Hurricane Katrina has placed, if only temporarily, America's race problems at the forefront of international consciousness. The slow response of government and the conduct of some of the affected communities were seen as symbols of the catastrophe that is said to be race relations in America: blacks are marginalised and left behind, some of them respond with behaviour that has no place in a civilised country, and only a deluge of federal money and national guilt can wash away the problem.
But this symbolism was mainly misleading or wrong. Contrary to the impression created by the images of black looters and the filthy conditions in the Superdome, the vast majority of blacks in America are law-abiding members of the working, middle, or, increasingly, upper-middle class. And contrary to the domestic hand-wringing, the solution to America's remaining race problems lies at least as much within the shrinking number of black problem communities as it does with government.
But the inevitable corollary to the outrage about the government's failures in the face of Katrina has been a frenzy of victimhood and demagoguery that, if allowed to dictate black expectations and government policy, will serve only to deepen the country's race problems. For socially and economically, the American blacks of New Orleans are not typical of blacks elsewhere in the country. If Katrina becomes an excuse for perpetuating the cycle of welfare addiction, corruption and social irresponsibility that have long made New Orleans the poster child for what is wrong with America's ghettos, a great tragedy will have happened in vain.
The great majority of African-Americans have successfully avoided the most serious pathologies of the ghettos. Even among those who can be considered "ghetto poor"—that is, poor blacks who live in urban areas where most of their neighbours are also poor—there are large numbers of law-abiding people who lead honest and upright lives. These people are usually the most church-oriented and religious, and many of them are women who have been abandoned or otherwise abused by their men, and are struggling alone as heads of their families.
But most African-Americans are not poor. In fact, most black families live on far more than the 2004 poverty line of $19,300 for a family of four. In absolute terms, there are more poor whites than poor blacks in the country. Although a third of New Orleans's 67 per cent black population lived below the poverty line, most black Americans earn over $25,000 a year. In 2002, 27 per cent of blacks earned over $50,000 a year. Back in 1980, 16.8 per cent did. The percentage of blacks earning over $100,000 a year has increased from 1.5 per cent in 1980 to 6.4 per cent in 2002, after a peak of almost 7 per cent in 2000. In 2002, black median family income was $29,036 compared with $45,086 for whites. But in 2003 and 2004, non-Hispanic whites were the only racial group to show increases in poverty.
Some of the increased poverty for whites (and blacks) is attributable to the presence of millions of illegal residents in the country who drive down the wages of workers in low-wage, low-skill jobs while displacing native workers in jobs traditionally held by people with low levels of education. Competition with immigrant workers was once confined to a few key states such as California, New York, Illinois, and Texas; it has now spread to places like Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.
Blacks are far more likely to suffer from unemployment than workers in other racial and ethnic groups. And although educational levels for blacks and Hispanics have improved over the past few decades, both groups trail whites in high school graduation rates and in the attainment of college degrees. In 2003, 89 per cent of whites, 80 per cent of blacks and 57 per cent of Hispanics were high school graduates. These numbers can be compared with 1993 when the percentages, respectively, were 84 per cent for whites, 70 per cent blacks and 53 per cent Hispanics. By 2003, nearly 50 per cent of Asians, 30 per cent of whites, 17 per cent of blacks and 11 per cent of Hispanics held college degrees. Among the black population, women have done significantly better than men.
Other indicators of wellbeing for blacks include rates of home ownership, which have increased since 1996 for all groups. In 1996, 44 per cent of blacks and 71.7 per cent of non-Hispanic whites owned their own homes. By 2004, the percentages were 49 per cent for blacks and 76 per cent for whites, with Hispanics at 48 per cent and Asians at 49 per cent.
One of the most visible gains for blacks has come in the political arena, where the number of black elected officials has increased sharply even while black urban communities like Louisiana continue to be mired in poverty and hopelessness. Unfortunately, the presence of hundreds of black mayors, state legislators, and the largest black delegation ever in congress has done little to change the socioeconomic status of the poorest. Whatever benefits have resulted from this increasing political power have gone disproportionately to the black middle and upper classes. America's black rank and file, found particularly in the south, gains little from affirmative action at Harvard or from the presence of black officials like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell in the corridors of power.
The bad news for black America is the persistent poverty and pain of a particular segment. High rates of violent crime, drug abuse, single parenthood, illegitimacy, infant mortality, welfare dependency and infectious diseases continue to distinguish some black communities, like much of New Orleans, from other Americans—black and white. Federal, state and local governments have tried with mixed results to address these conditions. The most serious problem is the high level of criminal activity. Homicide is the number one cause of death among black males aged 15 to 24, the same demographic group affected most adversely by unemployment. Black males, at 6 per cent of the population, are suspects in 40 per cent of homicides. Blacks experience the highest rates of violent crimes as victims and perpetrators.
The fact that conditions degenerated so quickly in parts of New Orleans may also be a sign of the spiritual poverty of a small element within the black community. The violence was especially dismaying to me because I believe when one black person commits a heinous act, the entire community suffers from the resulting stigma. These events highlight, to me, a need for people to be guided by some moral and ethical principles such as those found in the ten commandments of the Hebrew/Christian Bible.
The worst-case scenario now, post-Katrina, is that racial tension will increase sharply as the "American refugees" crowd into congested cities to compete with millions of illegal residents who are already there. Unfortunately, the response of the black leadership combines the predictable accusations of white racism with a careful avoidance of any serious condemnation of the lawbreakers. But it is not white racism that caused the New Orleans disaster. Instead, poverty, inept political leadership, indifference on the part of the power-brokers in Washington and irresponsible individual behaviour combined to create the nightmarish situation.
I do worry about the lasting harm created by media images of black looters, snipers and rapists. These images feed directly into the invective of white nationalists who argue that such behaviour is "genetic." While many American leaders, black and white, have abdicated their leadership responsibilities on racial issues, white nationalist leaders such as Jared Taylor have appropriated the language of multiculturalism and civil rights to persuade ordinary white Americans of the need to organise in order to protect themselves from minority crime and affirmative action. As I first warned readers in my 2002 book, The New White Nationalism in America, I believe that America is headed for unprecedented levels of racial conflict and turmoil fuelled by the continuing influx of non-white immigrants into the US, the impending minority status of white Americans, the sharp reduction in the number of high-paying, low-skill jobs, white resentment over racial preferences, and widespread fear of minority crime. All exacerbated by a government that favours the rich.
Today, just when the country has been waking up to the demoralising and ghettoising effects of racial preferences for jobs or university places and the ethnic gerrymandering of congressional districts, it is no time for black leaders to deepen the rut of victimhood, fatalism and dependency that continues to curse the black inner city.
For the world is watching. Earlier this year, I was invited by the US department of state to give a series of lectures in southeast Asia: Burma, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. I was struck by the dramatic misconceptions that people in these countries held about America, especially black America. Today I can only imagine the reaction as these people watched their televisions last month and saw every negative stereotype reinforced.
