It is not true that recent efforts to improve the condition of African Americans have been ineffective. The initiatives have tracked well with the economic progression of the American mainstream.
America has always been a merit-based society despite national assertions about equality of human value and “classlessness.” Nations in modern decades do not treat equally those who contribute significantly to the advancement of their countries and those who provide little of consequence.
The major contributors garner advantages most highly valued by their societies in both respect and in rewards that advance their well-being, which they pass on to succeeding generations in their families. Self-made people who rose above their families’ economic circumstances were common in times past, including the families of African-Americans, especially after 1865. But, today, few people move from lower to higher economic echelons. America trails most of Europe, Australia and Canada in upward mobility. Today, leaders come primarily from the upper-class. Only two percent of America’s ruling elite, the 535 senators and representatives, are from working class backgrounds.
Changes occur in people’s values, often imperceptibly, as they spend increasing amounts of time in lofty economic environments, including leaders. Values drive our perceptions of reality, as well as our vision, assumptions, interpretations, and judgments, irrespective of ethnicity or at-birth circumstances.
In 1970, 2.2% of African Americans earned between $100,000 and $200,000 annually; none had incomes above $200,000. By 2000, 11% of American Blacks earned more than $100,000 a year, with 1.7% above $200,000. There was a slight decline in 2011 when 10.6% of us earned $100,000 and above, including 1.6% earning more than $200,000. Note that the Black population nearly doubled between 1970 and 2011. So, while the percentage of Blacks earning more than $200,000 had declined by 0.4%, the number above the high income lines had increased. About 1% of us are millionaires.
On the other hand, the bottom of the economic chain fared very badly over the years. In 2000, 14.5% of African Americans earned below $15,000; by 2011, that number had jumped to 25.4%; among which is a disproportionate percentage of youth. Between 2000 and 2011, those in the $35,000 to $100,000 range declined from 47% to 37%, putting it back at the 1970 level; and those in the $15,000 to $35,000 category remained about the same, around 27%.
Income continues to track with education, but much greater now than in times past. For example, 28% of Black Women with less than a high school diploma are below the poverty line, as compared with only 2.1% of Black women with BS degrees or higher. The numbers for Black men are 17% and 1.4%, respectively.
Values, wealth, and geographic gaps have become extreme and permanent between upper and lower segments of African Americans, the same as prevail for non-descendants of the slave-class. More than half of Blacks born in America are below the poverty line.
The data indicate that for the Black population as a whole, as irrelevant as such an inclusive titling is today, activists’, politicians’ and strategists’ efforts are benefitting the Black upper echelons while the bottom segments continue to stall or worsen. Wealth is a paramount indicator of social well-being and wealth is power. As Mary McLeod Bethune said: “We live in a world which respects power above all things. Power, intelligently directed, can lead to more freedom. Unwisely directed, it can be a dreadful, destructive force. Power should be placed on the side of human justice.”
Leaders mislead the people by implication when they use rhetoric and schemes that were appropriate for circumstances that no longer exist. Those who remember the sixties and seventies nostalgically when certain actions were quite effective in fostering change will be persuaded to wait for and expect improvements in their circumstances. Yet, there are people who have the same
