Damned right, John! Mr. McWhorter's original comments were on-point. His response is on-point as well. It strikes me as somewhat puzzling that we argue with each other over what are actually somewhat orthogonal points. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is saying that deindustrialization did not result in more pressure on poor folks to make ends meet. What John said, and is saying, is that deindustrialization cannot and should not be used as raison d'être for excessive teen pregnancy, violence, or any other malady that (seemingly, specifically) negatively impacted the black communities in any locale that endured deindustrialization. To be clear, none of that invalidates the points made by Mr. Roscoe either, except for the implication that Mr. McWhorter somehow didn't "get it." It strikes me that implying that, "they took the jobs away, so I turned to crime" is, well, I won't use the curse word that is on the tip of my tongue, but "invalid" is probably a better public utterance anyway. (Then again, maybe I don't get it either. If so, it's not the first time!)
Truth be told Mr. Roscoe made a rather snarky “fly on the wall” comment that was also unserious and unbecoming of a serious academic. Had he been serious he would have read the Indianapolis chapter in Winning the Race.
John is apologetic for the length of the book, but it is a serious work, deserving of serious study. Even a casual reader would understand that John was making specific arguments, supported with data, and careful reasoning.
De industrialization is not a sufficient explanation. That does not mean it was not a factor (which was Glenn’s point).
Hate to be the guy but, this is as good as it gets. 60 years of bending over backwards and trillions of dollars to help a particular group, and this is the result. Food deserts, until the Mexicans show up and open a market. No employment opportunities until the Mexicans open up a muffler shop, auto repair business, beauty parlor, dry cleaning, auto parts store, restaurants, taco stand on the sidewalk, oranges and flowers for sale on the freeway on ramp, house cleaning service. The list goes on and on.
Blacks get a state of the art hospital, university appointments, political positions in city governments, and turn the whole thing into shit.
Isn't there a line of reasoning that splits the difference between John and Clifton, in which we can posit that an especially fragile black culture was more readily impacted by the economic changes of deindustrialization? In other words, we need not name deindustrialization as a primary cause of black poverty, but can rather liken it to the draining of an already shallow reservoir by which the cracks were more quickly revealed. When Glenn and John argue about how to quantify the effect (a third of the economy?) and judge its significance, the context certainly matters.
Despite who may have better statistics, what is the point of arguing about ancient history. Trillions of dollars later, gentleman, pease stop the insanity!
"But I’d like to be a fly on the wall and see anyone read that chapter and come away thinking I’m a mere partisan hack who’d button up if he knew more statistics."
When in fact, the statistics support John McWhorter's argument better than the 'deindustrialization' one. Again, see 'The Myth of American Inequality' by Gramm, Ekelund and Early. It's a short read, but the statistics, charts and graphs are unanswereable.
Deindustrialization has hurt bBlack and White workers alike. assembly line work is probably gone forever, but it‘s not the end of the world. The most important think we can do is make sure that our children are well educated and prepared to enter adulthood and society with a skillet. This might means going on to college and beyond. Not all Kids want to go to college but they can certainly go to a community college where they can develop a skill in an array of blue collar and white collar jobs that are essential to our economy. We are currently have a 1,000,000 of Nurses. Welders, plumbers, electricians, chefs, pharmacy techs, laboratory techs, radiology techs and on and on are in short supply today. We need to our Community Colleges are affordable and close to residential ares in our cities. Most importantly, we need to find a way to get our parents involved with their children‘s education from pre K and on.
Damned right, John! Mr. McWhorter's original comments were on-point. His response is on-point as well. It strikes me as somewhat puzzling that we argue with each other over what are actually somewhat orthogonal points. No one, and I mean NO ONE, is saying that deindustrialization did not result in more pressure on poor folks to make ends meet. What John said, and is saying, is that deindustrialization cannot and should not be used as raison d'être for excessive teen pregnancy, violence, or any other malady that (seemingly, specifically) negatively impacted the black communities in any locale that endured deindustrialization. To be clear, none of that invalidates the points made by Mr. Roscoe either, except for the implication that Mr. McWhorter somehow didn't "get it." It strikes me that implying that, "they took the jobs away, so I turned to crime" is, well, I won't use the curse word that is on the tip of my tongue, but "invalid" is probably a better public utterance anyway. (Then again, maybe I don't get it either. If so, it's not the first time!)
Truth be told Mr. Roscoe made a rather snarky “fly on the wall” comment that was also unserious and unbecoming of a serious academic. Had he been serious he would have read the Indianapolis chapter in Winning the Race.
John is apologetic for the length of the book, but it is a serious work, deserving of serious study. Even a casual reader would understand that John was making specific arguments, supported with data, and careful reasoning.
De industrialization is not a sufficient explanation. That does not mean it was not a factor (which was Glenn’s point).
Hate to be the guy but, this is as good as it gets. 60 years of bending over backwards and trillions of dollars to help a particular group, and this is the result. Food deserts, until the Mexicans show up and open a market. No employment opportunities until the Mexicans open up a muffler shop, auto repair business, beauty parlor, dry cleaning, auto parts store, restaurants, taco stand on the sidewalk, oranges and flowers for sale on the freeway on ramp, house cleaning service. The list goes on and on.
Blacks get a state of the art hospital, university appointments, political positions in city governments, and turn the whole thing into shit.
Isn't there a line of reasoning that splits the difference between John and Clifton, in which we can posit that an especially fragile black culture was more readily impacted by the economic changes of deindustrialization? In other words, we need not name deindustrialization as a primary cause of black poverty, but can rather liken it to the draining of an already shallow reservoir by which the cracks were more quickly revealed. When Glenn and John argue about how to quantify the effect (a third of the economy?) and judge its significance, the context certainly matters.
Despite who may have better statistics, what is the point of arguing about ancient history. Trillions of dollars later, gentleman, pease stop the insanity!
"But I’d like to be a fly on the wall and see anyone read that chapter and come away thinking I’m a mere partisan hack who’d button up if he knew more statistics."
When in fact, the statistics support John McWhorter's argument better than the 'deindustrialization' one. Again, see 'The Myth of American Inequality' by Gramm, Ekelund and Early. It's a short read, but the statistics, charts and graphs are unanswereable.
Deindustrialization has hurt bBlack and White workers alike. assembly line work is probably gone forever, but it‘s not the end of the world. The most important think we can do is make sure that our children are well educated and prepared to enter adulthood and society with a skillet. This might means going on to college and beyond. Not all Kids want to go to college but they can certainly go to a community college where they can develop a skill in an array of blue collar and white collar jobs that are essential to our economy. We are currently have a 1,000,000 of Nurses. Welders, plumbers, electricians, chefs, pharmacy techs, laboratory techs, radiology techs and on and on are in short supply today. We need to our Community Colleges are affordable and close to residential ares in our cities. Most importantly, we need to find a way to get our parents involved with their children‘s education from pre K and on.