Jeff is our head poster for this coming week’s readings:
- Gavin Wright, Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (Cambridge, 2013), Chapter 6.
- How did the Voting Rights Act transform the lives of African-American workers in the South? How did it affect white workers?
- Ruth Milkman, “Immigrant Organizing and the New Labor Movement in Los Angeles,” Critical Sociology, vol. 26 nos. 1/2, pp. 59-81.
- Are undocumented immigrants “unorganizable”?
- Nancy MaCLean, “The Hidden History of Affirmative Action: Working Women’s Struggles in the 1970s,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1999.
PRIMARY SOURCE:
Studs Terkel, “Ruth Lindstrom, baby nurse” and “Rose Hoffman, public school teacher,” in Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day (New York, 1972), pp. 626-635.
The spectre haunting over this chapter is the Supreme Court. Gavin Wright published “Sharing the Prize” in 2013, the same year Chief Justice Roberts and the conservative allies on the Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County vs Holder that the Voting Rights Act had outlived its usefulness, and parts of it were now unconstitutional because, essentially, racism in politics was over. In this context, an analysis of the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act is prescient.
Wright looks at the political results of the Voting Rights Act after giving a cursory survey of prior civil rights legislation. He assesses the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act as an engine for economic advancement by looking at the growth of public sector employment, comparisons with white Southerners economic data, the distribution of governmental “rents,” and the shifting of political parties.
Wright’s thesis is that Black political power helped to improve economic equality, and that due to the vibrant voting bloc of Black Americans in the South, Southern politicians were more likely to provide government services that would benefit everyone. He comes to the conclusion that electoral politics can provide material change, but ultimately, that it is fickle. In almost every lesson of this class we look at the reactionary response to progress. Black leaders would pursue policies that materially benefitted everyone, as they knew their political legitimacy depended on it. It’s easy to imagine the venomous reaction after the Civil Rights Acts and Voting Rights Act. The reactionary mindset that Wright describes it that If Black people are advancing in society, then they must be supplanting the positions of power that racism, Jim Crow and broader white institutions had reserved for white people. The appearance of equality can manifest as loss. The examples of racism in the chapter, the existential dread at the ascendance of a Black political structure, were egregious. Wright describes the initial abandonment of public spaces and white flight, where white people literally abandon a city because of changing political leadership. In my lifetime, this brings to mind the modern Liberal talk of fleeing the country due to the elections of Trump and Bush before him, but this is what materially happened in cities around the country, and the consequences were enormous.
One limit to Wrights analysis is that he places civil rights outside of the scope of the New Deal Era and the transition to a neoliberal order. That transition relied on changing attitudes towards public spending, education, and labor. I am interested in the role race had to play in the inception of modern neoliberalism, and Wright mostly avoids the discussion. He notes the rhetoric of color blindness and economic conservatism, but glances over how racialized these terms are.
I had a similar thought as Jeff when I was reading Chapter 6 of Sharing the Prize, that Gavin Wright’s analysis had a blindspot in terms of political ideology and context. Wright didn’t really mark the covered time periods as parts of any political trends. It was sort of like reading a Vox article where there is no shortage of graphs, charts, and data but ideas of class and ideology are left out, with technocracy in its place. I was interested to know how some of these black elected officials governed, who they were accountable to, who got them into office, were they of the middle or working class? He didn’t really divulge much more about these elected officials other than the fact that they happened to be black. I thought it was interesting learning about how greater black representation in politics often means higher spending on social services and higher public sector employment, but did these elected officials govern or vote like New Dealers or neoliberals? I think we do a disservice when we only take race into account, when there are many other factors that determine how a politician will govern or write legislation.
This was most glaring in Wright’s descriptions of the development of the cities of Birmingham, Atlanta, and Charlotte, as they court Fortune 500 companies and build universities and medical centers. While these cities have boasted black middle class growth and black political leaders, Wright’s description of these cities sounds an awful lot like gentrification, which tends to have devastating impacts on a city’s poor and working class. He said nothing of what happens to local real estate and rent prices when the new medical center is built. It is no small feat when a city like Birmingham, with its history of boiling racial tensions, can boast of black professional and middle class employment, but it’s also important to note who is not getting their share of the prosperity in town.
I found the Gavin Wright chapters a little tedious at times, but Jeff’s nice analysis here led me to think things through a bit more. One broad takeaway from the readings as a whole this week is that when one group of people are brought into greater parity, either through voting rights, affirmative action in the workplace or school, caucuses, through union inclusion, or community groups, there is an effect that rises up others indirectly. As inequality due to superficial criteria becomes lessened, other groups benefit greatly. Southern whites of all income levels benefited from a rise in per-pupil spending for children, for example. Affirmative action programs, intended for a select group bring resources to communities, businesses that bring jobs, and greater tax revenue. When one group, say blacks, are allowed in careers once only held by white men, they set the stage for women or other groups to be the next ones to enter in. One might even argue that groups such as NOW, which fought for interests of importance to white, middle and upper income women, effected low wage women workers, although it may be up for debate as to how much their plight was helped or hindered. I’d be curious to know whether the extent that black politicians have had to pander to whites, business interests, and others outside their base in order to get elected has increased or decreased since the Voting Rights Act. My guess is that it’s the former.
Questions:
1: Were LGBTQ+ individuals included in any of the early efforts to integrate women into the workplace or make any other gains for women?
2: Why were undocumented workers from Mexico better suited to organizing than other workers in Los Angeles in many ways?
Forgot to write questions.
1. Which other political ideologies besides New Deal liberalism and neoliberalism were common to local politicians in the second half of the 20th century? Did they typically govern by ideology at all?
2. Where did the terminology and brain trust of urban gentrification derive from?
I really agree with Jordan’s critique of the Gavin Wright reading for this week. The chapter really reminded me of my public policy background from undergrad. Lots of data, regressions, and tables, but it’s ultimately unsatisfying. Personally, I think data and statistical/econometric analysis should not be the driving force of an author’s argument (I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of flak for this from social scientists). Statistical/econometric analysis should instead be there to back up an argument regarding larger issues and questions.
Wright’s book so far has reminded me of the book “Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics” by Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen. Like Wright’s book, “Deep Roots” uses extensive and robust econometric analysis to argue that (shocker) areas in the South that had higher densities of enslaved people are now the areas of the South that host the most racial animosity and reactionary politics from whites. It’s an interesting analysis and I found the work that the author’s put into the book was very valuable. However, the book is handicapped by not having a larger class and ideological analysis. Both the books employ regression analysis with independent and dependent variables without a larger discussion of broader issues. So far, I’ve come away from both books without many new insights regarding the discussed topics.
But I’m not here to talk about “Deep Roots”; a book that I read this summer. I do think that there are interesting discussions in the Wright reading. For example, coming from the South, I’m used to the arguments that the Voting Rights Act led to the South immediately flipping from Democrat to Republican. Wright, however, makes the argument that this was a gradual shift rather than a stark turning point for Southern politics. It’s important to acknowledge that the South was still pretty Democratic by the 1990s. Jimmy Carter, Robert Byrd, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Lloyd Bentsen, George Wallace, and a host of other Democrats ranging from New Democrat centrists to arch-segregationists all had power up through to the early 2000s. In Tennessee, my home state, the first Republican Senator, Howard Baker, elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction was only elected in 1966. Even then, Senator Baker was replaced by Democrat Al Gore in the 1984 Senatorial election.
Wright’s book provides crucial insight into how the shift from the Democratic South to the deep-red Republican South was gradual and was not as stark as it is usually portrayed. Wright’s analysis, however, about George Wallace on page 216 was rather simplistic. Wright mentions how George Wallace “apologized for his racist past and openly solicited black votes” during a gubernatorial campaign (Wright 216). Let’s not forget that the guy was nearly assassinated during his 1972 presidential campaign and was left paralyzed by the attempt for the rest of his life. Seems like that might’ve factored into his shift in rhetoric! I’m largely being facetious here, but I was puzzled as to why that part was left out.
Questions:
1. When is econometric analysis useful?
2. Why was the shift from Democrats to Republicans in the South so gradual?
I agree with a lot of the above analysis, I did find the chapter somewhat tedious, and that the focus on data can hide the truth of human patterns, similar to the issue I had with Fligstein’s article.
However, this chapter was interesting to me as a student of social work. It is broadly understood that because of the horrors of slavery and the specific and all-encompassing kind of oppression faced by Black people in the United States that the liberation and freedom of Black Americans will mean the liberation and freedom of all people. So to me, Wright’s analysis of the stark changes in Birmingham, Atlanta, and Charlotte as well as the increase in spending on social services and welfare, underscores that fact. I think in light of the most recent election, where Black Americans (Black Women particularly) carried Biden to the presidency the data laid out in the chapter becomes even more clear.
I found the connection between the Voting Rights Act and increased economic power enlightening as well. Sometimes voting can seem or feel perfunctory or like it doesn’t matter, but Wright’s chapter laid out a clear connection between enfranchisement and economic freedom I found very interesting.
Questions:
1) How do we use data and scientific research more effectively when trying to understand history and humanity?
2) Was the Civil Rights movement and its success made possible by The New Deal or would the movement have happened regardless?
Yes, I agree with Jeffrey’s comment about the Voting Rights Act, that the justices and others as well, felt that racism in politics was over because a black president was elected and somehow that miraculously erased all the prejudices that people had, but as we see in this current administration, racism is alive and well. The goal of this current President was to erase every single thing that Obama solely because of the color of skin and reconstruct it in his own image for his own gains. If I’m not mistaken, I don’t think that he even unveiled Obamas portrait in the White House. I believe that there is still a fear or disdain of blacks being obtaining high positions especially in politics, and the author touched on this a bit in the book, but basically it’s just a fear of losing control to a group that was under your control. Yes there’s no denying that there have been economic gains in the south since the Voting Rights Act in terms of blacks being elected to high offices in government, being employed in professional jobs or public sector jobs, and having access to services that weren’t able to get before which is great, but until blacks have a clear cut political agenda, we will always be in this limbo. Of course previously denying people the right to vote one day will change that political landscape once that has been eradicated and that shift of power that tilted on one side will slide to the next , but we are we really doing with the power we already have. Are we going along to get along or we going to pull the bull by the horns and really stand firm on our demands. I do agree with Jeffrey in saying that Black leaders would pursue policies that would benefit everyone instead of being specific to our group to this day, but I also don’t think there is anything wrong in pursuing our own agenda either. Im sure other groups have done the same as well. One thing I will say with Trumps base is that he has a strong one, 70 million strong that cannot be ignored and he delivers for his base point blank period. And his true base, is his money base, that people that put money behind him and fuel his propaganda. My feeling is that yes, it is good to have other groups that want to join our cause and wanting to be heard, but then I feel that that original messages changes over the course of time, other things getting added in and included with the original agenda being lost. A good point of this is the McClean article talking about affirmative action and the working women. McClean early on stated that people think affirmative action and automatically associate it with black people but forget that white women and other groups also benefitted (people of color which is a broad term in itself . They took their cues from the black movement, applied it to theirs and were included as a group in that policy. Of course I’m all for the elevation of women in the workplace because that benefits me , but there is also oppression in the workplace by other women and pay disparities between white and black women and in the end it always comes back to race. I do believe sharing is caring but at this pivotal movement in history, if we cannot make any gains and allow these governments to make up ways in which to disenfranchise the voters and continue to suppress the black vote, and not have effective legislation, we will never stop having these conversations.
I found Jeff and Jordan’s analysis of Wright’s chapter to be very prescient. I agree that Wright’s analysis left much to be desired in terms of explaining how increased black political participation led to shifts in economic outcomes, including the mechanisms behind how “the biggest increases in black public-sector employment were in large cities with black city councils and mayors.” (204) How did this happen? What were the policies that led to increased public sector employment for black people in the South? Wright’s argument does not incorporate any political program, ideology, or policy, and fails to provide context to how these gains were actually made. It weakens his purely correlational argument. Wright makes a slight nod to the significance of political ideology of the governing regime in Atlanta when he notes that the change from a black liberal mayor to a black conservative mayor led to a decrease in black professionals (205). But once again, how and why did this happen? This small aside suggests a greater complexity at work in the political landscape of this place and time, but Wright quickly moves past this. If this conservative mayor instituted public austerity, I think that would be interesting and add a new layer to understanding how these changes occurred, and what constraints and challenges were faced by the Civil Rights revolution.
Questions:
1. Restating my criticism of Wright’s analysis as a genuine question: what was the role of political ideology, policy, and social movements in creating the outcomes such as increased black public sector employment? How does adding these layers to the analysis alter (or not alter) Wright’s conclusions?
2. Table 6.2 (194-195) in the Wright reading shows the state and regional differences of the black share of officeholders relative to the black share of the voting population in 2001. In the South, the index of proportionate representation was 0.375, while in the North it was 0.095. Why this massive disparity, especially considering the South’s reputation for racial hostility?
Gavin Wright’s “Sharing the Prize” was a great reading because it proved why the Civil Rights Movement was absolutely necessary. Blacks for so long have had to sit and wait their turn for government to give them their fair share but that would not have happened if the Civil Rights Movement did not occur. Ending slavery in the United States did not mean equality for all instead it introduced racist Jim Crow Laws and the Separate but equal rulings. Blacks could not sit back and just hope and pray or even wait for the trickle of fairness to be blessed upon them. Blood, sweat and tears had to be spilled. Civil Rights proved that “Separate could never be equal” and Jim Crow laws were rooted in hate and oppression. Government intervention was absolutely necessary because government intervention was the backbone of segregation. We think of Rosa Parks who paid her share to get on a bus but had to sit in the back of whites. When the government realized that money would be lost of blacks were not given even the most minimum of equality then they really had cause to act. All though the United States still has a long way to go in terms of equality ongoing progress is definitely a must.
1. Were blacks to wait for the trickledown theory to ever see minimal fairness?
I really was cracking up when Jay said he’d get a lot of flak from social scientists, so I think that’s where I’ll start. I didn’t mind reading a lot of data and then ideas based on that data, because that’s how so much sociological work functions. You start with studies and numbers and then paint a picture. (Sure, some paint the picture better than others, but I thought Wright did a decent job at making his work accessible.) Wright clearly broke down his work and posed specific questions he could answer with evidence. (To me, that’s a compelling structure.) One of the most interesting general points of the chapter was looking at black representation in office vs. black representation in the electorate. By enfranchising black voters, politicians of any background now had to take into account black experiences seriously, forcing them to at least campaign on more inclusive platforms. Having black elected officials was one way to improve black lives, but another really important way was to expand the number of registered black voters.
I do agree with Jeff’s analysis of the chapter (and appreciated how Wright addressed the common misconception that if black experiences are being improved, it must be at the expense of whit folks). I do think Jeff is justified in saying that Wright could have included the political shift to neoliberalism that was occurring throughout this time period, seeing as the chapter does place civil rights outside of this framework. I am going to give Wright the benefit of the doubt for now though, because I haven’t read any other part of the book and he might weave everything together in other chapters.
Questions:
1. How might an elected black official’s experience in campaigning and governing be different from a white official’s experience?
2. What is the “second reconstruction”?
I found this chapter to be an interesting insight into the effect that Black voter participation had on broader political narrative as well as the lower levels of governance. In particular, I think the inclusion of the change in percentage of streets that were paved in six Florida cities was a unique choice allowed Wright to give the sort of insight we often overlook. I agree with Jordan and Jeffrey’s arguments though, that Wright tended to overlook the broader political projects that have steered American life throughout the twentieth century (New Deal, neoliberalism, etc.). Still, I think Wright managed to get at the way in which voting rights legislation allowed for the Black Southerners to participate in the political discussion within those broader realms, which in turn had huge impacts on their lives as well as the lives of white Southerners.
I also agree with Jeffery that the contemporary state of the Supreme Court looms large here. The Shelby decision makes clear that the reliance on the court is in itself a place of political vulnerability, and that the benefits Black participation in institutions will necessarily be limited.
1) Does the primacy of economics in this history distort ideological discussions, or does the avoidance of them actually give us a clearer look into lived realities of Black southerners?
2) Do you agree that the emergence of Black public officials is the most important factor in the relationship between Black citizens and the government?