I know Black History Month is over, but I think it's still relevant and important to discuss the cost of racism to segments of society and to society as a whole:
RACISM'S DIFFERENT LEVELS...
The main problem with the conventional white wisdom holding that racism no longer poses relevant barriers to blacks in post-Civil Rights America is a failure to distinguish adequately between overt "state-of-mind" racism and covert institutional, societal, and "state-of-being" racism. ...
...The second variety (of racism - epppie) lives on, with terrible consequences. It involves the more impersonal operation of social, economic and institutional forces and processes that both reflect and shape the related processes of capitalism in ways that "just happen" but nonetheless serve to reproduce black disadvantage in numerous interrelated key sectors of American life. It includes racially segregating real estate and home-lending practices, residential "white flight" (from black neighbors), statistical racial discrimination in hiring and promotion, the systematic under-funding and under-equipping of schools predominately attended by blacks relative to schools predominately attended by whites, the disproportionate surveillance, arrest and incarceration of blacks and much more.
...
...Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders were actually most concerned by the middle 1960s about the deeper institutional and societal racism that existed across the entire country - a racism that is still very much alive and well today. King and others were deeply concerned that the defeat of open segregation and racial terrorism in the South would reinforce the white majority's tendency to avoid more covert and nation-wide forms of racial oppression while encouraging whites to falsely conclude that all the United States' racial problems had been solved (8).
...
The ongoing need for historical acknowledgement and correction, commonly called reparations, is developed quite well in the following useful analogy advanced by political scientist Roy L. Brooks (11):
"Two persons - one white and the other black - are playing a game of poker. The game has been in progress for some 300 years. One player - the white one - has been cheating during much of this time, but now announces: `from this day forward, there will be a new game with new players and no more cheating.' Hopeful but suspicious, the black player responds, `that's great. I've been waiting to hear you say that for 300 years. Let me ask you, what are you going to do with all those poker chips that you have stacked up on your side of the table all these years?' `Well,' said the white player, somewhat bewildered by the question, `they are going to stay right here, of course.' ...
I think reparations make sense, at least as an idea.
I don't know what form it should take. If we weren't spending (ultimately) trillions of dollars by making war in Iraq, we could, right now, be doing a lot to make sure that ALL citizens who wanted to further their education, could. We could be doing a lot more to make sure that all neighborhoods were well taken care of and safer. We could be doing a lot to make sure that no one lacked for opportunities and resources to make the most of whatever type of potential they have. We could AT LEAST be making a great start towards leveling the playing field, so to speak, for everybody.
I wonder, sometimes, are we so determined to uphold our "blame the victim" notions about who wins and who loses in what many of us see as society's natural economic life and death struggle, that we'd rather spend all of our resources destroying a foreign country than healing our own? New Orleans remains, it seems, a powerful affirmation of this, a powerful affirmation of a negation.
This will probably be more of interest to historians
A lot can be gleaned by going back in history to examine (comparatively) the emancipation process in different regions of our hemisphere.
Some of the most fascinating research to have been published in recent times on the subject of slavery and emancipation is Degrees of Freedom by Rebecca J. Scott. Her solid scholarship focuses on the so-called post emancipation period in two distinct regions - Cuba and Louisiana:
Louisiana had taken the path of disenfranchisement and state-mandated racial segregation; Cuba had enacted universal manhood suffrage and had seen the emergence of a transracial conception of the nation. What might explain these differences?
Those who struggle through what is - at times - an uneasy read will not only gain a feel for the enduring impact of the slave plantation system (racism being just one example of this) and the highly complex process of "emancipation", but (much more importantly) the insufficiently explored roots of the Cuban-US discord, originating with the "Spanish American" War and persisting to some extent to the present. I should add (emphatically) that in order to get to the latter, you must read Rebecca J. Scott's book in conjunction with Ada Ferrer's Insurgent Cuba: Race, Nation, and Revolution, 1868-1898. Both are first rate researchers.
Thankyou.
Sometimes I wonder if American Imperialism is, at root, nothing more than the ongoing attempt to create a racist world, to shape the world after that idee fixee.
Have you considered publishing something about this at Progressive Historians?
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/frontPage.do
__________________________What you say is particularly interesting in connection with
something I read in a book about the history of Tango: that Cuba was the source of the african musical inflence that spread throughout the Americas and contributed directly to all the various forms of music the americas are noted for: US/Jazz, Argentina/tango, Puerto Rico(?)/ salsa...
__________________________Cuba and Brasil
were the last to emancipate. Consequently, both of these countries preserve elements of African "culture" at their "purest", having receieved fresh infusions of slaves from renegade traders during the nineteenth century. The foremost authority on Afro-Cuban music is the one and only Fernando Ortiz. Until recently, few if any of his works were available in English but that (fortunately) is changing. Fernando Ortiz is literally the founder of Afro-Cuban studies. Check out this link as well.
Thankyou for the links
Thankyou for the links (bookmarked). I didn't know that about Cuba and Brazil. The book I read is by Yale's Thompson. I can't remember any details, or I'd spew a few! There was one particular tribe which he said was particularly enormously influential throughout the Americas in terms of music and other things.
__________________________That would be
The Yoruba people (in Cuba anyway).
That's exactly what I was thinking.
But I wasn't confident of my memory. And they were from the Congo, originally, right?
__________________________Nigeria/Benin, I believe...
But beyond that, I am treading on shakey ground. Best you seek scholarly sources like this or academic courses like this one.
I always have to go over information several times,
in several different contexts, before I begin to get it. Thanks.
__________________________do you know the carlos "patato" valdez song...
..."sangre de africa"?
the english translation of the chorus is "the blood of africa flows in the veins of the caribbbean."
pretty much says it all.
Sounds like something Bob Marley would write!
"to the shores of the Caribbean"
__________________________For the time-being
I'm going to stick to my ongoing Cuba-US series, which is cross-posted at progressive historians. You'll have to whet your appetite with this excerpt from Scott's introduction:
That's so fascinatingly opposite to the role the Cuban exile
community seems to play today!!
I've been thinking a lot about New Orleans lately, because I've been working on a piece about Louis Armstrong. One of the things I've picked up about it is that New Orleans was a paradox, racially. Nowhere was there more insistence up on and obsession about color lines. But, in a way because of this, nowhere were color lines more fluid. They were so obsessed with containing color lines that they made up all these separate classes of colored people, stratified according to how black they were. In practise, though, this wasn't so easy to keep track of and, as a result, racial barriers were blurred in some ways.
__________________________That stratification system
was not unique to New Orleans. Might it not have even originated there?
Here is another interesting source I googled.
Thanks for that link too!
Hmmm - I thought that system was unique to New Orleans and I had no idea it had anything to do with Darwinism, though I suppose it makes sense that it could. Do you think that such stratification was in some way emphasized more in New Orleans? Or was it just not unique to New Orleans at all? It's interesting to read Armstrong writing, resentfully, about Creole musicians who thought they were superior and were treated better - Fats Dominoe in particular, I think.
__________________________if economc success...
...is how we measure accomplishment in america, then it's reasonable to make efforts to advance economic success for those not yet "in the game".
in our economy, education and home ownership are the most likely predictors of future economic success.
which leads me to suggest "the new reparations" might be, rather than 40 acres and a mule, help with buying a house and a sheepskin.
which is actually not all that dissimilar.
an example of how this idea can be good for the country as a whole is found in the experience of the gi bill-the mass availability of home ownership and higher education really did "lift all boats".
Wow. That's a fascinating idea.
Reparations in the form of something like a GI Bill. That sounds like a brilliant idea to me.
__________________________one additional advantage...
...of an arrangement that involves access to inexpenseve credit (which the housing component of the gi bill is, course) is that as the money loaned is repaid it becomes a self-financed system, allowing more reach for the same money.
There could be similar credit arrangements
for business startups.
__________________________i considered that...
...and found myself torn.
while it does appeal to me on an emotional level...
...on the one hand, microlending has obvious proven advantages, but on the other hand, there is a more tenuous conection between business startups and economic success in this economy, suggesting resources spent on education and home ownership might make more sense.
I reckon it's the decline of the small business.
But I think that making it easier for people, especially poor people, to start businesses, without taking on insane financial risks (remember, we are talking about loans that can be repaid based on ability, at least, as I imagine them) would tremendously encourage small business culture, that is, the habit of frequenting and patronizing small businesses, an attraction to microculture (to make up a word?) that could balance the monoculture appeal that gives mega-corporate monopolies much of their advantage.
__________________________just my $.02...
...but it seems to me what kills small businesses (besides the "wal-mart effect") tends to be a misunderstanding of their customer base, and trouble with understanding how to price the goods they sell.
consider restaurants-how many either open in a location that ain't where the customers are, or go broke due to cost control/pricing issues?
ever see someone making jewelery at home (or any other micro-business) who says: "i paid $3 for the materials, so i'll sell it for $4 and make a dollar profit"?
that's deadly to small business.
on the other hand, small business creates something like 3/4 of the new jobs in the american economy, suggesting that helping americans create small businesses is good for america.
so here's a compromise-why not consider "small business universities" operated by the small business administration, for example. they would expand on the sba's current assistance programs, and would address issues such as pricing, how to use data tools to find locations that work for you, and an expanded "business mentor" program that connects universities (business students as a resource?) to small business.
The way I look at it is that the problem with pricing
is consumer expectations of low prices based on economic ideas that privilege large international companies that export costs to the environment, to the poor and so on.
If more people had opportunities to start small businesses, I think, more people would understand that falsity of those economic notions. More people would undertand the practicality and joy of buying a quality item for a fair price.
__________________________trust me...
...the problem is often in the other direction.
i can personally attest to several small craft businesses that did not understand the need to price in their own labor, and at least two restaurants that did not understand the mathematics of pricing before going into business, which then failed.
in my experience, especially in craft businesses, it is often difficult to convince the producer of the craft of the value of their own work. it is often also difficult to convince owners to realistically account for their costs.
for example, i have seen jewelery manufacturers who are unaware of how much production is accomplished per hour, and thus are unable to accurately determine the cost of their own labor.
because the tendency is to underestimate time spent on labor, the potential result is a business owner making less than minimum wage.
which i have actually seen, much to my chagrin.
i have also noted this tendency when contractors i know bid on projects-labor cost misunderstandings are deadly.
in restaurants, another major small business category, the difficulty is often related to a misunderstanding of the customer (how many owners want fine dining establishments in a fast food neighborhood?), or an inability to control costs-again, often related to a misunderstanding of how to price.
if you ever heard a restaurant owner say "let's make $6.95 sandwiches" without running the numbers on portion size, evaluating what additional labor costs the menu item imposes on the staff, or considering the need for additional expenditures to include currently unused condiments or serving media, you've seen an example of what i'm talking about.
one additional point-for many startups the trouble is making the transition from a part-time to full-time operation. many owners also have another career, and are trying to transition into the new business, but there comes a point where the hours needed to run the startup make it impossible to keep the old job and the new operation. at that point, many folks return to the safety of the job, and abandon (or never expand) the startup. i have had this experience in my own life, and returned to the safe job because i did not have a realistic chance of replacing the income in a reasonable time frame.
that having been said, especially in craft businesses, where you compete against low-labor cost countries (much jewelery is produced in china and india), i do agree that customer's cost expectations are a bitch, and i'd suggest that "specialty" crafters often do better (dale chihuly), as opposed to "commodity" crafters (mom and pop's lizards made from beads).
I think there is a vicious circle involved to some extent,
between unrealistic customer price expectations and unrealistic business pricing.
When it comes to pricing my work, art, I won't go below a certain threshold, a thousand dollars, that seems nuts to most people, I think. Well, I don't sell many at that price, but there's no point in selling anything for less, for me.
People are used to thinking that 30 bucks is a lot to spend for something handmade!
__________________________i think you're well on the track...
...with the vicious circle concept.
pricing
I used to be self-employed and I agree with you to an extent. Most people who start businesses have no idea how to accurately figure profit and then determine how much gross profit they need in order to make a net that enables them to stay in business. If you own a service business which I did labor costs continue to go up and understanding your actual labor burden is difficult for some people. Also, a lot of people don't realize when they start a business that they have to pay double what they used to in social security taxes because they now have to pay what their employer used to contribute for them. Having said that, though, the thing that killed my business was the cut throat competition I had to deal with. Companies that pay extremely low wages and offer no benefits to employees could bid jobs much lower than I could and most often in service business price is all that matters. So faced with a choice of paying people less or getting out, I got out. Most people in the service sector are very happy hiring illegal aliens, abusing them because they know they can and then replacing them if they complain. I am not against immigration or guest worker programs but as long as we continue to allow the current environment with respect to labor in this country small business start ups will continue to fail at a high rate. We need more than education. We need a level playing field and we need our labor laws enforced.
__________________________Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change -- Andre Gide
And we need people to think about the concept of price
differently. My brother always used to argue, rightly, I think, that our economic thinking is based on the way plundering societies thought about economics. The books say that profit equals added value. But what people are really thinking about when they think about profit is stealing. You don't adjust prices to needs and costs. You CUT prices. You make the KILLER deal, or a KILLING. The Eskimos have 12 words for snow, so goes the saying. WE have 100 ways of saying that me making profit = me 8888ing you, or maybe US 8888ing somebody.
__________________________