Q: How would you respond to the contention that black elites have distanced themselves from the struggles of the broader African American community?
A: The facts are that the 1% of black America owns more of the wealth of black America than the 1% of America owns of America. So it is true that there is greater wealth inequality within black America. If I remember correctly the percentages were about 79% for black America vs about 73% for America itself.
The fundamental reason for this is simple. There are larger percentages of black Americans living in impoverished regions of the country than that of the average rest of the nation. America is a high tech nation. Slavery and rural economies were low tech industries. Slavery being the lowest of low. Yet high percentages of black America has not left the South. Cities like Montgomery AL are NOT for the upwardly mobile. You might hope and pray for Montgomery to get better; there’s nothing wrong with that. Just as there is nothing wrong with betting on the Cleveland Browns to win a few more games.
BUT
Black elites are not going to move into places like Montgomery AL to make things better for the large numbers of black Americans who live there. Black police chiefs from Dallas or Milwaukee are not going to move to Ferguson MO to make things better. Black elites are not going to send their sons and daughters to community colleges to be leaders of the larger percentages of black students outside of four-year higher education.
Black elites are going to donate to charity. But also, black elites read Thomas Sowell 30 years ago and they know that charity only goes so far. You can be sure they didn’t get their wealth from charity or DEI. Black elites also know that the point of ending segregation was to give black Americans access to free markets rather than ‘separate but equal’ which only makes sense for elementary schools, not industrial policy. There is no ‘black’ steel industry. There are no ‘black’ armed forces.
Black Americans get power from getting American power, not from corralling the support of the black masses.
Who does get money and power from corralling the support of the black masses? Retail. Period. Politics, maybe, but blacks who get the mainstream vote are always more powerful than those who get a solid black vote. That’s never going to change.