Obama Is No King! And So, What’s a Self-Respecting Black Intellectual To Do? Glenn C. Loury, Reed College 2/20/2012

Let’s Start with the First-Order Social Facts: African American Social Disadvantage Is a Stubbornly Persistent Characteristic of American Society in the 21 st Century Convergence to parity is nowhere in sight. We’ve Not Yet ‘Overcome.’ So What? After all, We Got Us a Black President!

Educational Attainment Persistently Lower Rates of College Graduation and Enduring Racial Achievement Gap

Percent of Native-Born, Non-Hispanic Men and Women Aged 25 to 34 Reporting a Four-Year College Education

Employment, Earnings and Family incomes Lower Earnings and Employment for Men, Hugely Disparate Resources for Raising Families and Persistent Racial Poverty Rate Gap

Percent of Native-Born, Non-Hispanic Men and Women Aged 25 to 59 Employed; 1968 to 2007

Median Wage and Salary Earnings for Native-Born Non-Hispanics Reporting Earnings

Median Income of Households Headed by Native-Born Non-Hispanics (shown in constant 2007 Dollars)

Percent of Native-Born Non-Hispanics Below the Poverty Line; 1968 to 2007

Percent of Native-Born Non-Hispanic Children Under Age 18 Below the Poverty Line; 1968 to 2007

One Other Indicator Of African American’s subordinate social status: A Huge Racial Assets Gap

Percent of Native-Born Non-Hispanic Households Owning their Residence HOME OWNERSHIP

Then There’s The Incarceration Explosion – Both Reflecting and Locking-in Racial Inequality

Let’s Look at the Numbers: US Imprisonment Trends (1) Dwarfs other Countries in the West (2) Unprecedented in US History (3) Wildly Disparate by Race and Class

Berkeley Sociologist Loic Wacquant: “This is not ‘Mass Incarceration’ but instead, ‘Hyper-Incarceration,’ with a class/race nexus: the poorly educated and non-white are at much higher risk of being locked-up: I.e., imprisonment is an integral part of our nation’s larger social policy framework

Prison Populations Continued Rising in ‘90s, Long after Crime Rates Started to Fall Dramatically

The War on Drugs (1)Extent Massive (2)Effectiveness Dubious (3)Incidence Unequal

The US at ‘War’: Federal Drug Control Spending in Millions, (Law enforcement accounts for bulk of the federal ‘War’ effort)

Impact Debatable: Drug prices in US fell as drug- related incarceration rose steeply:

There Has Been a Massive Racial Disparity in the Incidence of Anti-Drugs Law Enforcement (relative to usage rates)

Moreover, Much Data Show Powerful Effects of Poverty on Participation in Crime: In Effect, We’re Punishing Them for Being Poor (1)Potential Pathways (“Root Causes”) (2)Poor boys are committing crimes; while poor girls are having babies?

So, Institutions of Punishment Are Now the Primary Means of the Government’s Engagement with African American Men in the US

The New Poverty Governance: Change in Numbers Incarcerated and Receiving Cash Aid: Source: Schram and Soss, 2005

Race Matters in Social Policy : The Effect of Black Caseload Percentage on the Policy Choices in an “Average State” Source: Schram and Soss, 2005

Racial Disparity in the Disenfranchisement of Felons in the US

Note Incarceration’s Huge Impact of Black Children

Yet, Much Data Shows Powerful Effects of Poverty on Participation in Crime (1)Potential Pathways (“Root Causes”) (2)Poor boys are committing crimes; while poor girls are having babies?

Now, What Has the Ascendancy of Obama to Do with Any of This? Next to Nothing, I Would Maintain. Indeed, We Have a Black President and Attorney General Who Dare Not Speak of Racial Inequality and Racial Subordination that Is Enforced by What Amounts to the State’s Monopoly on Legitimate Violence

But, I wish to argue that the current situation is actually much worse than that! It is not only that black officials atop the US government are unable/unwilling to address the leadership challenges posed by persistent African-American subordination in the society. What is worse is that the ascendancy of blacks to such high office has fostered a false narrative of racial equality undercutting possibility of change. Their rise also threatens to neutralize a prophetic social critique of US politics and policy – both domestic and foreign -- that is naturally rooted in the heroic legacy of the black freedom struggle!

We Mustn’t Allow That To Happen! My Conclusion: Thank you.