Cross-posted from African American Group: 'racial rules' widen economic inequality for PoC

[YoungDemCA]

The income gap between rich and the poor Americans is the highest it has been in nearly 100 years, but the racial inequality gap is even wider. From high school graduates to graduate degree holders, black men and women today continue to earn less than similarly skilled white men and women. Yet missing from this conversation is a full understanding of the historical forces that have constrained African American earning power.

The Washington-based Roosevelt Institute, a nonprofit economic think tank, recently released the study, “Rewrite the Racial Rules: Building an Inclusive American Economy,” that explains how the country’s racial history affects the national economic landscape that African Americans must navigate. “A series of racial rules has really set the foundation for the racial and economic inequality,” explains Andrea Flynn, an Institute fellow who co-authored the study.

By 1980, the economic progress that blacks made during the civil rights era had plateaued. Today, explains Flynn, “there’s a perception that we’re all starting from the same place.” That perception colors how whites evaluate African American success: 66 percent of adults, including 71 percent of whites and 53 percent of blacks, believe that the primary reason that blacks can’t get ahead lies with personal shortcomings and not discrimination.

Yet American workplaces remain highly segregated. After 1980, many employment sectors lost ground on diversity: Between 2001 and 2005, nearly one-third of all industries, including transportation services and banking showed a trend toward resegregation among white men and black men.

The report concludes that race-neutral rules won’t work since slavery and Jim Crow produced discriminatory attitudes and practices that have been difficult to eradicate and still pervade American society today, noting that “The enduring legacy of black slavery is built into our current institutions, policies, programs, and practices and has multigenerational impacts on the life chances and outcomes of black Americans.”

The report suggests that in order to create a more inclusive economy, the U.S. still must rely on racially explicit affirmative action policies and anti-discrimination mandates. African Americans saw modest gains in employment and education after race-specific policies like affirmative action policies were implemented.

http://prospect.org/article/report-%E2%80%98racial-rules%E2%80%99-widen-economic-inequality-african-americans

[bravenak]

1. This is why I am not interested in any revolution that ignores affirmative action

[brer cat]

2. +1 nt

[LWolf]

3. Somehow, I feel like I may have heard this before

at some time in the last year.

Someone...who was it...talking about the racial inequality gap as it pertained to economic justice.

Oh, well. I was told to stop trying to link racial/social justice and economic justice.

I guess NOW it's suddenly okay to link them?

Got it. I'm so glad that someone is telling me that I'm allowed to look at the interconnections between the two now. Of course, I've been an affirmative action supporter my whole life. I'm certainly on board with restructuring all the rules to achieve social/racial AND economic justice.

[Trajan]

4. +1,000,000 ...

Must have been a detached voice from behind the mountain ...

A murmur in the wind ... Whispered words from inside a cloud ...

[Hydra]

5. Deja Moo

Echos of the Bull

[rhett o rick]

6. As we lose ground in the struggle for economic justice it hurts the minorities the worst.

The Progressives have long supported both economic justice and social justice. Don't expect either from a government controlled by Big Corporations. We must rid our government of the control of Big Corporations before we can achieve economic and social justice.

[LWolf]

7. It's been

a neoliberal strategy to separate social justice from economic justice. That allows them to be "socially liberal" enough to hang on to liberal America while pursuing economic policy that increases income gaps which, not so coincidentally, negatively affects the 99%, and PoC to a much greater degree.

I see it everywhere, an insistence that an issue is all about one or the other. Disintegration of reality.

[rhett o rick]

8. Yes I agree completely. nm

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Not just racial attitudes and practices, but classism is as big a problem

Classism holds people of color down because they are disproportionally represented in poorer classes like the working poor.

It is so tough trying to stay afloat while poor that it is extremely difficult for people of color to get ahead.

Classism is the secret weapon of racists who put down and keep down poorer classes knowing full well that it affects people of color more.

Little advantages (slightly better schools, slightly better transportation, slightly better job benefits, maternal leave, slightly better health care options and dozens of others), little advantages day by day, month after month, add up. If an upper-middle class kid daily has a 1 in a 1000 slight better chance than a poor kid (say 573 versus 572), that compounded over the long haul makes a huge difference.

The upper classes think that there really is not much difference in opportunities for the poor, not enough difference to count, but even very slight differences in opportunity become large differences in outcomes over time.