Today I taped an interview with Georgetown professor Dr. Michel Eric Dyson for his newly-relaunched radio show. It'll air Tuesday but here's a preview:
Dyson asked me about the long-term economic impact of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and I said I thought we're already seeing it in the form of higher gas prices and that it would continue. A few weeks ago I was buying gas for $2.50 or less and a few days ago i filled up at $2.81 a gallon for regular. I also said I was skeptical of a report from Moody's Economy.com that said that the spill won't have a long-term impact on the US economy because the Gulf states only account for 1 percent of GDP.
We also talked wealth disparities in the wake of a new report that shows that the black-white wealth gap in the US has actually quadrupled since 1984. It's vexing because this is actually the period over which many thought that the black middle class was permanently expanding as the result of economic and employment gains in the decades following the civil rights movement. I've actually pitched a commentary to TheRoot.com about my take on those numbers so you'll read about that over there soon if they accept it. If not, I'll write it here no later than Monday.
And speaking of TheRoot, today they ran a colorful piece by yours truly called "We Had our Ascots Handed to Us." Its my take on black men's style cues and what we lost when Daily Show host Jon Stewart discovered that Roland Martin has interesting taste. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Today's super busy at the 9-5 so no full post, just a round-up.
First, I've decided to extend the deadline to get your questions in for the women's shoe giveaway until March 30 instead of March 15 because I've gotten so many great questions that I haven't had time to answer them all. So ladies, you've got the rest of the month to ask me a question here, tweet me or ask me on formspring.
I'm giving away a pair of the shoes pictured below from ShoesGotSole for the best personal finance question from a woman this month (March is Women's History Month). The shoes are being pro
vided by CSN Stores, which also sells kids bedding, modern furniture and other things, so be sure to check them out in thanks for hooking up the giveaway.
Next week, I'm going to go hard some more on this data about black women and wealth. Earlier this week I posted the results of research that found single black women's median wealth was lower than that of married couples and that of single black, white and Hispanic men or women.
This morning I saw a report of new Federal Reserve data showing that net worth nationally rose slightly for the third straight quarter. That's good news during a deep recession but it begs the question of whether black women's abysmal net worth is following the trend. I'll get into that next week.
As well, the inevitable, which I hoped wouldn't happen did: people are using the black men-black women's net worth data to fuel more played-out "gender wars" conversations. Someone texted me last night about a conversation in which the data came up and some men were calling black women "greedy" and "too ambitious". So I'm going to do some thinking and a few interviews and dig into why the data is definitely NOT fuel for an "us vs. them" conversation.
Have a great weekend and check back in next week.
I'm supposed to be on vacation, but I had to make one post.
The Obama administration has told the auto industry that it doesn't think their plans to stay afloat will work. They have a few weeks to get their act together if they want more help from the government.
I used to be against giving any tax dollars to the automakers, until I was on a radio show where the point was brought up that the auto industry, more than any other single business, was responsible for moving blue-collar African-Americans into the middle class. Of course, a lot of those manufacturing jobs are now gone, but many people, especially in the Midwest and some southern states, still depend on those jobs.
So what's your take? Should the government make sure GM and Chrysler stay afloat like they've done for banks? Should people who still depend on the car industry for jobs hang on or start looking for modern opportunities?
Is it racism that keeps poor folks in the ghetto poor? Or is it their own behavior?
There's a new book out that I have to read that argues that racism -- however you define it -- matters way less than changes to the economy over the past few decades and that cultural forces have all but isolated the poorest of the poor in ghettos. Here's a few highlights from the New York Times' review of Harvard sociolgist William Julius Wilson's "More than Just Race":
"State-enforced racial discrimination created the ghetto: in the early 20th century local governments separated the races into segregated neighborhoods by force of law, and later, whites used private agreements and violent intimidation to keep blacks out of white neighborhoods. Worst, and most surprising of all, the federal government played a major role in encouraging the racism of private actors and state governments. Until the 1960s, federal housing agencies engaged in racial redlining, refusing to guarantee mortgages in inner-city neighborhoods; private lenders quickly followed suit.
Meanwhile, economic and demographic changes that had nothing to do with race aggravated the problems of the ghetto. Encouraged by recently built highways and inexpensive real estate, middle-class residents and industry left the inner city to relocate to roomier and less costly digs in the suburbs during the ’60s and ’70s. Those jobs that remained available to urban blacks further dwindled as companies replaced well-paid and unionized American workers with automation and cheaper overseas labor."
Perhaps the most interesting point to be made comes next:
"The success of the civil rights movement inadvertently made things worse for the most disadvantaged...successful blacks began to leave the inner city for many of the same reasons whites did: in search of better schools, less crime, lower taxes and a leafier landscape. This left the least well off behind in ghettos that were both more socially isolated and more economically depressed than ever."
Think back to yesterday's post about the middle-class black couple outside Chicago driving 14 miles to buy groceries as part of their campaign to buy black. Families like theirs (and more to the point individuals like myself and most of my friends) help make the latter point. The legacy of the civil rights movement's legal and cultural gains made it possible for African-Americans to attain not just middle class wages but middle class housing in neighborhoods that aren't overwhelmingly black. I grew up in neighborhoods that were mostly black, and mostly poor but now live in Shaker Heights, a Cleveland suburb where only 34.1 percent of the residents are black and the median income is almost $64,000 a year. Living here means better schools for my son and fewer worries about crime but to some extent it destabilizes neighborhoods like the ones I grew up in.
In any event, the book sounds like a good book. Hit the library or Amazon, and if you read it, let me know what you think.
