Previously, on “We Can Confabulate the Managerial Incompetence Behind Motown’s Meltdown and Federal Cash Grab by Raising Issues About Race, Regionality, Class and (it’s coming) Religion,” we saw how the Detroit News encouraged hometown supporters to boycott the South (provided, presumably, those supporters aren’t in the South). I was laboring under the impression that we’d could tick the race thing of the list as well, as African American automotive carmudgeon Warren Brown had previously postulated that Detroit deserved the bailout bucks by dint of its contribution to the creation of America’s black middle class. But I guess The DetN couldn’t resist adding fuel to the pyre. “Auto woes rock black work force” makes the case that Detroit’s tough times are tougher on blacks than white folks. And here’s proof:
“Between 1979 and 2007, blacks lost more than 120,000 auto jobs, Schmitt estimates. The losses hit the African-American community more than whites or Latinos because the share of black workers in the auto industry — 14.2 percent — is much higher than their share of the total labor force — 11 percent.”
Does suffering more percentage wise man that black workers are suffering more? The DetN knows a hole in their logic when they make one–and rush to fill it with a completely unbiased source. Failing that, they trot out union-derived stats.
“According to separate study by the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor Washington think tank, auto job losses between 2000 and 2004 helped pull down median weekly wages of all black workers by 5 percent, to $523.”
Is that as compared to white workers? Anyone? Never mind; let’s connect the dots, shall we?
“Those jobs, and wages, will continue to shrink.
“The $17.4 billion federal bailout of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC requires the automakers to seek concessions from the United Auto Workers, with a target of wage parity with nonunion workers at U.S factories run by foreign automakers.”
There’s more, on the human interest level. But I guess you’ve got the picture by now. Bottom line: people who deny Detroit bailout bucks are racists, even if not intentionally. Nice.
Oh, Puleeez! Weak comment I know, but I’m speechless about the low levels the race-baiters sink to.
Sounds like the old joke about the New York Times the day after Armageddon. Their headline:
“World Ends; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit”
Up here in Oshawa the layoffs have wiped out the younger workers.Pakistani,Asian,Blacks and whites.
Many young couples with mom and dad both in the plant.Of every ethnic origin you can think of with one thing in common ALL under 35 years old.
Tomorrows Toronto Star headline!
GM AND THE CAW GUILTY OF AGE DISCRIMINATION
“Give us a bailout or we’ll riot! We mean it! We’ll burn Detroit to the ground!”
Bad times are always harder on the minorities.
It’s not justification for special treatment of the auto companies that once employed them.
The race card fails. Somehow, I think a large number of the folks in Alabama et al at the transplant factories are black as well. If it’s Detroit vs. them, it’s a tie, race-wise.
Again, we mischaracterize a class issue as a race one. The problem isn’t that they’re Black (or Hispanic, or south-Asian, or female, or gay, or Martian), it’s that they’re poor and not well educated.
Let’s lay down a trail of bread-crumbs:
* Blacks are disproportionately poor.
* Poor people are more likely to be less educated.
* Less educated people are most likely to be a) in less-secure jobs and b) in low-skill manufacturing.
That the Left, as a whole, utterly fails to seize the class issue, and instead plays the race card, is jaw-droppingly stupid. Yet I’ve actually talked to OCAP members (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, aka people who should know better) when people have gotten really upset when I’ve tried to explain that affirmative action is a symptom, if not actually an enabling factor in creating a victimization psychology.
The problem isn’t that white men make more than black women (I mean really, who cares that female vice presidents only make $1.75M, while men make $1.95M), it’s that the middle class is being destroyed, regardless of the colour of it’s members’ skin.
Address the poverty problem and the race problem goes away.
Around 50% of the people in the city of Detroit are functionaly illiterate. A huge number never graduate high school(25% graduation rate) Diversity benefits the well off minorities while the majority will never improve their lot in life due to the lack of education.
You’d think with the Obama train rolling into station, the race pimps would be obsolete. Just goes to show how truely stupid people are.
RF: The DetN couldn’t resist adding fuel to the pyre.
Good word choice, because Detroit’s broken system is ready to force a lot of people (white/black/whatever) on the largest Sati in American history.
The only colors that should be brought up in discussions about the Detroit 3 are “red” and “black” and they should be in reference to the companies’ bottom lines. Anything else is noise.
You’d think with the Obama train rolling into station, the race pimps would be obsolete. Just goes to show how truely stupid people are.
Obama’s very existence is going to make it very, very hard for people who use victimization as the bedrock of their psychology. They’ll still try, because they have years of thinking molded around this concept.
People miss the distinction between “correcting the problem” and “institutionalizing the symptom”. The problem is poverty; the symptoms are racial strife, and crime. You can lock people up, detox them and/or affirmative-action them into jobs that aren’t sustainable, but unless you address the core problem—they’re dirt-poor—you’re just applying band-aids.
One of the reasons Obama won out is that, truthfully, he didn’t play the race card, or at least didn’t play it the way Jesse Jackson often does, or the way Hillary Clinton played the sex card. Victimization politics keeps voters at home.
nonce :
“Give us a bailout or we’ll riot! We mean it! We’ll burn Detroit to the ground!”
Doesn’t Detroit already burn every Devil’s Night, or have they gotten a hold on that little insurance crime-fest?
psarhjinian :
People miss the distinction between “correcting the problem” and “institutionalizing the symptom”. The problem is poverty; the symptoms are racial strife, and crime. You can lock people up, detox them and/or affirmative-action them into jobs that aren’t sustainable, but unless you address the core problem—they’re dirt-poor—you’re just applying band-aids.
I must disagree with this; particularly the statements in bold.
I’ll probably catch hell for this, but the root-cause is not poverty; it’s personal behavior.
Even a poor person can go to school and get an education, at least here in the USA. In fact, many people do this, even against incredibly great odds (lack of money, family responsibilities, health problems).
It’s true that many more do not. But it’s evident to me that even a poor person can make themself into something more than they are. Every single day, people are changing themselves.
A friend of mine was once homeless, but he turned his life around. We’ve fallen out of touch in the last couple years, but the last time we communicated, I learned that he teaches guitar, owns his own home, made a music CD, and began touring with a band. He sent me a copy of his CD; it was pretty good!
We can all live better, we can all make better choices, no matter where we are in the social ladder. We have the capability to change our education levels, our inner selves, and consequently, our prospects.
Poverty by itself can’t stop a determined human spirit. Hence, poverty cannot possibly be “the cause.”
Poverty? We’ve seen refugees come over into this country fleeing tyranny with nothing but the clothing on their backs. They had nothing-no relatives, no contacts, lucky if they spoke the language. They took the most menial jobs they could find, and scrapped for food. The Irish in the 1840s, the Italians and Slavs and Jews later in the 19th centry; the Hungarians in the 1950s, Vietnamese in the 70s, Cubans in the 80s…
Poverty in America today can well mean you have multiple TVs, a car or two, cable TV, cell phones, subsidized housing and food and education and even checks coming in.
Poverty even in the Great Depression meant no food on the table, no fuel, bathrooms outside, no government handouts. Yet crime was way down compared to today.
Gosh, I remember when we talked about cars here. Over the last couple months we talk social and economical issues. The taxpayer give-aways have changed everything. I wonder if anyone will ever look at Detroit companies the same.
ronin,
You’re utterly missing the point.
It doesn’t matter that you, or someone like you, was also poor at some point in history. It doesn’t matter that some poor people choose to spend their money unwisely. You’re swallowing the right-wing talk-show-host marketing, something that gets dragged out every time someone tries to address systemic poverty, because it means having to deal with economic inequality, rather than live in the comforting notion that poor people are poor only because they lack moral fortitude.
For every Barack Obama, there are hundred of thousands of kids who never, ever pull themselves out of the gutter because they’re so incredibly handicapped: from poor nutrition and drug use by their parents, bad homes, poor education, poor nutrition, bad kids all around them, they’re up against a lot. If you want to help these people, they need positive stimulus to not be poor: that means useful employment, good health care, social support for at-risks, proactive anti-crime measures and—most importantly—the political wherewithal to actually wait for this stuff to take effect. It won’t be four years. It might not be eight or ten. You’ve got whole generations of people who were raised in terrible conditions, and who aren’t going to dig themselves out in a single political term of office
Saying that “I made it…pulled myself up by my bootstraps…we were so poor that all eighteen of us kids had to eat candlewax…blah, blah blah” actually makes the problem worse because you’re both glorifying poverty (there’s nothing inherently good about being poor) and demoralizing the majority of poor people who didn’t make it. And let’s not kid ourselves, most people don’t.
Poverty even in the Great Depression meant no food on the table, no fuel, bathrooms outside, no government handouts. Yet crime was way down compared to today.
Link, please?
Crime was always a problem where people were poor and in concentration. People just forget about it, and sometimes even romanticize it. The reason we have things like, oh, the education system, is because having lots of unemployed, illiterate children on the streets with nothing to do is a recipe for crime.
Read about conditions just a bit after the industrial revolution, and tell me they don’t sound more than a little similar to the modern ghettoes. The only difference between then and now is that modern neurochemistry has given us a range of temporary escapes from misery that accelerate certain problems. Alcohol has nothing on crack.
Gosh, I remember when we talked about cars here. Over the last couple months we talk social and economical issues. The taxpayer give-aways have changed everything. I wonder if anyone will ever look at Detroit companies the same
You can’t post a story like this one—the inappropriate use of race to justify hand-outs to the automakers—and not expect the response to discuss matters of social policy. I think that’s a nice part of TTAC, and why some people come here.
If I wanted the Mustang/Tundra Recall/UAW-Bash of the Day and the associated discussion, I’d visit Autoblog.
Poverty by itself can’t stop a determined human spirit. Hence, poverty cannot possibly be “the cause.”
I’ve said this before. Imagine you’re the child of a crack-addicted mother in Compton (or, god forbid, a mud hut in Rwanda), growing up where the local school is a wasteland of violence, gangs and drugs around you and not a lot of opportunity. If most people aren’t able to climb out of that, it’s awfully sanctimonious of you to cite the one or two people who do as the rule, rather than the exception, and that the problem is a lack of morality and drive.
If you’re f_cked from birth, it becomes very hard to dig yourself out, moreso if you’re just trying to make do. The physiological and psychological damage has already been done.
What makes me absolutely sick about American society is how we actually root for this condition to continue. We look down on, sneer at, people who didn’t make it without thinking for a second that “There but for the Grace of God/Turn of Fortune, go I”. The fact that most people who are poor continue to be so, that poverty breeds crime, and that we’re destroying the middle class, forcing more people into the economic cesspool, isn’t something we should be cheering for.
The “Land of Opportunity” schtick a wonderful con-job, pulled by the rich and powerful to make the poor think that the reason they’re poor is their own failure. Just ignore the generations of poverty and desitution: if Barack Obama can make it, so can you!
I’m glad for your friend. He made it. Most don’t, and more people will be joining their ranks if we keep killing the ability for the bulk of society to earn a decent living. Mark my words, if the income gap keeps getting bigger, we’re looking at the return of indentured servitude in a century.
Mark my words, if the income gap keeps getting bigger, we’re looking at the return of indentured servitude in a century.
Did you not hear of the Bankruptcy Reform Act that was passed down in the States? We’re there already.
If you’re rich and make bad loans you get bailed out, if you are poor and take bad loans you get owned.
I predict debtor prisons rather soon.
There is some truth to the race card issue. The Japanese don’t like African Americans because of what they see on tv. In confidence, this was told to me by Japanese co-workers. Why do you think they build plants in rural areas where African-Americans tend not to live?
“Give us a bailout or we’ll riot! We mean it! We’ll burn Detroit to the ground!”
Go ahead, preferably before they cash the bailout check.
This could all be fixed if the hard working people would give all their money to the slackers?
Hasn’t worked so far, in fact made it worse.
“The Japanese don’t like African Americans….Why do you think they build plants in rural areas where African-Americans tend not to live?”
You mean like in Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky and Tennesee, Yep virtually no African Americans there.
OK, Psar, here’s your link. It’s from your own NPR.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97234406
If you truly feel the great sucking sound of jobs to Mexico as a result of NAFTA, resulting directly in losses to Detroit auto industry jobs were racially-motivated I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps you can ask President Clinton, who signed NAFTA into law, what his motives were.
Zoomie & Co.,
This hasn’t happened in years. Once again, perception follows. reality, and sometimes the lag time is considerable.
ZoomZoom :
December 29th, 2008 at 11:35 am
nonce :
“Give us a bailout or we’ll riot! We mean it! We’ll burn Detroit to the ground!”
Doesn’t Detroit already burn every Devil’s Night, or have they gotten a hold on that little insurance crime-fest?
Kix,
What is justification for special treatment? Or is special treatment never justified?
KixStart :
December 29th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Bad times are always harder on the minorities.
It’s not justification for special treatment of the auto companies that once employed them.
The “Land of Opportunity” schtick a wonderful con-job, pulled by the rich and powerful to make the poor think that the reason they’re poor is their own failure. Just ignore the generations of poverty and desitution
As you said, link please?
There is far more economic mobility in the US than in most other countries. That’s why it’s still a popular destination for emigrants from around the world. Class (and ethnic) structures and strictures are much more rigid in Europe and in much of Asia.
As long as there will be greed and other human desires, there will be criminals. And for some, crime is a career move, the fastest way to grab some cash. Jews, for the most part, were dirt poor in Europe, prevented from owning land or joining guilds, so they made their livings as best they could as laborers, peddlers, tailors, and in other small businesses. Still, while Jewish Detroiters may have said that the Purple Gangsters were “good to their mothers”, none of them wanted their kids growing up to be Purples. As a matter of fact, those Purples who survived eventually went straight and started legit businesses. Key Plastics, for a long time a major automotive vendor, was run by the family of Harry Keywell, one of the Purples’ leaders.
One problem facing the black and Latino (and Vietnamese and other ethnic groups with gang problems) communities is how the young people in those cultures have glorified gangs and thug behavior, so even if a family is sound and tries to do the right thing their kids may still be lost to the streets. Peers unfortunately have more impact on teens than families.
There was a cop in my community who was killed on Saturday night. On Sunday morning I got a call from my younger daughter who was very upset because the murdered officer was the responding officer when she was robbed, Mason Samborski, and he really went out of his way to be helpful to her and also solve the case. I went over to see her and calm her down. On the way home, I got a call from my older daughter who’d been up north. She got home to find blood and brains on her door and her door broken in. Officer Samborski, it seems, had pulled over a 16 y/o driving after curfew with no license or insurance, and was taking him to what the kid told him was his guardian’s apartment, in the same building where my older daughter lived. When they got in the building, they were buzzed in by the 16 y/o’s girlfriend who lived there and the kid shoved the cop against the door, breaking the glass. They struggled, the kid grabbed the cop’s gun and shot him in the head.
The cop left a wife and a baby. The kid’s family is distraught because they thought he was a good kid, “raised in the church” as his aunt said. They appear to be a solid family, with an involved father and mother.
Doesn’t Detroit already burn every Devil’s Night, or have they gotten a hold on that little insurance crime-fest?
More bullshit Detroit bashing.
a) The Devil’s Night fires stopped being a problem years ago when the community rallied to have patrols.
b) The homes that burned were mostly abandoned, so insurance fraud had nothing to do with it. Those homes that weren’t abandoned yet were torched were often rental properties and their landlords were not happy to lose the rental income.
But go ahead, bash Detroit. The mob still runs Chicago (and Kansas City, and New Orleans, and Los Angeles), black folks are lynched every day in the South, and Texans hang rustlers.
What, you say, those are old stereotypes and no longer accurate?
You have to live in SE Michigan, or Detroit for that matter, to really grasp and understand this type of mentality. It’s a very complicated concept displayed in a very complicated metropolitan region. It would take more thab 2000 words to explain it better and I don’t have the time to do that now.
re psarhjinian :
its not that they r poor. i agree with ZoomZoom. you have to go out there and make something of yoru self. iam black, and ive seen in my family and with many other black people live off of the system, commiting fraud while they r doing it. getting over on the government. this is why i think that people need to get out there and make somethin of themselves on their own. to me there is no poverty problem. this isnt the civil rights era where a black man cant go out and do somethin with himself. the problem is the black man has become lazy. that is why it is up to us to correct our own problmes that we have mad for ourselves.