African American Economic Achievement – Why No Plaudits?

The statistics are in, and they are glowing. In 1960, in excess of 40% of African American men were impoverished; as of 2016, that number had been more than halved to 18%.  Fully 57% of African American men are presently ensconced in the nation’s middle or upper income classifications.  Just 18% of African American families live below the poverty line, a number down from roughly 30% since as recently as 1990.  African American families earning more than double the median household income have surged from 5% in 1971 to 12% in 2015 (a number that may have subsequently increased even further during the recent period of sustained economic growth).  On their own, Americans of African ancestry (a group numbering approximately 45M people) would form a country of formidable economic strength. Black American economic advancement is real, is widespread across the economic strata, and has seen steady and impressive gains for nearing three generations.

Let’s be clear. The above-detailed gains are cause for celebration of the integration of a once tragically marginalized group into the vibrant American economy that has rewarded so many individuals and groups in our country’s history.

However, the sustained, multi-generational economic gains of African Americans remains a rarely discussed aspect of American life, and has barely penetrated the conversation on race in America.  While data on it is easily accessible, the popular media and our political discourse nearly ignore it.  Unfortunately, pernicious forces on both the fringe left and far right both have reason to conspire against the publicization of a truly positive development in our society.

For the fringe left, the politics of African Americans are most central to the suppression of a discussion on the impressive black economic advancement over three generations.  While heavily African American cities and suburbs in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Dallas and Washington, D.C. thrive, the focus remains on the struggles of inner city African American communities in the Chicagos and Detroits (localities that have, of course, lost many upwardly mobile African Americans to higher growth regions).  Regardless of economic achievement, however, African Americans remain the most loyal bloc of left-leaning voters in the nation.  This political behavior exists despite that fact that, on par, African Americans consistently favor cultural moderation/conservatism, pro-growth and pro-jobs economic policies, and an expansive social safety net, only the latter of which is particularly consistent with progressivism.  [For an example on African American opinion regarding growth, check out the recent polling demonstrating strong local support among blacks for Amazon’s now-discarded move to greater New York City – support significantly outstripping that of the (mostly progressive) white community.]  Accordingly, supporting a narrative about widespread African American economic gains – the story of black people “making it in America” as it were – operates as an existential threat to overwhelming African American support for a political party that is hardly lockstep with black voters on culture and economics.  And while a more holistic portrayal of growing African American success in America would certainly not result in an instantaneous transformation of group political behavior, promoting a narrative with the potential to lead to even a gradual decline of consistent black support for left-of-center policies would likely have significant impacts on the politics emanating from the left.

For the far right, a distortion of the African American economics in America also serves nefarious ends.  There exists, unfortunately, a segment of Americans who remain deeply skeptical of fellow travelers who do not share their ancestry or skin color (let’s term them the “Steve King caucus”).  Akin to some on the left, this cohort is committed to the idea that the condition of African Americans is best represented by a beleaguered neighborhood on the south side of Chicago and not a well-manicured suburb outside of Atlanta, and they are less than interested in a challenge to their stereotypes.  While such views in a country founded upon the ideas of individual liberty and a free market are perverse (and flatly contradict the conservative emphasis on Constitutionalism), they do reasonate in certain corridors on the right.  Moreover, such troglodytic beliefs can be manipulated to engender opposition to particular policies, notably those involving government-provided benefits, as research demonstrates an inverse correlation between diversity and expansive social safety nets.  In fact, it is at least debatable that the aforementioned “Steve King caucus” encompasses the portion of right-leaning voters most likely to support increases in government benefits for “people like them,” and thus their resistance to such policies on the basis of racial misconceptions defies their own self-interest.  Again, the dearth of information depicting the totality of African American economic conditions distorts the policy preferences of parts of the American electorate (this time segments on the right).

The lack of a national discourse about widespread African American economic gains spanning over half a century is yet another troubling example of the failure of the media and our political discourse to give attention to positive change. In a society where the idea of racial progress is held in the highest regard, clear evidence of real advancement deserves plaudits, not silence, even where it challenges orthodoxies on both sides of the political spectrum.