One America's Dialogue on Race and Poverty in the United States

In an unprecedented dialogue on the economic role in racism, the Advisory Board to President Clinton's Initiative on Race held one of its Board meetings in San Jose in February.  The purpose was to examine the relationship between race, poverty, and public policy in both rural and urban America, examine the racial characteristics of the poor, the persistence of poverty, its causes including the role of discrimination, and to assess the nature of concentrated areas of poverty.  Some questions raised included:  Is there a link between race and concentrated poverty?  What are the main causes of continuing and concentrated poverty among whites and people of color?  Does discrimination continue to affect the opportunities for people of color to move out of poor, segregated neighborhoods?  With a public audience of a few hundred people, the Advisory Board met with both national pundits and local program developers to learn about and discuss the state of America's economy and its connection to race relations.

The morning session, "Poverty and Race:  Facts, Causes and National Issues," consisted of theories and discussion among national leaders in economic racism and poverty issues.  William Julius Wilson, one of the nation's leading sociologists on urban poverty and author of  When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor, blamed high unemployment rates in ghetto (usually black) neighborhoods on the ongoing changes in the economy for low-skilled workers, such as companies moving overseas, down sizing employees and replacing people with technology.  He also noted that ghetto neighborhoods typically have a weak institutional resource base, a dearth of good schools, churches and neighborhood organizations; from his observations, joblessness is also associated with low levels of these "social organizations."  To help alleviate inner-city poverty and subsequent racism, he proposed a reduction in economic segregation, broader strategies such as government-inspired remedies and community-based strategies such as the development of local organizations.  He also praised the booming economy for getting blacks out of the ghetto.

Dr. Douglas Massey, a University of Pennsylvania expert on segregated housing, put more emphasis on residential de-segregation.  Studies show that late 20^th-century African Americans are more segregated than any other group in US history.  In housing markets, he said, much more than housing is at stake for the residents - schools, peer groups, insurance, local amenities and public services are determined by where a person lives.  "Moving up the economic ladder at a regular pace is a myth," he challenged.  "Residential mobility is part and parcel of economic mobility."  Contradicting Wilson's beliefs that a booming economy will pull people of color out of poverty, Massey insisted that 80% of the United States have NOT benefited from the economy's strength over the last seven years.  (Undiscussed by the mainstream media, the system promotes the top 20% of the population, mostly upper-class whites, to maintain its wealth.)  Massey stressed the government's important role in creating an "equal environment" by strengthening anti-discrimination policies.

Dr. Matthew Snipp, a sociologist at Stanford University, pointed out that Native Americans face special challenges in overcoming poverty.  Explanations like housing segregation are inadequate in explaining persistent unemployment rates of nearly 40 percent in some Native American communities.  Their voices are usually neglected because they are too few in number and too spread out across the country.  He said that a community-based development of local economic bases, including the creation of new jobs, would contribute greatly to reducing not only unemployment, but also racial tensions.

Robert Woodson, director of a nationwide nonpartisan research organization on the forefront of empowering low-income Americans, insisted that continued emphasis on racial prejudice prevents discussion of institutionalized racism.  "Race and gender does not determine success in the game; the rules determine everything," he said.  Special interest groups and large corporations profit from keeping small businesses off the street, leading to a bureaucratic discouragement of "boot-strap" capitalism for small businesses.  Only by looking beyond conventional tactics, beyond race, and by studying the strengths of inner-city people instead of viewing them as passive tenants in victimized areas, he said, can those areas prosper.

Dr. Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes, and urban studies professor from San Francisco State University, said that "simply working does not lift one out of poverty.  We must lift the minimum wage, increase opportunities for high-end jobs, and remove glass ceilings."  She cautioned against the romanticizing of ethnic enclaves within an urban or rural area, which often tends to incapacitate its residents to leave the safety and comfort and prevents economic growth.

Despite some conflicting viewpoints among the panelists, all agree that more investment on the local level is imperative to helping not only economic problems, but ones tied to race.  Dr. Tarry Hum, an APA Fellow at New York University, said that reducing poverty can be accomplished by building local community assets, and by empowering communities to take charge and establish accountability practices.  It was agreed that a combination of national (government or otherwise) resources and local programs which facilitated communities to "write their own futures" was crucial in abating economically-based racial issues.

 The afternoon session brought together directors of Bay Area programs addressing poverty and poverty-linked racism.  Each person got an opportunity to showcase their program's efforts and accomplishments, which included building affordable housing in San Francisco's Chinatown,  welfare-to-work and poverty-reduction programs within southern California's Indian community,  providing free legal assistance to rural low-income farm workers, and job training and placement for San Jose's disadvantaged youth.  These programs were taking the morning speakers' ideologies to a tangible, productive level, succeeding at utilizing outside sources to bring positive change and strengthen local infrastructure.

The consensus that racial discussions need to address economic inequity was enhanced by revolutionary, yet what some consider self-evident, ideas.  Amy Dean of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council stated that training, in and of itself, does nothing.  "We need a new social contract, with old players in new roles.  There must be a legitimate role for employers to play in this community dialogue."  Forging relationships that include communities typically excluded from dialogues on race and economics, such as the Indian and corporate communities, was unanimously held as important to the process of making the United States "One Nation."