The future of Black America.

What is the future of black America? This is a question that cannot be answered without first answering the question concerning the future direction of America itself. Thus, by examining the direction of America, one can glean an insight into the direction of black America, because we are joined at the hip.

To put it bluntly...Black Americas zenith has been reached. We collectively reached that pinnacle in the 1990s, in regards to economics. The primary reason for the fall being that America is now on a downward trajectory from its zenith and a lowering tide sinks all ships. This nation continues to lose comparative advantage in a relatively peaceful world, which has allowed economies such as China to develop and produce goods and services far cheaper than can we.

The current buzz phrase of causation is “globalization”. Theoretically, globalization is the free flow of capital, businesses, resources, goods and services around the globe. In other words, business and capital investors will seek the path of least resistance to profit, which most often means the cheapest sources of labor and fewer regulatory and or environmental restrictions. This puts America in general and the African American worker in particular, as the big losers in the physics of the transfer of energies and opportunities under globalization. This is because black workers are over represented in occupations, such as manufacturing, that will absorb the biggest transfer of production and jobs to cheaper labor markets.

In light the economic shift of opportunities under capitalistic imperialism, unemployment and poverty will rise for African Americans. There will be a shrinking of the black middle class as the ranks of the economic lower class makes up the difference, while the percentage of blacks in the upper class will remain stable. Compounding this will be a nation less progressive in its dealings with historical issues that were the catalyst and origin of many of the disproportionate problems faced by blacks. There will likely be a phasing out of programs like Affirmative Action fairly soon, as the fortunes of the white masses begin to diminish under globalization as well, although less profoundly than blacks.

Politically, blacks will lose leverage and clout, as we are no longer the nation’s largest minority group. The Hispanic population will eventually by pass the black population considerably, forcing politicians to shift their focus to Hispanic interest and concerns. Of course, anytime politicians give one group more attention, another group will get less attention and the primary losers will be African Americans, as white interest (and money) will still dominate the two party system. Thus, backs will have to “piggy back” or find overlap benefit from white and Hispanic interest as our pure and often unique in degree or kind issues, such as reparations, will not have a snow ball chance in hell of manifesting into fruition.

Educationally, regardless of the naysayer, blacks are better educated today than they have ever been. Black literacy rates, high school completion, college participation and graduation are at or near record levels. However, the problem is that a changing economy and world keeps increasing its education demands faster than blacks are able to increase their supply. Thus, in absolute terms, blacks continue to make tremendous strides in education, given where we started, but in relative terms, our growth has not kept pace with economic demands. Moreover, only 26% of all jobs demanded by the economy require college degrees. Therefore, although education will make people more competitive, only 26% of the labor pool, at any given point in time, will command those good paying jobs, regardless if 100% of the people are well educated. In light of this, the USA cannot educate its way out of this fix.

Socially, the loss of the sense of black unity and common goal and purpose, along with increased poverty, will make living in many of our poor black communities treacherous. I think that the availability of guns, the opportunity for money from drugs and illegal activities, increasing lack of opportunity and hope, will converge to make levels of violence unprecedented. This will lead to more draconian political responses that will increase the incarceration rates of blacks, as well as, make prisons a more brutal experience. There will be increased police brutality and human rights violation. However, many blacks who will be so tired and weary from crime will actually support these measures in the hope of increasing their safety and freedom to move about without danger.

In regards to race, racial tolerance will diminish as economic competition increases and becomes more of a domestic zero sum game. The root of slavery and Jim Crow was economic. White Americans have a history of using “seesaw” economics to elevate themselves as the opposite resultant of placing the weight of burden and exploitation upon non white peoples. It would be a naïve to trust the character demonstrated by whites in good times, will be the character they demonstrate during stressful economic times. The test of “true” character can only be gleaned under stress, which has been absence over the last 30 years economically. When it returns, one can expect a dropping off of racial tolerance in general, which will reinvigorate the level of racism among whites. Moreover, with a decreasing percentage of the whole white population, whites will come to feel threatened about their way of life, beliefs, history and so forth, which will give rationalization for bigotry.

In summary, the assumption that progress will always be forward in America will be proven fallacious. The nation as a whole will stagnate and the middle class will decline. Blacks will actually digress. However, these predications are extrapolations and some event or condition can manifest the “butterfly effect”, which can throw the predications way of its extrapolated course. However, given the probability of certain possibilities, the most probable are the ones that will only worsen the scenario. So what should black folks do? Unity is the only solution that will help us deal with the coming challenges.