“I don’t like to predict violence, but if nothing is
done between now and June to raise ghetto hope, I feel this summer will not
only be as bad but worse than last year.” Those were Dr. King’s words in March
1968. That summer, his prediction materialized as Baltimoreans, frustrated with
poor housing, unemployment and discrimination took to the streets. Those riots
took place shortly after the passage of several historic civil rights bills.
Why so angry?
The nation is erupting again and the same root causes
are being cited, despite the election of a black president and in an era where a single "racist" comment can cost whites their livelihood. Again, why so angry? The
anger today stems from the same places it did 1968.
While “rioters” are told to go home and create the
American dream from scraps, there is awareness in their communities that the
European immigrant was helped in ways they will never be: the American pie was
sliced precisely with respect to race. In 2000, University of Michigan
professor Trina Shanks estimated that at most, more than 92 million Americans
may have descended from individuals who benefited from the Homestead Act.
Millions of acres of land were given to settlers while freed slaves were told
to build a life without land or meaningful assets. Michael L. Lanza’s research
on the Southern Homestead Act, designed to help remedy this problem, indicates
that institutional racism and various other factors rendered that policy
ineffective and short lived.
From 1934 to 1968, 98 percent of all Federal Housing
Administration (FHA) loans went to whites, according to Dr. George Lipsitz, a
professor of Black Studies at University of California Santa Barbara. FHA
guidelines essentially disqualified blacks from homeownership for decades.
Federal Reserve studies indicate in 1990 and 1991, black and Hispanic
applicants were denied mortgage loans two to three times more often than whites
and in many cities, banks denied high-income minorities more often than
low-income whites (see Melvin Oliver's "Black Wealth, White Wealth" for more).
As long as government procurement has existed, black
businesses have been excluded on the federal, state and local levels. While
white owned businesses expanded and provided opportunities to white families off
of government contracts, blacks watched from the sidelines, continuing to pay
taxes. Some counties, like my own Montgomery County, Maryland, are trying to be
proactive in correcting this disparity. Even so, this majority-minority county utilized black owned firms only .09 percent for construction contracts and 1.87 percent for professional services contracts in 2014.
In April we demanded frustrated Baltimore residents to
return home and keep quiet. Generations of discrimination in the private sector
crippled their communities but what’s more significant, monumental government actions continue to provide
assets to other communities. Land, homes and government contracts were given to
prop up whites but mentoring and recreational programs are prescribed to poor
blacks today. Even our tax structure dismisses the disenfranchised: the federal
government spends nearly $100 billion annually to allow homeowners to write off
mortgage interest (compare that to the mere $6 billion we spend on the low-income tax credit annually) while renters receive no tax benefits.
Why so angry? They’re told there is no pie left for them and they’ll
have to do it on their own; all under the watchful and judgmental eyes of a
nation oblivious to their recent and massive government-catered slices. In
Baltimore, they are told to build without assets and absent efforts remotely comparable
to that which their suburban neighbors received over generations into the
present day. Some individuals make it but the black masses are
trapped, absent a serious initiative to distribute assets. Along with
hopelessness, there is an awareness of all this and it’s maddening.
**For a starting point on practical solutions, start here and here.**