By Brian Miller, New America Media
Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a society worthy of the principle in
its founding declaration that “all men are created equal.” But he did
not live in such a society, and he did not act as if he did. His life’s
work was dedicated to bringing the nation closer to that dream. While
we have made progress, the dream remains elusive.
Last year, after Barack Obama’s historic election, many pundits
declared that the victory had ushered in a new “post-racial” era. But
just as the civil rights victories of the 1950s and 60s did not end
racism, the election of our first African American president does not
create a post-racial society.
During his first year in office, President Obama, along with Congress,
has governed as though the myth of a post-racial America were true.
Faced with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, both
Congress and the president have pursued universal, broad-spectrum
solutions designed to lift up “all Americans.”
But a post-racial America and colorblind policies are ideas that can’t
stand up to the facts of persistent, and even growing, racial economic
disparities.
As detailed in the newly released “State of The Dream 2010: Drained”
report, racial economic inequities have worsened over the last year as
people of color have taken the brunt of layoffs from this Great
Recession. The unemployment rate for blacks jumped 4.3 percent to the
devastating height of 16.2 percent, while the white unemployment rate
stands at 9 percent, up only 2.4 percent by comparison from a year
earlier. And African Americans who are employed still earn less than
their white counterparts in similar jobs.
Racial disparities of wealth are even more persistent and severe than
income and employment disparities because unlike most jobs, wealth can
be passed from one generation to the next. So, families and communities
that are wealthy tend to stay that way, and those who are not wealthy
tend to stay that way, too, generation after generation.
Because African Americans hold only 10 cents to every dollar of white
net wealth, they are less able to cope with the loss of income and jobs
that have come with the Great Recession. Exacerbating the problem, most
of the wealth that is held by African Americans is held in the form of
housing that has collapsed in value due to the foreclosure crisis and
the predatory lending that fueled it.
It’s important that we get the recovery right. The Great Recession
began with the collapse of the predatory subprime mortgage market. Our
immediate policy response was to bail out the banks under the Toxic
Asset Relief Program. This did shore up their profits and ensured the
outlandish bonuses of executives, but it failed to bring relief to
where it is needed most.
As more predatory and adjustable rate mortgages reset to higher
payments and joblessness increases over the coming year, more families
will be forced into foreclosure. Foreclosed properties bring down the
value of homes near them, further reducing the wealth in communities of
color where foreclosure rates are the highest. Many homeowners,
regardless of being current on their loan payments, are left owing more
on their mortgage than their home is worth.
Last year’s stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
certainly did more to shore up the broader economy than the bank
bailout. It did not, however, effectively reach the communities most in
need of recovery and reinvestment. Less stimulus funding has gone to
areas with higher rates of unemployment than to areas with more jobs.
And the sectors that have benefited most from stimulus money are
industries that have traditionally not been major sources of African
American employment.
MLK’s dream of racial equality cannot be realized until the economic
divide between races is addressed. The Great Recession and our policy
responses to it have proven once again that we cannot address racial
inequity by ignoring it. With colorblind policies, the people in the
worst economic position stay that way.
The “State of the Dream” report recommends targeted solutions to end
the foreclosure crisis, to bring jobs to where they are needed most,
and to bring opportunity where it is most lacking. These
recommendations will address the particular plight of African
Americans. Proponents of a post-racial or colorblind society will no
doubt be pleased that these solutions will also raise up all poor and
working class families regardless of race.
Brian Miller is executive director of United for a Fair Economy
(UFE), a national non-profit organization working to promote more
broadly shared prosperity and to end extreme inequalities of wealth and
income. Miller is co-author of UFE’s new report, along with Ajamu
Dillahunt, Mike Prokosch, Jeannette Huezo, and Dedrick Muhammad,
entitled “State of the Dream 2010: Drained – Jobless and Foreclosed in
Communities of Color,” available on-line at
http://www.faireconomy.org/dream