Reflections on American Society

許文瀾

Last Wednesday, April 4th was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. who was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 through 1968. He is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence, and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.

In the weeks leading up to his assassination 50 years ago, Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. was preparing for his greatest demonstration yet. The Poor Peoples Campaign Kings coalition across racial groups was united in their fight to end poverty. Aimed to recruit over one million people to occupy the National Mall, from Latino farmers rights activists to white Appalachian coal miners, Kings lesser-known dream sought to bring disparate communities together in the name of economic justice. At that time an economic bill of rights for Americas most impoverished citizens, a $30 billion annual appropriation to fight against poverty was pushed strongly by King. I want to give a famous quote out of King ‘We ought to come in mule carts, in old trucks, any kind of transportation people can get their hands on. People ought to come to Washington, sit down if necessary in the middle of the street and say, ‘we are here; we are poor; we dont have any money; you have made us this way...and weve come to stay until you do something about it. King was far ahead of his time whether its the guaranteed basic income according to his economic agenda for poor people or the occupy movement signifying peoples growing realization that all human beings should be entitled to dignity and respect.

After the Kings death, Kings ambitious dream for building a prosperous society with no segregation and achieving social justice by reversing the preposterous trend of inequality in wealth distribution shattered. Although some exciting changes in paving the road towards social justice have been achieved in the last few decades, for instance, high school completion rates for African Americans and whites have caught up, and voting rights of people with colors generally are protected by the federal laws. But overall the problem of income and wealth inequality among poor people especially African Americans got much worse since Kings assassination and the situation that massive incarceration systematically against minority groups especially the black people didnt take any turn for the better. Due to the prison industrial complex, the war on drugs has been in prison about 1.5 million African-American men which is a stunningly high number. As many scholars have pointed out, there are now more African-American men in prison than there were male slaves at the end of Civil War. The crooked politicians of the United States actively made those decisions such as the war on drugs and making marijuana illegal intentionally targeting at African Americans. In fact, Richard Nixon aide admitted it later in the 1990s saying they did the war on drugs partly to imprison their political opponents, the liberal hippies, and the blacks. The American should reverse those decisions, so at least this country can get on the path to justice.

The socioeconomic status of African Americans from the 1970s to today is showing a bleak picture of the economic struggles the African Americans have been continuously suffered due to the racial discrimination which still exists in our modern society. White mens average hourly earnings were 20% more than the black mens back then around 1980s, but the gap shot up to break through 30% after the new century dawned. There was no significant pay gap between white and black women in 1980s, but the gap was increasing over time with a positive acceleration in general. The unemployment rate of the blacks on average doubled the number of the white people at any time since the 1970s. In the 1980s the official unemployment of the black people had reached 20%, which was stunningly shocking considering the fact that the U.S. economy overall was steadily growing. If you take a stereotypical white name and a stereotypical black name and put them on resumes, the stereotypical white name gets called in for an interview 50% more. Nowadays one study and another have shown that a black boy who is born in an Africa family has much less chance of success compared to a white boy who has the same amount value of household. But there is not any scientific statistic indicating that black women will also suffer the exact consequence regarding how their colors of skins will make them get paid less compared the white women who are doing the same jobs.

Average white working class people were also suffering the economic struggles. Since King passed away, the bottom half of American earners have stagnated while the top 1% American earners have tripled their average income. This has everything to do with the Republicans outrageous economic agenda called ‘trickle-down economic theory. Republicans in President Reagan era started to sell the political propaganda that if the federal government passed tax reforms and some deregulatory bills cutting multinational corporations taxes, somehow these powerful industries in American would raise average working peoples wages and improve their working conditions ultimately bringing vigorous economic development to the whole society. President Reagan did cut taxes for these multinational corporations, and the U.S. economy tanked bringing the unemployment rate of African Americans to 20% in the 1980s. Another example is that as a result of George.W.Bush cutting corporate tax rate massively, the world has witnessed the biggest economic crash in 2008. American households lost over 13 trillion dollars in savings which shatter retirement dreams, wiped out life savings and made it impossible for kids to send their kids to college. This is precisely the way of privatizing the gains and socializing the costs. Instead of getting distracted by some small favors thrown by the super wealthy, people all over the world should come together and demand the government representatives vote on their constituents best interests spreading Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. visions to make the world a more just and better place to live.