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... INTRODUCTION
All throughout the history, African Americans have made significant contributions to the American economy. ...
In this essay, I will first highlight the rise of the African American worker in the decades following the Civil Rights movement. ... In the end, I wish to demonstrate that affirmative action is the most plausible solution to combating the disadvantage that African Americans face in the American labor market. ... OPPORTUNITY AND PROGRESS: POST-CIVIL RIGHTS
The relationship that African-Americans share with the American economy is comparable to the relationship caboose and a train. ... Let us consider African-American economic progress over the past three decades through the flow of the American economy. The civil rights revolution of the 1960s sounded the death bell for racial segregation and brought heightened expectations for full participation of African-Americans in all sectors of American life. ... These changes occurred as American producers were struggling hard to gain a competitive advantage in the increasingly global marketplace. ...
The African-American community’s quest for economic progress was influenced significantly by these national economic trends coupled with unfavorable social realities. ... The legacy of that historic experience was a pervasive web of attitudes, values, and behavior that blocked the full participation of black people in American economic life. ... These forces, such as global competition, the structural transformation of industry, and technological change, have influenced the parameters of economic inequality that we see today. ... While not a theory of racial inequality in the labor market, per se, this line of reasoning has major implications for African American disadvantage in the labor market. ...
Indeed, this has become a very fashionable explanation among those who propose job-training schemes as the cure for high rates of African American joblessness and poverty wage jobs. ...
The spatial/skill mismatch hypothesis emphasizes the spatial distribution of employment opportunities as being the key to underemployment among African American workers (Kasarda, 1983, 1989; Blackley, 1990). The basic idea of the spatial/skill mismatch hypothesis is that the economic position of urban African American workers has taken a decided turn for the worse over the past two decades because of (1) changes in the kinds of skills required for jobs and (2) changes in where jobs are located. ... Even when jobs exist in the suburbs, the job-search time and transportation costs for African American populations are prohibitive for the kinds of jobs for which they would qualify. ...
An alternative explanation of African American disadvantage in the U. ...
These same dynamics apply (1) when companies decide to locate away from urban areas that have high concentrations of black residents; (2) when policy makers decide to build public transit that provides easy access from the suburbs to central city job sites but not from the inner city to central city job sites nor from the inner city to suburban job sites; (3) when public education is funded through local property tax revenues which may be lower in inner city communities where property values are depressed and higher in suburban areas where property values are higher and where tax revenues are supplemented by corporations that have fled the inner city; (4) when policy makers attempt to blunt the effects of inflation and high interest rates by allowing unemployment rates to climb, especially when they climb at a more rapid pace in the African American community; and (5) when policy makers negotiate immigration and trade agreements that may lead to lower producer costs but may lead to a reduction in the number of jobs available to African Americans in the industries affected by such agreements. ... The only efficient solution to combating discrimination in the labor market is affirmative action. ... AFFIRMITIVE ACTION: THE ONLY VIABLE REMEDY
Affirmative action is necessary because of the persistence and complexity of discrimination. ... (4) And equally disturbing, the level of wealth among African-American families, measured by net worth, is less than 10 percent of that enjoyed by the average White family in America. ... While minorities have made progress over the past 30 years, women still earn only 74 cents for every dollar earned by a man; African-American women earn only 65 cents; Hispanic women earn only 58 cents.
In short, while the economic status of African-Americans has improved over the past three decades, they still have not achieved full equal opportunity in American economic life. ... That is why continuing support for affirmative action is so important. In recent years, our nation has been caught in the grip of a querulous debate over affirmative action. All too often, those on different sides of the debate fail to communicate because they cannot agree on what affirmative action is, whether it is necessary to assure equal opportunity, and what impact it has had on minorities and women in our society.
First, what is “affirmative action?” To me, affirmative action is any effort taken to expand opportunity for women, racial, ethnic, and national origin minorities by using membership in those groups that have been subjected to discrimination as a consideration in making decisions on the allocation of resources. More specifically, affirmative action refers to both voluntary and mandatory efforts undertaken by government at all levels, private employers, and schools to combat discrimination and to promote equal opportunity in education, employment, and business enterprise for all without regard to race, gender, national origin, disability status, or other immutable group characteristics.
Approximate Word count = 4240
Approximate Pages = 17
(250 words per page double spaced)
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