This past week we’ve been examining, among a great many things, the curious riddle of the un and/or underemployed Black Male. Much has been and will continue to be said about this topic, and I for one learned a tremendous great deal about a whole host of things.
But before I get to that, let’s review:
1. Black Male un and underemployment has persisted throughout post-Reconstruction American history, in relation to White Men and later, in relation to other groups, including Black Women.
2. The oft-cited reasons for this fact-like still persistent racism, or counterproductive actions on the part of Black Men themselves-are at best, tangential to the matter once seen within a larger historical framework.
3. That “getting an education”-itself a somewhat nebulous and/or misleading phrase (what is actually meant is vocational job training, but those who aspire to the White Collar world don’t like to use such a term associated with Blue Collar Proles), has not been shown to be the path to success *for Black Men in aggregate* that is widely believed or assumed. Based on Andrew Hacker’s work Two Nations, what we can say w/o any fear of rebuttal is that a Brotha having degree pretty much ensures that he would make more money, on balance, than a Brotha without one. Beyond that though, the best we can say in response to the idea that “education is the key to success” is…”maybe”.
4. Perhaps the single biggest “bombshell” though, at least from where I sit, is the simple fact that one, people like to associate with those who most remind them of themselves; and two, that much of life ain’t about what you know, so much as who you know. On these two scores then, the evidence historically would suggest, that when it comes to the open job market in aggregate, Black Men are on an island unto themselves-they “stand out” more than the other Males in American life, and, they have the least social capital insofar as patronage networks are concerned. This latter point will be discussed later.
5. Racism, isn’t the answer, though to be sure it can still play a role. But as thinkers and pundits such as John McWhorter have noted-rightly, I might add-racism in the form of Jim Crow and the like, no longer impedes Black Americans. This is undeniably true, yet Black Men lag behind, even when controlling for things like criminal history and educational attainment. What then accounts for all this? The answer, I think, isn’t “racism” as much as it is “racialism”-the idea that race plays a role but not in the “Jim Crow” sort of ways. Hence the idea, even demand, on the part of many of the White Male commenters, that Black Males don’t “assimilate” enough, even in the face of the most cursory evidence that down through American history, Black Males certainly can, have and will in all likelihood continue to “assimilate”-after all, this is the only country they’ve ever known. At any rate, it is very difficult to hang this problem around the neck of “racism” when it is easily documented that Black Women do quite well for themselves on this front.
Having reviewed the major salient points that have emerged from last week’s discussions, the following is what I have learned:
For one, people are NOT “rational actors” as one popular school of Economic and Political thought would have us all believe. If anything, human beings are decidedly *irrational* and will cling to their beliefs, assumptions and notions about things even in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Nor is this something that is the preserve of the uneducated, either-highly educated folk can and will fall prey to the exact same notions, often justifying them as part and parcel of their station in society.
Second, people are very uncomfortable confronting the plain fact that “merit” is more an abstract ideal at best, than a bedrock given that many wish it to be. It is but one of many factors taken into account as to who gets hired or not, who gets promoted or not, and so on. Often “merit” has very little to do with who winds up in jobs-familial, or fraternal, or communal, or yes, even ethnic/racial ties can and often do trump such “merit-based” considerations. For my part, it was fascinating to watch the reactions of some to my “patronage networks” theory-quite a few of the White Men in particular, were adamant in their defense and upholding of the idea of “merit”-even in the face of the clear fact that incompetent White Men abound throughout the workforce, they always have and always will. Of course, the Black respondents didn’t take what I said as surprising at all-if anything, they had a rather resigned tone in their “voices” about it all, as they had a rather matter of fact recognition of life in America on that front. Nor should this too, be surprising. After all, even in early 21st century America, White Men, taken as a group, are still largely the “winners” of the system. And winners rarely will acknowledge, or even recognize, such things.
Thirdly, that the power of Psychology, if ever there was a “test case” to be made for the discipline, was on full display here at The Obsidian Files this week. A tremendous amount of information-not scientifically rigorous and anecdotally observed, to be sure-was gleaned. The White Males in attendance asserted things about Black Men that were quite interesting, from the notion that all Black Men were gun toting ne’er do wells, to the idea that in order for a Black Man to “make it” in corporate America, he must strip away all vestiges of his “Blackness” save his skin (and we all know that this can be done as well-to wit, one Michael Joseph Jackson). What was striking about me throughout reading the responses and comments, was just how “irrational” the content was. For example, Nova explained and described the Black Men on his job who were successful, and how they either had more than “Black interests”, and/or had no such “interests” at all. Question: exactly WHAT are “Black interests”? And in any event, what do they have to do *with actually doing the job*? Why should it matter, either way? I ask this because by all accounts, it doesn’t. Not if one considers the quickening pace of outsourcing in the past decade or so. First seen among the Blue Collar manufacturing fields, it has now “bled over” into the White Collar professions as well-business and legal paperwork are routinely handled in places like Ireland (the country, not the hotly contested Northern part) and call centers, software engineering and the like abounds in India. And of course, let’s not even get started on parts of China and elsewhere throughout the Pacific rim. All of this points to the fact that “cultural differences”-to the extent there are actual differences-have little if anything to do with actually performing the job tasks required. Yet, when it comes to Black Men it seems, an “extra” job requirement is added.
There are many more things that I can list that I’ve observed, but that would take the rest of the day and already this post has gotten a bit long in the tooth. So I’ll just try to summarize along the following lines:
To say that Black Men *cannot* succeed, is to court folly. Of course, they can-or, perhaps more precisely to the point, it might be better to say that depending on what one considers success, and of one is considering more individual cases, they can. Surely, Barack Obama’s successful campaign on the way to the Presidency, along with other notable examples-Nova cited Dick Parsons-is “proof” that it can be done.
However, I think such sterling examples-exceptions, if we really want to be honest, need to be seen as something of a kind of “fine print”-not that it can’t happen, just that there needs to be some careful explaining to Black Men in general as to just what he can expect, his odds of reasonably reaching his goals, and so on. Yes, he can make it. But there are real costs involved-costs that will be heavier than those paid by others. Moreover, there is no guarantee that his bid will prove successful, despite his own efforts or the conditions on the ground at the time. I think a great deal of assumptions, implicit and otherwise, abound in our time, and none of them do Black Men as a group any good.
To be honest, other than what seems to me to be the obvious, which is that Brothas really do need to focus a lot more on “the hook up” more than we do, I really don’t have any quick and easy answers. All I can say on this note is that Black Men have to carefully assess what they want to do, and what their chances are of reaching their goals. Of course, doing this requires to pour a goodly bit of water on to the American Dream, something that, even for African Americans, is disconcerting.
Hmm.
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The Obsidian
