Cocoa Starr I get what you and Fab are saying in regards to starting another thread and I agree with both points that another one should be started and it would also still be at risk of being disrupted. I may still create a new thread on this subject because even though good points are being made here still the reader should not have to sift through all the disparaging pictures and comments to see it.
So I see where you are coming from on that Cocoa and I appreciate your insight from the perspective of a reader of this thread (something that I may not be able to see from my P.O.V since I'm so involved in the content of the thread) so thanks again for that fresh perspective it has been noted...If you want to give me that info you mentioned through private message that would be fine.
Anyway, as I said another thread will indeed be started shortly on this subject matter just to give this VERY important topic a fresh start hopefully without all the distractions and detractors that took place in this one.
However, as I mentioned if someone offers a REAL and COGENT critique of anything I'm saying I would respond in kind...So it's only fair when such a disagreement is raised that it's addressed properly as follows....
quote:
Originally posted by Vox:
I've noted some of the points here, but I've largely avoided this thread because of all the dumb backbiting. But I do want to try to address this point, about our percentage of the wealth staying constant since the Civil War.
Let's assume it's true. What we know is that the overall disparity between the richest and poorest Americans is through the stratosphere right now. I don't remember the stats, but it's something on the order of the top 1% of Americans owning 20% of the wealth or something like that. What I do know is that the richest Americans today are WAAYYYY richer than everyone else. So the scale is totally different today than back then.
In the Civil War, blacks may have wielded 1/2 of 1% of the nation's wealth. But I'm sure that the richest 1% of Americans didn't take up as much of the total wealth as they do now. There just wasn't that much wealth available for that to have happened.
If there were a statistic that showed what the MEDIAN black person had vs. the MEDIAN white person, both in 1870 and today, I suspect strongly that the gap probably has narrowed considerably between them. There's no way the 2008 number would be the same, or anywhere near the same, as the 1870 number if you're going by the median instead of the total, because the total would have to include the most mega-wealthy Americans. That group's presence -- especially because surely they're almost all white -- skews the numbers drastically, especially because there was nothing like that in 1870.
So the percentage of the total wealth, not changing since 1870, really doesn't tell us anything about our progress, except that we're not equal yet, which we already knew.
Having said that, though, there's no doubt that even if it has narrowed, we have on average way less wealth than we should have, and way less than we COULD have. So I wouldn't disparage anybody -- from Dr. Anderson to Umbrarchist -- if they're out there trying to raise awareness.
Actually, Vox the top 1% of Americans own more than just 20% of this nations wealth as of 2001 it was more than 33%...It's probably even higher now as this economic crisis has evaporated even more of the lower classes "wealth" proportionately than it has effected the top percentile. If you look on the first page of this thread you will see that I've already posted information showing the true wealth distribution in this country here it is again....
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2001, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 51%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%, leaving only 16% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth, the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 39.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2004).http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whor...ca/power/wealth.htmlI think the problem that many people are having with accepting the fact Black wealth in this country has not changed relatively since the 1800's is that people keep skewing the concept of
total wealth and
proportionate wealth case and point vox you stated that...
"In the Civil War, blacks may have wielded 1/2 of 1% of the nation's wealth. But I'm sure that the richest 1% of Americans didn't take up as much of the total wealth as they do now. There just wasn't that much wealth available for that to have happened."
Here is the problem in absolute terms the U.S. as a country is far more developed and "wealthy" (if you can still call it that after you account for the
trillions of
debt it's in but that's another issue) so of course the
total wealth numbers that we are dealing with would be larger now than back then. Inflation has a lot to do with it also.... for example if you made $12,000 a year had $5000 in the bank in say 1950 when the average U.S. household income was just $4200 a year and bread was a nickle a loaf then you would be in the upper class.
Today however those same numbers would be considered paltry and nobody would consider 12k per year "upper class" in fact in
total wealth terms those numbers are actually
poverty level today due to inflation. So we
cannot and
must not speak in those terms to get an accurate picture of the Black condition.
The only way to
accurately gauge Black growth is through and in
proportionate terms. I used an example before to illustrate this point which Romulus never addressed I will use it again and maybe you will address it....
Any increase in Black "wealth" outside of being generated by
true conduits such as companies, industries, infrastructures and other wealth building enterprises controlled solely by Blacks.... Should not be taken out of context since there will always be a huge percentage jump when you are starting from NOTHING....For example if you have zero dollars and I give you $10 that's a 100% increase wheres if you already have $100 and I give you the same $10 it's only a 10% increase. So every additional dollar that Blacks get is a higher percentage increase compared to other groups only because Blacks are starting from a LOWER base number. That does not and I repeat
NOT mean that Blacks are growing in
absolute terms the fact of the matter however is that at the end of the day you still only have $10 dollars compared to the other groups $110.
Now you can start doing the happy dance and celebrate the fact that you indeed have $10 dollars (I mean it is a lot better than zero after all) Or you can look
much deeper into why is it that you only have $10 dollars when all your and your ancestors cumulative labor should have you with at least $100 and therefore seek ways to correct this criminal discrepancy....I choose to do the latter.
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