A Lack of Skills, and Confidence

August 23, 2020 (523 words)

Of course not every black man of limited means is violent, or traffics in criminal activity. But there is a generation of law-abiding African-American adult men, now in their thirties and forties, who seem to have no discernable skills whatsoever.

And they also seem to lack confidence in themselves.

In my admittedly limited, anecdotal experience, there is a marked passivity to many of these guys that comes off as their having no instincts on how to do anything. It’s as if they don’t think themselves good enough, or smart enough, to function in a white man’s world. Even though they are every bit as intelligent as the whites they may be working alongside of.

The black men I am describing are ones I have encountered in a blue-collar work environment. They are affable gentlemen for the most part, though a few have become frustrated with their lot in life, and express that as rage at “the system.”

In my amateur analysis, their lack of confidence was hatched long before any of them entered the workforce. What might be described as the missing piece of their character development was the absence of a father in so many of these men’s lives.

In my up-close, first-hand experience with upwards of twenty African-American men over the last couple of decades, it’s not that the father skipped town. He was around, but chose not to live with his off-spring, at least not during the formative years. He was a tangential presence, at best, in his children’s lives.

As most of us have come to know, mothers are in charge of nurturing their children and making sure they feel loved. Fathers, on the other hand, are in charge of acclimating their children – and especially their sons – to the realities of the outside world. This is the very component so many black men of my acquaintance are clearly lacking. This is the source of their lack of confidence.

Again let me state the control group for my little behavioral study consists of guys “from the neighborhood” who were unable to score anything other than minimum wage jobs, before joining my small operation as warehouse workers and delivery drivers. They tend to come and go after a few years, which is why I’ve encountered such a sample size.

(Another side note: In my line of work I don’t get to hang out and rub elbows with African Americans who are Ivy League professors, investment bankers, or research scientists. Such men no doubt are brimming with confidence, and can think rings around the likes of me.)

By comparison, working-class whites have historically benefited from growing up as part of intact nuclear families. These white fathers have always had their pronounced flaws, especially when operating under financial stress, which seems to be most of the time.

They may not have been shining examples of concern and caring when it came to executing their parental duties. But more often than not they managed to get their children – and especially their sons – ready to face the outside world, just by virtue of being there and grinding it out every day.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
August 23, 2020

Why do Blacks fill our Jails?

August 18, 2020 (301 words)

This summer’s “day of reckoning” kicked off with the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN, while in police custody. It was the latest such incident in recent years – flagrant examples of police brutality inflicted upon blacks. Police departments around the country need a major re-think of how they interact with their minority communities. And they certainly need to dismiss the bad actors that have been allowed to retain their jobs after multiple citations for inappropriate behavior. But the over-representation of blacks in the criminal justice system cannot be solely attributed to unwarranted zealousness on the part of mean-spirited whites with a chip on their shoulder. While prejudice may be a contributing factor, it only accounts for 15% or 20% of the discrepancy, according to high-profile social commentator Glen C. Loury. The rest is due to the indisputable fact blacks are committing more acts that can be punished with prison. Mr. Loury is a tenured professor of economics currently affiliated with Brown University. As an esteemed, 71 year-old African-American academic and author, he is being called on quite a bit for comment during this, our summer of discontent. He is of the opinion the determinist argument that “if you have poverty, you are going to have crime” let’s black perps off the hook. This defense of crime in poor neighborhoods leaves out “human agency,” and it leaves out morality, according to Professor Loury. Doesn’t law enforcement have a responsibility to do its job, even when the crimes take place in a black community? The apparent overuse of force when policing in minority neighborhoods needs to be reviewed and reined in. But that said, don’t black people deserve the same protection from the criminals in their midst as do whites, even when those criminals happen to be black themselves?

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
August 18, 2020

Personal Habits and Success

August 15, 2020 (475 words)

A lack of cognitive ability, or possession of a lesser degree of cognitive ability, can be an obstacle to securing viable employment. But this condition – like the blessing of inherent dignity, native intelligence, and even genius – is found among all races and ethnic groups in similar proportion.

It’s not as if the white population is any smarter, on average, than the black population. (As a white man i can assert this with absolute authority). There are plenty of white guys who are not exactly the brightest bulb in the pack, but who have nevertheless managed to remain gainfully employed down through the years. Their main attributes consist of showing up on time, keeping their nose clean, and mastering a routine.

So when faced with the fact so many black men are just scraping by financially, one has to consider the profligate way some of them have chosen to conduct their personal lives, and how those choices have impacted their employment prospects in a negative way.

The phrase “no Justice, no Peace” is regularly invoked to explain outbursts of anger and even civil unrest that occur in the black community on occasion. And it does make for a compelling argument that has always resonated with me.

But the level of injustice experienced here in the United States is relative. Even in our poorest communities, most everyone has a place to sleep, and enough to eat. Indeed, smart phones proliferate even in the ‘hood, do they not?

The “islands of concentrated poverty” many inner city blacks are forced to inhabit may not be pleasant, and may have been created by residential housing segregation known as red-lining.

As business writer Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. notes, what are now obviously broken communities have been further condemned to failure by public housing subsidies and a welfare system that fixes people to their current, broken down address. So, yes, the political class may want to re-think the place-oriented way they currently allocate federal dollars to address intractable problems like economic and social injustice.

But why did these communities become broken in the first place? Is being poor a direct corollary to not taking care of what little one has? Does living in poverty inevitably result in crime and violence?

Not receiving one’s “fair share” is certainly enough to get worked up about, and is a good reason to complain. But does that justify wonton violence in one’s own community, and the destruction of property? Doesn’t such self-inflicted mayhem make the poverty that much harder to bear?

Put another way, is systemic racism the reason black men shoot each other as frequently as they do? Is it the reason they don’t marry the women who bear their children? Living an indulgent lifestyle dilutes one’s effectiveness on the job. Living a criminal one removes a person from the “employable” category altogether.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
August 15, 2020

Education is the Key, Right?

August 12, 2020 (321 words)

There is a broad consensus that improving educational opportunities is the answer to the current unemployment problem, among blacks and whites alike. We have to start training young people for today’s hi-tech jobs, according to the experts. But not everyone is predisposed to do such work, either intellectually or temperamentally, even if the specialized training were to become readily available. Ongoing attempts to reform under-funded and under-performing inner city schools should help the black and minority children forced to attend them. Giving these children access to a better education will no doubt increase their chances of finding suitable employment down the line. But let’s not overstate what “a good education” can accomplish in the way of enhanced job prospects. Not every child, black or white, is going to become “a leader of tomorrow.” The majority have a much more modest aspiration: A steady job that can establish them as a functioning member of society. Every race and ethnic group is blessed not only with inherent dignity, but with its fair share of native intelligence, and even genius. If given access to better educational opportunities, the same percentage of black children can blossom and earn an exalted place in the professions, in government, and in the corporate world as do their white counterparts. On a side note, my own little neighborhood passel of white elementary school classmates from half a century ago was nothing special, and we came from parents who were for the most part just plugging along. We had as many as seventy in a classroom back in the 1960s, as I recall. Some of us were rambunctious and unruly. Despite such overcrowding, and daily disruptions to learning, a fair share of our unremarkable gaggle grew up to become doctors and lawyers and Indian chiefs. But that still leaves the rest of the group, the overwhelming majority of both black and white communities, in search of some place to work.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
August 12, 2020

Marginalizing Lesser-Skilled Workers

August 8, 2020 (390 words)

How to ameliorate the present suffering? Activists will continue to debate the best way of deploying housing subsidies and distributing welfare payments. And whether to continue and even expand existing affirmative action programs. Re-introducing the idea of reparations into the mix is also being floated as a possibility.

(40 acres and a mule would have been a solid step in the right direction after the Civil War. But apparently white America couldn’t muster the political will to follow through on that pledge at the time. Whether some form of equally broad-stroke reparations makes sense now seems like a long shot to me.)

After the recrimination and soul-searching of the present moment subsides, finding our way to any real improvement will require more than just re-arranging the same old deck chairs. It will involve acknowledging a very old problem, one that is only getting worse with each passing year.

There is a dwindling supply of jobs for disadvantaged, marginalized men of both races who possess a lesser degree of cognitive ability, limited education, and a lack of training.

As much as we pride ourselves on America being the land of opportunity, there has never been enough of it to go around. In our survival of the fittest approach to life, the last hired is the first fired. This is another major reason why much of the black workforce has remained on the outside looking in.

While it’s true every European immigrant community had to battle its way into full economic participation, none of those once-looked-down-upon groups started from a baseline of chattel slavery, or found themselves separated from the dominant culture by the color of their skin.

Providing steady, life-sustaining employment for able-bodied citizens of all skill levels should be the primary mission of our entrepreneurial class. Getting the movers and shakers to see things this way has always been a struggle throughout our country’s history. Now, with the way our paper and information economy has evolved over the last fifty or sixty years, ownership’s disdain for working people of all races and creeds is at an all-time high.

Too many of today’s most successful business models assume only a skeleton crew of employees, with everything outsourced. Or, at the other extreme, a burgeoning force of nothing but low-wage workers who never quality for benefits, let alone any sort of pension.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
August 8, 2020

A Lack of Empathy

August 3, 2020 (341 words)

The big noisy discussion we are currently having about systemic racism needs to happen. Since it’s a major reason so many blacks are stuck on the outside looking in, even after all these years, and after so many federally mandated attempts at integration and affirmative action. But it’s not the only reason. Before we even get to the overarching subject of institutional exclusion, there is the issue of how regular, everyday white people failed to put their so-called Christian beliefs into practice, by extending a helping hand when they could have. It’s always been incumbent on the group with the advantage, who enjoys the higher ground, to make concessions and show consideration, if social and economic injustices have any chance of being rectified. This lack of neighborly love shown to black citizens could have first been chalked up to everyday whites being pre-occupied with their own self-preservation in our famously dog-eat-dog economy. Then, once those whites achieved a measure of middle-class comfort, the plight of the still-left-behind black population was easy to dismiss. This blasé attitude is why the deep resentment being expressed by blacks this summer is taking the silent white majority by surprise. The majority thinks of themselves as not having a prejudiced bone in their body, as they lead relatively tranquil lives, far removed from any active racial strife. They are appalled by the startling video reminders of indefensible acts on the part of certain members of law enforcement, now coming at them with increased regularity. But they don’t quite know what to do about it, beyond holding up a sign that reads “Black Lives Matter” at a local rally. A residual, low-frequency guilt is the reason the silent majority is giving the protests and the non-stop airing of grievances a wide berth, even when the protests escalate into destruction of municipal property and looting of retail establishments. These whites seem to have acquiesced, at least for the time being, “as if (conceding) that the eruptions might be justified and even overdue,” as essayist Lance Morrow recently noted.

Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr
August 3, 2020