It’s
often thought to be beyond question that black political power is necessary for
economic power and enhanced socio-economic welfare. That’s an idea that lends
itself to testing and analysis.
Between
1970 and 2012, the number of black elected officials rose from fewer than 1,500
to more than 10,000. Plus, a black man was elected to the presidency twice.
Jason Riley, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, tells how this surge in
political power has had little beneficial impact on the black community.
In a PragerU video, “Blacks
in Power Don’t Empower Blacks” (http://tinyurl.com/y84psoyt),
Riley says the conventional wisdom was based on the notion that only black
politicians could understand and address the challenges facing blacks.
Therefore, electing more black city councilors, mayors, representatives and
senators was deemed critical. Even some liberal social scientists now disagree.
Gary Orfield says, “There may be little relationship between the success of …
black leaders and the opportunities of typical black families.” Riley says that
while many black politicians achieved considerable personal success, many of
their constituents did not.
After
the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, riots, which followed the killing of Michael Brown
after he charged a policeman, much was made of the small number of blacks on
the city’s police force. Riley asks: If the racial composition of the police
force is so important, how does one explain the Baltimore riots the following
year after Freddie Gray died in police custody? Baltimore’s police force is 40
percent black. Its police commissioner is black. Its mayor is black, as is the
majority of the City Council. What can be said of black political power in
Baltimore can also be said of Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington,
Atlanta and New Orleans. In these cities, blacks have been mayors, police
chiefs, city councilors and superintendents of schools for decades.
By contrast, when blacks had
little political power, they made significant economic progress.During
the 1940s and ’50s, black labor force participation rates exceeded those of
whites; black incomes grew much faster than white incomes. Between 1940 and
1950, black poverty rates fell by as much as 40 percent. Between 1940 and 1970,
the number of blacks in middle-class professions quadrupled. Keep in mind that
was before affirmative action programs. Riley says that racial gaps were
narrowing without any special treatment for blacks. After the 1960s, the
government began pouring trillions of dollars into various social programs.
These programs discouraged marriage and also undermined the work ethic through
open-ended welfare programs, helping keep poor people poor.
The
fact that political success is not a requirement for socio-economic success —
and indeed may have an opposite effect — doesn’t apply only to blacks. American
Jews, Italians, Germans, Japanese and Chinese attained economic power long
before they had political power. By almost any measure of socio-economic
success, Japanese and Chinese are at or near the top. Riley asks, “How many
prominent Asian politicians can you name?” By contrast, Irish-Americans have
long held significant political power yet were the slowest-rising of all
immigrant groups.
Riley says that the black
experience in the U.S. has been very different from that of other racial
groups. Blacks were enslaved. After emancipation, they faced legal and
extralegal discrimination and oppression. But none of those difficulties
undermines the proposition that human capital, in the forms of skills and
education, is far more important than political capital. Riley adds that the
formula for prosperity is the same across the human spectrum. Traditional
values — such as marriage, stable families, education and hard work — are
immeasurably more important than the color of your mayor, police chief,
representatives, senators and president.
As Riley argues in his new
book — “False Black Power?” — the major barrier to black
progress today is not racial discrimination. The challenge for blacks is to
better position themselves to take advantage of existing opportunities, and
that involves addressing the anti-social, self-defeating behaviors and habits
and attitudes endemic to the black underclass.
Walter
E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George
Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about
Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
Copyright © 2018 Creators.com
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