By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
January 17, 2003
My analysis last week of the debate between Democrats and Republicans over job creation and whether or not our economy is in recession led to a lot of e-mails that prompted made me realize how much America is being racially re-segregated based on multi-culturalism. It also made me think of a recent conversation with I had with a young friend, Ashley, who was looking for a job and brought up the issue of her own ethnicity.
She said that her father was an Indian from India, her mother Caucasian, one great-grandparent was a “Creole” from Louisiana, she grew up in foster homes and tentatively suggested that she guessed she would be considered an "African-American." I asked, “How do you get “African-American” out of that?”
I pointed out that the hyphenated “American” actually identifies the children of immigrants. Someone born in America of parents from Italy was called “Italian-American.” A child born in America of parents from Japan was “Japanese-American.” By the next generation, the national origin was dropped and the grandchildren were just plain old “Americans.” With that in mind I suggested that, since her father was an immigrant from India, she could not possibly be “African-American,” whatever that is. She’s either an “Asian-American,” an “Indian-American” or just a plain old unhyphenated, garden-variety American.
Back in the 1940s, as a young office worker in an insurance company in Memphis, Tennessee, I was required to find out, and indicate on any insurance policy I typed, whether or not a customer was “colored.” If they WERE “colored,” their records had a [c] by their name. That ridiculous practice was made an illegal by the 1964 Civil Rights Law which stopped employers from asking people about their race, ethnicity or sex.
Yet, today that kind of reprehensible labeling, records kept by race, ethnicity and sex, is rampant in America, ordered and practiced by the Federal Government on a massive scale with much the same kind of results as in the 1940s – causing people to think of themselves as a tribe rather than as a nation.
Nearly all the e-mail I received on the analysis The Democrats’ Class War Politics Won’t Produce Jobs-, which did not mention race at all, was from unemployed white people who told me that whites were unemployed in disproportionate numbers to “minorities.” One wrote: “I've been laid off due to the telecom demise since 12/2001. I'm over-qualified and white people like us are not getting jobs these days buddy. … - if you want to know who is NOT working, take a look at the make-up of an un-employment line. … You will see white men & women, a few black men and very few if any black women.”
Never one to turn down a challenge, I tracked down the unemployment statistics by race, which, the 1964 Civil Rights Law notwithstanding, are meticulously kept by the U.S. Department of Labor. The unemployment figures from December 2001 to December 2002 look like this:
White males over 20: Dec. 2001- 4.7% Dec. 2002 – 4.9% unemployed
White females over 20 Dec. 2001- 4.0% Dec, 2002 - 4.4% unemployed
Black males over 20 Dec. 2001- 9.1% Dec. 2002- 10.7% unemployed.
Black females over 20 Dec. 2001 7.6% Dec. 2002- 10.1% unemployed
Hispanic Origin all- Dec. 2001 7.7% Dec. 2002- 7.9% unemployed
These statistics disprove every point of my reader’s e-mail. However, what caught my eye in several of the e-mails was the notion that “whites” now are a special group that deserve attention equal to other “victim” or “multi-cultural” groups. I am beginning to see increasingly readers designating themselves by their race, or ethnicity or religion or, more recently, even their sexual interests. Before “multi-culturalism” people had a tendency to think of themselves as “Texans” or “Yankees” or “Southerners” or “Californians” specifically and “Americans” generally.
Today, every issue seems classified as part of the Class War which itself is part of multi-culturalism – whether it is about tax cuts, or National Security, or the job market, or education.
Another record kept by the Labor Department that would refute the class war argument are figures about unemployment by education attainment level, with no mention of race or sex:
High school dropout – Dec. 2001 – 9% Dec. 2002 – 9.5% unemployed
Graduated from high school Dec. 2001 - 4.8% Dec. 2002 - 5.4% unemployed
Some college, no Degree Dec. 2001 - 4.0% Dec. 2002- 5% unemployed
College Graduates Dec. 2001 - 2.8% Dec. 2002 - 3% unemployed
Obviously, whether a worker is black, white, or Hispanic, male or female, young or old these figures show that the most important factor in their being unemployed is their education level, not their race or ethnicity. President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” education plan should be considered a key economic program, based on the Labor Department’s charts. Yet, while the race of the unemployed is invariably used by the media as an important factor, I don’t remember ever seeing the networks talk about the unemployment level of college graduates compared with high school drop-outs.
A few days after our conversation, Ashley started a new job which she found with hard work, determination, writing a good resume and pursuing it with determination. Now that she has the job, she is working long hours and taking the tough assignments. She also is planning to complete her schooling.
She will succeed because she’s using what used to be called American ingenuity in pursuit of the American dream. It works a whole lot better than multiculturalism and affirmative action.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com