Savage Inequities

I am a 52 year-old black man who has voted in every election since I became eligible at age 18 in 1974. In the first election I was able to vote for President, in 1976, I voted for Jimmy Carter. I am prouder of my vote for Jimmy Carter than I am of any vote I have cast in my life. I admired him as a president and even more so as the greatest ex-President of my generation. I have voted Democratic in every election since. Often I have done this without great enthusiasm. I voted for Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry but had no love for any of them. I voted for Bill Clinton twice but by the end of his administration my ardor had eroded as Clinton fiddled away his historic opportunity to stock the federal judiciary with progressive judges (thereby allowing Bush to stack the courts with right wing activists). The successive Bush administrations have made me ashamed to be an American. I often quip that Americans get the government they deserve, but even the America I have grown up in did not deserve the disservice the Bush administration has heaped upon it.

I am heartened by the Obama campaign. I truly did not believe a black man could be nominated for President of the United States let alone run for the highest office in the land. In fact, I held out faint hope that my unborn grandson, the future junior Senator from the great state of Wisconsin, would one day become President of the United States.

Whether Obama wins the White House or not, I have been given hope by his historic campaign. His campaign suggests that America may be closer to achieving racial equality than I would have ever believed in my wildest dreams. This campaign gives me hope for my children and my grandchildren.

Regarding workplace inequities, they are widespread and savage. They are systemic and bred to the bone of American enterprise. My like-minded friends and I refer to this as the "white welfare system." People discuss black joblessness as a cultural dysfunction but when door after door is slammed in your face and opportunity is denied you time after time, opting out and copping out is not an unreasonable response. If doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a cogent definition of psychosis, wouldn't it be crazy to continue to play the game when you know in your heart of hearts that the game is rigged?

Yet, I continue to play and I continue to fight.

One thing I have learned in my 24 years working in the division of the company I work for - when black men, regardless of their upbringing, are paid a living wage, they support their families. Married men do it. Single men do it. Divorced men do it.

Giving black men jobs with a living wage is the only sure fire way to end poverty and economic dysfunction in the black community.