Rednecks apparently do not want Black folks associated with the
term. It is a wonderful example of the collective nature of mainstream
Americans.
SOUTHERN CULTURE AND BLACK UNDER-ACHIEVEMENTThe person whose writings I quote most often on this blog is Thomas Sowell. I think he is spot-on most of the time. His theory of black under-achievement
is however one with which I must respectfully disagree. He says that
blacks do poorly because they have absorbed "cracker" culture and that
holds them back. Why? Because "cracker" culture is bombastic and
anti-intellectual. His thesis would seem to require that White
Southerners in general do as poorly as black Southerners on IQ
tests and other achievement criteria but he offers no evidence for that
dubious proposition. There are certainly SOME poor whites who do as
poorly as blacks on educational and other criteria but that proves
nothing. It is averages across whole groups that we have to look at if
we are to explain group phenomena. See also here.
On Wednesday I posted a brief critique of Thomas Sowell's theory
about black culture being responsible for black under-achievement.
Yesterday I put up two further comments on the subject by Steve Sailer
and Star Parker. A reader has however reminded me of what is probably
the most important factor:
"Sailer's comment that
today's behavior is "an African thing" is just as much of a "stretch"
as Sowell's saying it was a "Redneck thing". Neither has had serious
influence for over 200 years. Blacks were long past the "Redneck thing"
and the "African Thing" at the time our "welfare state" began. Their
behavior is an "American thing", brought on by welfare state".
In
fact, that comment reminded me of an earlier post harking back to
something that most Americans have probably now forgotten: That
characteristic black behaviour in America was up until around 50 years
ago roughly the opposite of what it is now. See here.
So where was the "African" and "cracker" culture then? Did it have
opposite results then to what it has now? My correspondent is clearly
right: Objective circumstances (to use a Marxist term!) matter most and
current self-destructive African behaviour is not the result of ANY
long-standing culture but rather the result of the perverse incentives
that American Leftists have created with indiscriminate welfare
policies, affirmative action, anti-American education, racial quotas on
policing and the promotion of a "victim" mentality among minorities
generally. And I think it is clear that even the influence of genetics
pales into insignificance compared with the effect of the positive and
negative incentive systems that society sets up for people.
...Yet,
when we talk of "redneck culture" today, such as country music and
Nashville, we are largely talking of Scotch-Irish culture. And the
Scotch-Irish generally stayed away from the blacks. They went to the
Appalachian and Ozark highlands where disease was less of a problem for
Europeans than in the lowland South. Moreover, the Scotch-Irish
disliked having to compete with slave labor and tobacco and cotton
slave plantations were uneconomical in the highlands....Of
course, the least-discussed cultural influence on African-Americans is
also the most obvious: Africa. I call this tendency to ignore the
African in African-American, to assume that they brought no culture
with them from Africa, the Black Slate Theory. For example, when very
young, Sowell's parents gave him to his great-aunt to raise (he didn't
know he had several siblings until he was about 18). This kind of
fostering out of the young is much more common among African-Americans
than among whites. It's also much more common in Africa than in Europe,
according to James Q. Wilson's book The Marriage Problem.Perhaps the biggest social problem of African-Americans, as reflected
in the very high illegitimacy rate, is that the culture they brought
with them from Africa is one of low paternal investment. America's
dominant culture had largely succeeded in inculcating monogamy and
bring-home-the-bacon norms in blacks by about 1960, when it suddenly
lost its self-confidence and began funding, via AFDC, the traditional
African tendency toward mothers supporting their children without much
support from their fathers.
After some thought, I think I know why this piece is oversimplified;
it leaves out one MASSIVE difference between the culture of Southern
white "rednecks" and (Sowell's words) black ghetto "rednecks" - the
prevalence of a victim culture. Southern whites tend to exhibit a
fierce independence and "up by the bootstraps" ethos of the
Scotch/Irish tradition, whereas black culture has drifted into a victim
mentality that tends to blame others for community problems and (in
general) promotes government assistance as the only way out of
troubles. Without rendering a judgement on whether this victim
culture is justified or not, I think Sowell misses this important
distinction
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"And the Scotch-Irish
"And the Scotch-Irish generally stayed away from the blacks."
I don't think the historical census and geneology records as well as
personal family anecdotes would support this claim. My paternal
grandmother's father, Jim Butler, spoke English with a Scottish
accented burr. My late father clearly could recall, as a child, talking
with his grandfather and being fascinated by his accent, which
certainly sounded out-of-place in rural northwest Lousiana. One of my
cousins, who has been conducting extensive family research, and I
suspect that our great-grandfather actually picked up this accent from
his own father who was born on the infamous Pierce Mease Butler
plantation off the coast of Georgia. The records show that the owners
and overseers on this plantation often "hired" out their male slaves to
work on farms owned by Scottish Highlander settlers.
In addition, the census records show that my paternal grandfather's
grandfather, John, was an illiterate Irish immigrant who found his way
to Mississippi where he met a free mulatto woman named Mary. The two of
them eventually found their way to Nachitoches Parish in northwest
Louisiana where they lived and raised their four children including my
great-grandfather who, oddly enough, was actually born in Mexico.
In addition, the New York Times's reporter Fox Butterfield's 1996 book
"All God's Children" which was about the notorious. although highly
intelligent, criminal Willie Bosket, traces the origins of the African
American Bosket Family and the cycles of violence that swirled around
them to their cultural and geneological roots among the violent and
blood feuding Scottish Highlanders who had settled in the hill country
of South Carolina. There are far too many African Americans having
Scottish and Irish surnames for anyone to claim that the Scots-Irish
kept their distance from blacks. Some did; some didn't.
Southern whites tend to
Southern whites tend to exhibit a
fierce independence and "up by the bootstraps" ethos of the
Scotch/Irish tradition, whereas black culture has drifted into a victim
mentality that tends to blame others for community problems and (in
general) promotes government assistance as the only way out of
troubles.
What?!
Has the person who wrote this talked to many Southern Whites recently?
Sure, there's a hard work ethic that is espoused by most Southern
Whites, but it's always attached to a complaint about phantom illegal
immigrants "taking jobs" from hard working Americans (read: Whites), or
about "reverse racism" and how the black man will get the job before
them, thanks to those damn Democrats and their Affirmative Action.
First Rook comes by, now
First Rook comes by, now you, and I got email from Anne Zook...
This is cool. I have to say I'm enjoying the blasts from the recent past.
Sailer wrote: "Perhaps the
Sailer wrote: "Perhaps the biggest social problem of
African-Americans, as reflected in the very high illegitimacy rate, is
that the culture they brought with them from Africa is one of low
paternal investment. America's dominant culture had largely succeeded
in inculcating monogamy and bring-home-the-bacon norms in blacks by
about 1960, when it suddenly lost its self-confidence and began
funding, via AFDC, the traditional African tendency toward mothers
supporting their children without much support from their
fathers."
This is an odd statement if, for no other reason, the writer provides
no examples to support his claim regarding the alleged tendency of
Africans to make "low paternal investment(s)" in
their children. Where in Africa, for example, was this so-called
tendency a dominant or predominant trait among parents? Given the
tribal structure that existed among African peoples during the period
of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans would have been unique among all
the world's diverse and varied tribal societies in not investing in
their children's development and survival.
If Sailer's claims are true then we can only conclude that Africans
arrived in this country with a cultural predisposition toward devaluing
the importance of their families. In other words, slavery may have
been, according to the line of Sailer's argument, an efficient cause of
the breakup of black families but it was not the sufficient cause
because of the Africans' tendency of "low parental
investment." Every slave narrative that I have ever read
disputes this claim but, perhaps, the statements of those who were
actually enslaved and suffered the forced breakup of their families
means little because, after all, they are biased.
By 1960, any credible comprehensive study or discussion of America's
dominant culture would have had to include the influence and
contributions that African Americans made to creating that "dominant culture". In other words, American
culture, which Sailer obviously means as being Euro-American, was not
something that simply acted on African Americans. It was a culture in
which African Americans, despite their decades of marginalization,
played a significant role in shaping and creating as well.
So to assert that America's "dominant culture" had
succeeded by 1960 in making blacks amenable to acting like responsible
adults and caring parents is simply absurd and represents either the
musings of a covert racist or the claims of a person who is purblind
and profoundly ignorant about the lives and history of black Americans.
The precipitous rise in out-of-wedlock births among African American
women which began in the 1960s cannot be reasonably attributable to
either a "loss of confidence" or an increase in AFDC
payments. I think that William Julius Wilson's work, among others,
clearly shows that the decline in job opportunities and other economic
factors also played an inluential role in this development.
Many of us in the black community who also viewed this rise in
out-of-wedlock births with growing concern feel that conservatives are
off the mark in terms of analyzing the root causes of this problem. To
us, political conservatives continually want to apportion blame to the
welfare state as a means of furthering their own political agenda.
Their mantra has been largely swallowed whole by an emerging tide of
black political and social conservatives. In short, both groups are
opposed to welfare statism and both groups revel in attributing the
problems of many blacks to the welfare state.
Let me offer a slightly different perspective here. It is my view and
the view of many others - black and white included - that the increase
in AFDC and other so-called welfare benefits was, to be blunt, a form
of pacification and accommodation. Liberals and conservatives alike,
for example, repeatedly refused to insist and demand that the lily
white craft and trade unions open their membership lists and allow
blacks to join their unions. Both groups, especially political
conservatives, resisted passing strong laws that would have prevented
or made it difficult for employers to engage in racially-based hiring
and promotions. There are numerous other examples I could cite here.
In the face of massive overt and covert white resistence to the
legitimate and lawful efforts of blacks to become part of the
mainstream of American society, elected and appointed officials, as a
means to stave off black unrest in the cities, began creating an
alternative economic structure for blacks. Instead of jobs, economic
opportunities and fair housing, blacks were given welfare payments,
enforced corporate redevelopment and public housing.
To attribute this process solely to liberals as conservatives, with
their slavish penchant for distorting contemporary history are inclined
to do, is hugely wrong. Conservatives and liberals alike were equally
complicit in making a deal with the devil of American race relations.
Let's be clear about something else here. The time for these changes to
have been intiated were in the aftermath of World War II. By waiting
another 25 to 30 years, the damage that had already been done to
black people and black communities by chattel slavery and the long
nightmare of Jim Crow was increased exponentially. We are living with
the results of this failure every time there is a drive-by shooting in
the black ghettos.
The roots of the nihilism that is consuming too many black communities
today cannot be found in the welfare state or the social engineering
dreams of liberals. American society, as a whole, reneged on its
promise to its black citizens and it did so at a time when the entire
society was undergoing fundamental and lasting change.
That one may well get
That one may well get promoted to a post.
In the face of massive
In the face of massive overt and covert white resistence to the
legitimate and lawful efforts of blacks to become part of the
mainstream of American society, elected and appointed officials, as a
means to stave off black unrest in the cities, began creating an
alternative economic structure for blacks.
i would agree except for the fact that welfare payments were already a part of American life and had been so since the Thirties. in fact, in many states welfare payments were withheld from Black and Latino mothers because the local agency workers disapproved of their living arrangements or to force them to work for less than the regular wage. so the idea that welfare payments were used as a disincentive for black unrest doesn't sit comfortably with me.
what irritates me most about welfare rhetoric is, as PTC notes, that it is often used to indict Black matriarchal families for simply striving to get ahead by any means necessary. As recently as 1999, research shows that minority welfare recipients
tend to average about 2.5 children per household, which is nowhere near
the fecund, promiscuous stereotype that is promulgated so strenuously
in the media. Minority women, a notoriously underemployed group exceeded only in unemployment statistics by Black men, are penalized by both AFDC/TANF and the mainstream media not only for being poor, for being Black/Latina, for being sexual beings AND for not having mainstream-ordered family patterns. it is these women who are castigated as the reason why welfare culture is so 'abused', when unfair hiring practices, poor job retention efforts, a failed educational system, and the attendant problems of poverty are much more to blame. let's continue to ignore how whites - even with institutions in their favor - outnumber minority TANF recipients by at least 3 to 1. if someone actually did pay attention to that statistic, then perhaps some of the losses of the welfare state (and any nation-state that cares about its citizenry is a welfare state, non?) could be reversed...but i'm not hopeful about that possibility and neither should you be.
Well, I was away for quite
Well, I was away for quite some time... blog was even gone for a few
months. Not "blank", but completely gone. I almost even balked on
registering the domain for another year.
It's good to be back, though... expect plenty more from me. You know I can't keep my mouth shut :-)
The time for these changes
The time for these changes to
have been intiated were in the aftermath of World War II. By waiting
another 25 to 30 years, the damage that had already been done to
black people and black communities by chattel slavery and the long
nightmare of Jim Crow was increased exponentially.
I agree, PT. But in the same sense that the time was 1920.. Or 1865. Or 1776.
WWII,
and the undeniable success of black soldiers when it really mattered,
was the beginning of the end for Jim Crow, but it wasn't the end of the
end. The end did happen. It happened in the military in less than
ten years, and, as you point out, in the country as a whole within 25 years.
In historic time, this is big change way fast.
==
editor isn't right, doesn't end italics. Looks ok on preview.
DW, There has never been a
DW,
There has never been a war that this country has engaged in, even the
unjust and nearly genocidal campaigns that were waged against Native
Americans, that the role of black soldiers was not an "undeniable
success." Black people were entitled by birth and law to their full rights in the United States regardless of how well or how poorly black soldiers did in World War II.
The dissolution of the European colonial empires and the glaring contradiction between the United States' desire to be seen as a bastion of freedom and a bulwark against communism and its treatment of its native black population had as much to do with the end of Jim Crow than blacks serving in the military. I chose the end of
World War II because there was a great upswelling of desire for peace
and freedom among a great multitude of people all over the world. In
addition, many black veterans returned from the war with a profound
sense of optimism about their place in the world as individuals and the prospects for their people because of their experiences in the war.
The feelings of acceptance, however, that they experienced were for the most part a result of their contacts with Europeans. The American
military was still as racist and as segregated as it had always been.
(My father, who was booted out of the Navy after 19 days because of his recalcitrant attitude about this situation, often told me that he had left the south because of racial segregation and that he had no
intentions of dying in a segregated military.)
The patterns of racially segregated housing became even more fixed in American life in the aftermath of World War II. If blacks, especially black veterans, had been able to purchase homes wherever they could afford to buy instead of the inner-cities, not only would our cities look vastly different, but there is great reason to suppose that the movement of blacks into the middle class would have occurred earlier and with more frequency.
If blacks, especially black
If blacks, especially black veterans, had been able to purchase homes
wherever they could afford to buy instead of the inner-cities, not only
would our cities look vastly different, but there is great reason to
suppose that the movement of blacks into the middle class would have
occurred earlier and with more frequency.
Here's the story as I recall it PT.
The
legal status of blacks buying any home they could afford was resolved
starting in 1948, and was completely solved by 1953. Again, while
we're going to agree that it shouldn't have needed to happen, that's
pretty fast change.
What was more important a barrier was a
curious alliance of liberals and racists who indeed sought to put
(rather than keep) blacks in older neighborhoods and keep them out of
the suburbs. This was far more dependent on "reverse
discriminination" than directly blocking blacks from moving to the
suburbs. The liberals envisioned a new black middle class in fine old
Jewish or Italian neighbborhoods. They had two tools. One, the ability
to subsidize loans to blacks who went to the designated area. Two,
powerfully, was denying whites the ability to get a loan in such
neighborhoods. The banks had a lot of money to be made by going along,
and a lot to lose by confronting local government officials,
Denying white competition kept prices low, which served the intent of
the liberals, black home ownership.
For sure, those same banks showed black people maps of places
where they could get a loan on favorable terms, and where they would
have to pay more. However, there were
very few if any places where blacks simply couldn't buy into suburbia.
The primary barrier was to the racial disparity regarding loans in the
emerging black neighborhoods.
It
worked beyond anyone's
expectations. Neighborhoods went from something-else to 90% black in
less than 10 years, but this "critical mass", while a victory for
liberals and government power over the flow of money, was no victory
for blacks or
for the cities they lived in. Many found themselves trapped
indoors for fear of crime, needing to pay unaffordable sums to get
their kids into decent schools. Some neighborhoods simply started to be
abandoned, with no market for houses. Others found landlords to be the
only buyers.
It's a mess which we're still trying to recover from today.
A
mess which could likely have been avoided if we had had a government which
was constitutionally barred from granting racial preference.
Would
whites have moved to the suburbs without such government
involvement? Sure, but at a far slower pace. Would blacks
have bought inner city houses? Sure, but they would have bought
suburban houses too. Could the inner city neighborhoods have been
spared their decline into crime? I'd like to think so. Surrender
to thugs requires the suppression of anti-crime activist residents, and
a slower transition leaves a lot more such people in the
neighborhood. Less crime means more attraction to homebuyers of
all races. We can only speculate about the past, but we can learn
from the mistakes.
The legal status of blacks
Wrong
Here's the story as I recall
wow......,
whew.....,
dayyum...,
DW -
DW -
Please clarify what you believe was pretty fast change in the legal
status of black veterans in regards to buying homes because you seem to
equate or, perhaps, conflate the courts declaring such racially
discriminatory barriers as illegal or unconstitutional with black
veterans actually being able to purchase homes in white neighborhoods
or suburbs.
In the 1960s California voters led by the real estate industry defeated
an initiative to establish fair housing laws in the state. I can
clearly recall that in 1958 when the New York Giants baseball team
moved to San Francisco, their great centerfielder and star player
Willie Mays tried to buy a house that was for sell in the Forest Hills
neighborhood that the owner, a plumbing contractor, withdrew the house
from the market when homeowners in the area protested. When the
Philadelphia Warriors basketball team moved to San Francisco a few
years later their star player Wilt Chamberlain was prevented from
buying a house in the Golden Gate Heights section of town. The man who
would have been his next door neighbor actually told the press that he
feared for his teenage daughters if Chamberlain was allowed to move in.
DW, there was no alliance of liberals and racists whites during the
period we are discussing that worked to prevent blacks from buying
homes in the suburbs unless you are referring to so-called liberals
like Arthur Levitt, a Jew, who publicly said that he wouldn't sell a
house in any of the developments he built to a Jew if any of the owners
in the development objected. In 1956 or 1957 a black family actually
managed to buy a house in the Levittown he constructed outside of
Philadelphia in Bucks County. There were protests and several near
riots that finally caused the governor to send in the state troopers to
keep order.
If you would like to read more about the pervasive effects of housing
discrimination and whether or not blacks were prevented from purchasing
homes in the suburbs see David Rusk's paper "The Segregation Tax: The
Cost of Racial Segregation to Black Homeowners."
You can download the paper at this link: http://www.knowledgeplex.org/showdoc.html?id=2632