote used by Dr. King…”Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne!” This quote lends credence to Frederick Douglass’ writing we visited earlier…”find out what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue until they are resisted by either words or blows or both. The limits of tyrants are proscribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress!” We must jettison hope for action and forbearance for change. We are tired of worn out slogans and aphorisms that only serve those in power to further suppress the freedoms of those who serve them.
The essence of these ideas are not new but comes down through centuries of recognizing the abuse that has been visited upon these peoples and largely ignored. But here in summary essence is a beginning to help assuage their pain and to finally join in the prosperity that so many of us have learned to take for granted. In the final analysis there is no meaningful freedom (for anyone) without economic resources!
Danny Sites, co-author/Paul Sites of …Truth for Human Existence and Happiness…The Groundwork for a Re-declaration of Independence.