Are Black Intellectuals Barking Up the Wrong Tree?
Clifton Roscoe returns
I want to introduce you to Clifton Roscoe, author of the piece to follow. Many of you know something of his views from his frequent contributions to this newsletter, but here's a little more about the man. Clifton is a retired African American gentleman of a certain age with extensive management experience and a technical background in private industry who I have come to know over the years via our lively and voluminous email correspondence. He is thoughtful, well informed, and thorough in his varied engagements with public policy and political debates of importance to black Americans. He marshals data, surveys the popular press, and often has interesting things to say about what's going on.
I have come to value my exchanges with him, and I know many of you have come to appreciate him as well. I've learned from him and have often reconsidered some of my own views as a result of our interactions. So, I am happy to give him space here at The Glenn Show newsletter from time to time to give voice to some of his musings. I invite you to let him and me know what you think, should you be so moved, by leaving your comments.
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Dear Professor Loury,
I ran across a review of John McWhorter's new book, Woke Racism, in Quillette. I couldn't force myself to read all of it. It felt like a big, fat nothingburger. I hope the review isn't indicative of the substance of the book, but I fear that it is. This isn't a shot a John McWhorter. Somebody has to counter the harmful rhetoric coming from the black folks with three names, but that fight doesn't interest me. Black America has bigger fish to fry. I also ran across Touré's critique of Condoleezza Rice's appearance on The View. Who cares about any of this stuff at a time when so many truly worrisome things are happening?
To the extent that black intellectuals provide thought leadership for Black America, and to extent that they can bring political pressure to bear on government, they seem to be barking up the wrong tree. Deep racial gaps along a number of dimensions (e.g., employment, income, wealth, health, academic achievement, crime victimization, etc.) have persisted for generations, but way too many black intellectuals are focused on things like parsing new versions of old race terms and the culture wars. These things are secondary issues if you take stock of where Black America is today. Even debates about voting rights and policing/criminal justice reform don't meet the moment.
Last year was a tough year for Black America. The pandemic took a lot of lives, there was tremendous social unrest, violent crime spiked, and a lot of people lost their jobs. Folks thought 2021 would be better, especially those who were pleased with the outcome of the presidential election, but 2021 is shaping up to be a tough year too. Too many black folks are falling behind economically. Too many black school kids are falling behind academically. Too many black folks are killing each other.
I can provide data for these assertions. Let's start with economics. A new analysis from Apartment List says that rents are up more than 16% so far this year.
An analysis from AAA says that gasoline prices are up more than 50% this year:
The US Energy Information Administration, part of the US Department of Energy, says that home heating costs will rise by more than 50% for some Americans this winter:
As we head into the winter of 2021–22, retail prices for energy are at or near multiyear highs in the United States. The high prices follow changes to energy supply and demand patterns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect that households across the United States will spend more on energy this winter compared with the past several winters because of these higher energy prices and because we assume a slightly colder winter than last year in much of the United States.
Even when we vary weather expectations, we expect the increase in energy prices as the United States returns to economic growth to mean higher residential energy bills this winter:
We expect that the nearly half of U.S. households that heat primarily with natural gas will spend 30% more than they spent last winter on average—50% more if the winter is 10% colder-than-average and 22% more if the winter is 10% warmer-than-average.
We expect the 41% of U.S. households that heat primarily with electricity will spend 6% more—15% more in a colder winter and 4% more in a warmer winter.
The 5% of U.S. households that heat primarily with propane will spend 54% more—94% more in a colder winter and 29% more in a warmer winter.
The 4% of U.S. households that heat primarily with heating oil will spend 43% more—59% more in a colder winter and 30% more in a warmer winter.
The impacts of rapidly rising rents, gasoline prices, and home heating costs will hit a lot of black households especially hard. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the median weekly earnings of black workers, in constant (1982-1984) dollars, fell from $313 in Q3 of 2020 to $292 in Q3 of 2021, a drop of 6.7%.
In terms of education, the latest NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores show that black 13-year-olds scored, on average, 25 points below1 their white peers on the reading test:
And black 13-year-olds scored 35 points below their white peers on the math test last year:
Ten points are equivalent to about a year's worth of learning, so the results are sobering. The tests were administered before the pandemic began, so the next set of numbers may be worse.
America's homicide spike is well-documented, but it's worth noting that the CDC's WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) database shows that over 10,000 blacks were homicide victims in 2019 (latest figures available from the CDC). Data from WISQARS also shows that 1,198 of those black homicide victims were between the ages of 15 and 19.
Homicides were up almost 30% last year according to preliminary data from the FBI and data from Jeff Asher says they're up almost 9% this year. Spend some time with the FBI's Crime Data Explorer and you'll find that blacks accounted for about half of all known homicide suspects in 2020 and about 56% of known homicide victims.
I'm mixing data from several sources, but it's obvious that the black community is paying a heavy price when it comes to crime. There's an emotional toll and there's a financial toll. I can't quantify the emotional toll (it’s high), but I can take a stab at the financial toll. The University of Georgia's Terry School of Business estimates that Black America's purchasing power was $1.6 trillion last year. The federal government values a human life at $10 million.
A back of the envelope calculation says that Black America paid a $100 billion homicide tax in 2019 (10,000 homicides x $10 million per homicide = $100 billion). Tack on a 30% increase to account for last year's homicide spike and the “black homicide tax” was just over 8% of black disposable income ($130 billion / $1.6 trillion = 8.1%) last year. That doesn't include the other costs associated with a homicide and other forms of violent crime.
The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform has created a Cost of Gun Violence website where they provide estimates of the costs associated with homicides and shooting incident in several cities. Here are their estimates for Dallas, Texas:
Dallas has had 179 homicides and 5,765 crimes that involved guns as of October 27, according to statistics from the Dallas Police Department. I couldn't find the number of shooting incidents for Dallas, but suffice it to say that Dallas and most cities are paying high out-of-pocket costs for gun violence. Black folks shoulder a big share of those costs in Dallas and around the country.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. Black America is facing some major issues. Some would say these issues constitute a crisis. Against that backdrop, I don't understand why black intellectuals spend so much time focusing on “small potatoes” when the folks whose interests they claim to represent are dealing with such pressing issues.
Black America's need for problem solvers has never been greater. There are a few promising examples of regular folks doing what they can to address issues at the local level. It was heartwarming to hear about Dads on Duty, the black fathers in Shreveport, Louisiana who stepped in when their local high school was reeling from a series of fights that resulted in 23 arrests.
I'm also encouraged by 21 year-old King Randall (that's his name), who opened a boys’ academy in Albany, Georgia that teaches vocational training and life skills alongside traditional academics. Things haven't always gone smoothly, but my guess is that King Randall will have a very positive impact on at risk youth in Albany.
I hope black intellectuals will redirect their attention to more substantial issues and lend a helping hand to folks like Dads on Duty and King Randall.
Best regards,
Clifton Roscoe
The blue dot at the bottom of the graph suggests that the reading gap is 24 points as of 2020, but the difference between the numbers is 25 points (269 - 244 = 25). This discrepancy may be due to rounding.
I appreciate the feedback from everybody. Here’s a macro-level comment in response.
I wasn’t clear enough when it comes to my take on John McWhorter and his book. I respect and admire John McWhorter. I bought and read his book, “Losing the Race” many years ago. While I agree that a concerted effort needs to be made to offset the harms being caused by “the black folks with three names,” a term that John McWhorter used (coined?) during an episode of The Glenn Show, that’s not sufficient if the goal is to put Black America on a better path. .
I haven’t read “Woke Racism,” but I’ve watched enough conversations between John McWhorter and Glenn Loury as the ideas for the book were being formulated that I think, perhaps falsely, I have a sense of what’s in it. I’ve also read two reviews and seen a conversation John McWhorter had about his book with Michael Smerconish.
My email to Professor Loury was the result of a small epiphany I had in response to seeing so many prominent black intellectuals talking about “small potatoes” while the state of Black America is in jeopardy. And black students 13-year-olds scored 35 points below their white peers on the math test last year: Everyday folks are trying to fill a huge void that’s been left by black intellectuals who are focused on things that barely register with black people who are struggling to keep food on their tables, a roof over their heads, or to avoid being the next violent crime victim.
There’s nothing wrong with black intellectuals spending a portion of their time on “small potatoes,” but they could be more helpful if they focused more of their energies addressing real world problems and supporting groups like Dads on Duty and individuals like King Randall.
It's hard to disagree with any of that. But I think Mr. Roscoe underestimates the damage done by the three-name crowd.
I live in San Francisco, CA, and pretty much every white person I know here feels that as they read White Fragility and feel bad about themselves -- and support politicians who do the same - they're good people who are doing their share to fix the problem.
This frees them from having to seriously consider whether, say, scrapping a major international pipeline may have contributed to the rising heating costs that Mr. Roscoe rightly laments.