Cosby and His Critics Still Don’t Have it RightCosby and His Critics Still Don’t Have it Right
Matthew Birkhold
I’ve never thought Bill Cosby’s explanation for black poverty was right, but I never thought he was wrong for stressing personal accountability. Last week, both Ta-Nehisi Coates and John McWhorter reenergized the Cosby debate and got closer to the truth behind Cosby’s arguments than anybody else. Yet, neither sees the most logical reason for the increase in problems poor black folk experience. An increase in the size of the black sub-working class
According to Coates, Cosby suffers from historical amnesia and longs for the good ole days. Referencing sociologists from the 1930s throughout the present, Coates says Cosby’s “assertion that many of the problems that pervade black America are of a recent vintage—is simply wrong, as is his contention that today’s young African Americans are somehow weaker, that they’ve dropped the ball.” McWhorter agrees with Coates that the problems experienced in black America are not new, but adds that Cosby is correct to explain that the increase in these problems is caused by a cultural shift he sees created by welfare dependency.
McWhorter is right to agree with Coates about the historical existence of these problems. His assertion that these problems have increased in number and severity is also correct. Where McWhorter goes wrong is when he suggests that the increase in these problems is the result of a cultural shift. The increase of historic problems in the black community can be explained by the increase of in the size of the class that experiences these problems.
In 1901, W.E.B. Du Bois observed that the poorest black folk in Philadelphia were more likely to drink more and commit crime than other blacks. Du Bois didn’t argue that poorer blacks lived by different cultural norms, he said that as a consequence of over 250 years of enslavement the unemployed were often unemployable. Because they had no jobs, they either turned to the informal economy or may have become depressed and turned to alcohol. People who are unemployable in a capitalist economy are members of a class called the sub-working class.
After the great migration, the majority of African Americans were transformed from members of a largely peasant agricultural class to members of an urban working class. Denied equal access to education and promotions, African American factory workers became unemployable when factories began to automate in the 1950s and finally close in the 1970s and 1980s. As automation and deindustrialization increased, so did the number of sub-working class blacks.
In the 1950s, members of the sub-working class may have worked as neighborhood mechanics or done odd jobs. Those who did not pursue odd jobs may have turned to gambling and/or drinking. By the 70s, those who would have turned to alcohol in the 50s may have turned to heroin. In the 80s, those who would have turned to alcohol in the 50s and heroin in the 70s, turned to crack.
Crack’s introduction to black communities in the 80s had another profound impact on the black informal economy. Many young people who may have had the skills to be a neighborhood mechanic or do odd jobs saw the possibility of making unprecedented money selling drugs. An increase in selling drugs also brought with it an increase in guns, violence, and murder. As the black sub-working class got larger and drugs became more easily available, the number of both drug dealers and drug addicts grew.
The increase in problems experienced by very poor blacks, the black sub-working class, is not due to a cultural shift amongst black people. It is largely attributable to the reality that as time has progressed, opportunities for informal employment have become more destructive.
What neither Coates nor McWhorter discuss is that sub-working class black people in the early 1900s probably responded to their situation the same way sub-working class blacks in the 60s did, which was probably the same way sub-working class blacks in the 80s responded to their situations. Today however, the world we live in is far more materialistic and violent than ever before. Additionally, sub-working class black communities have been devastated by the legacy of crack, a decrease in things like after school programs, and an increase in access to drugs and guns. Because of this, when members of the sub-working class black community respond emotionally and intellectually to unemployablity today the same way people did in 1910, 1960, or 1990, it is far more detrimental.
If these problems are to be resolved, they must be addressed at two levels. The easy level is jobs. However, in a postindustrial economy, creating working class jobs is no easy task because service sector jobs pay low wages. Because the prospects for living wage employment are not high, community activists, and the members of the sub-working class themselves, must work to develop programs that foster healthier responses to changes in the US economic structure.
Matt Birkhold is a Brooklyn based independent scholar, writer, and educator. He can be reached at birkhold@gmail.com
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