Vision Circle

Absolute Poverty & Black Empowerment

I want to assert something a bit provocative which has to do with the standards by which we judge black progress in this country. I just read the following over at Black Voices:

In 2005, it remains a fact that 25 to 33 percent of black Americans are still mired in poverty, yet roughly 60 percent are middle-class (with 10 percent in the elite). It’s questionable, however, if the black middle class, which has historically been the leadership class, can socially and economically reproduce itself without programs such as affirmative action and minority set-asides, which have aided them in procuring the wealth that they have so far.

I don't think I have a beef with those statistics, but I recognize that they probably define poverty in line with 'The Poverty Line' which is defined by the federal government. Without going into any ideological rants about the welfare state, I wonder how realistic it is in a global economy to talk about Americans who live below The Poverty Line as if they were truly impoverished. There is no question whether or not they relatively poor, but are they necessarily indigent? I say no. There is a difference between relative poverty, absolute poverty and indigence.

By the way, I don't believe it's questionable whether or not the black middle class can replicate itself without affirmative action. You show me where black churches are closing down and going broke and I'll show you where the black middle class is having a hard time. But a whole lot of black churches will have to go belly up before blacks stop buying automobiles and shopping at Sears.

Terms
Relative Poverty:
This means basically below the American standard of poverty. You are poor in America if you can't pay your light bill.

Absolute Poverty:
This means below the 'world' standard of poverty. This is a tricky thing, but I would think it means you don't have lights to turn on.

Indigence:
This means you basically can't take care of yourself. Think of people who end up in the poorhouse, jail, or a mental facility.

I'm essentially saying that because of a certain level of material prosperity which is built into the American system and infrastructure, there is a kind moral tug which minority politics lacks. Nothing makes this more clear than the level of destitution in various dimensions of the people of the Third World and emerging nations. Not all of minority politics has this problem. Clearly there is a unique politics of (scandal aside) the Armstrong Williams of the world, and I would go so far as to grant Franz Fanon some props on his identification of such. But Fanon, like other Marxists had no idea the world could support so many rich and bourgie people without falling apart. Too bad they didn't live long enough to see and recant. But I think there is something of a moral sketchiness in the politics of charity, as it were. Playing minority politics in America often evokes Marxist criticism of capital which I don't think carries any moral weight.

I want to make clear the distinction between Marxist & socialist economic postures for the redistribution of wealth, and cultural nationalist appeals & ethnic chauvinism. The former are mostly uncalled for and unfit for our society whereas the latter can go a long way in making up for the gap in absolute power between haves and have nots. Or to put it in my own lingua franca, it makes sense for blackfolks to make jokes about Suzy Ski Bunny not 'keeping it real' until they have enough money to afford skis. But it doesn't make sense for blackfolks to boycott Aspen, Colorado and demand that the money be used for free school lunches. OK it's not the best example. My point is that in order for this pluralist society to function properly across multiple classes, individuals and groups will have to have the liberty to express divergent values which compensate for a lack of economic parity. I believe that the lack of economic parity will be permanent, and that so long as more vital statistics are relatively close then radicalization will remain uncalled for.

I do not believe, for example, that those born in Relative Poverty in this nation are doomed to suffer a significant deficit in life expectancy. There are certainly a wide number of functions which affect real differences: we all know that access to health care varies depending on where one lives. But if the cost of 'selling out to the Man' and taking a low rent job in a high rent neighborhood gains one the benefit of 4 more years of life expectancy, isn't that worth the shame of selling out? I've said it many times, and it bears repeating. If it's so easy to be a sell-out, shouldn't that tell you something about our liberty? In Rwanda, you can't be a sell-out and get away from the death squads. You have to run to Tanzania for that. In Haiti, you can't be a sell-out and get better health care. There is none to be had.

It brings me to one last question in closing. What are the very tough barriers separating a 'permanent underclass' from the broad American middle? I would say English literacy is the key. And yet there are broad enclaves where that is not a problem, and that's been the case in immigrant New York a century ago as well as immigrant Florida and California today.

Today's black middle class does very well, thank you. Its politics ought to reflect that. The very tenuous nature of our alliances with immigrant populations are a clue. So where is the thrust, and if we are economically mainstream, why are our politics of empowerment not mainstream? I think it is the mistake between the relative and absolutes in the politics of emergence.