The Atlantic - Latest Comments in A Funeral For Funerals

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Jupiter — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:25:09 -0000

G.M., Detroit and the Fall of the Black Middle Class.

I don't see a problem with the title nor the fact that its covering the "fall" of the Black middle class. The Black community has always had to cover and analyze its successes going back to E. Franklin Frazier. Negative stories always trump positive ones unless its a rescue story. The article looks at a city that had a long boom town era from roughly 1900 to 1970 and long bust period from 1970 to present. The Black working middle class benefited from the boom and they are now suffering from the bust. The story is repeated in cities across the Rust Belt. Detroit is just the poster child for decline.

The metro area with the strongest and most entrenched Black Middle Class is Washington, DC. The federal government employs many of them and federal contractors employ the rest at very high incomes compared to the rest of the nation. Others own lucrative businesses that contract with the federal government but nothing approaching Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin money. Yet despite this huge Black Middle Class perhaps numbering around 500,000, there is an even larger Black underclass concentrated mainly in DC and the Inside The Beltway suburbs in PG County with pockets in VA and other MD suburbs. This is repeated across the nation.

The personal story of Powell and his wife is one of choices. Powell and his brother both chose to be college drop outs. Ditto for Powell's wife. They are the pictures of underachievers for their generation. Powell didn't go straight into a GM factory after dropping out. He did so after bouncing around in dead end jobs for 6 years. He hitch his parachute to GM because that was his best option. He's got 13 years in GM and academics apparently isn't his thing. So, the best thing he can do is follow the lead of the guy from NJ and transfer to another GM plant wherever there is an opening in the U.S or Canada for that matter. Or he can try his shot with another automaker in the non-union Southeast. You go where the jobs are for your skills or you acquire new skills for where you live.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:22:34 -0000

You are ignoring the role that Detroit has historically played in the black community for producing political actors and for the provision of mass employment opportunities in well paying jobs. To begin with it's the blackest city in the United States and the local university, Wayne State , produces more black doctors and lawyers than any university system in the nation.

It's worth re-reading the post. I'm not attacking Detroit. I'm attacking the notion of being more interested in the fall of the black middle class, than its rise, or its inner workings.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

pete from baltimore — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:51:02 -0000

Acromion

I defintly agree with your point.If I did not live in Baltimore and all I knew about it was what I saw on tv ,I would be scared to go near the place.I always keep that in mind when I read about Detroit.

That being said ,I do think that this article was one of the more sympathetic articles about Detroit.At least it talked about real people rather than just abandoned buildings.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

pete from baltimore — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:44:24 -0000

Augustine

I just wanted to say thank you for the links.I plan to read the article you linked to first thing tommorow.And I would also like to say that I found your comment interesting and informative.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

pete from baltimore — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:34:37 -0000

I maade a couple of comments earlier before reading the whole article.I finally got a chance to read it and I actually think that it was a fairly good article.

Most commenters seem to have a problem with the title. While i am no expert on media , I would assume that the author of the article would not be the one to choose the title.I could defintly be wrong about that. But it is something to consider.

As for the term "middle class" . As I commented earlier ,it is a very broad term.

Other commenters seem to feel that the author did not go deep enough into the problems of Detroit and America in general in regards to race and class.But I feel that they are asking to much from a magazine article.It would be different if he had written a book.

While it may have left out certain points I think that overall it was an honest portrayal of a good and decent man who is facing a very hard and uncertain future.

I certainly hope that things end up well for MR. Powell.He comes across as a very nice man.

We hear the statistics on the economy every day.But it is good to see the New York times write about a real person. It should be remembered that some people who read The New York Times are very well off and may not understand that there are people like MR Powell out there.After all , some in the media have portrayed all auto workers as lazy guys who make $75 an hour .Most commenters here probably know that this is an unfair portrayal.But there are people out there that do not realise that.

Thanks again to MR Coates for the link.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

ninaneen — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:53:22 -0000

I agree that the title is stupid, condescending, and doesn't really describe the contents of the article. Much of which includes pretty simplistic information about Black history in the midwest and northeast (explaining the meaning of Great Migration, etc). Yes, it's revolting that some people have never thought about race relations ever in their goddamn lives, but I guess they gotta start somewhere. The NYT as the great entry point...ha! =)

Anyways, I did read the whole article and thought that its subtle criticisms of the religious industrial complex and accompanying happytalk corporate cheerleading stuff were spot-on. Reminded me of Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch, an excellent book about how the (real) middle class is constantly bilked in a serious of "self-help," "entrepreneurship" etc scams. I see it all around me. It's wrong, it's exploitative, and people of all races are both profiting from and becoming victims of it. It needs to called out.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Acromion — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:49:21 -0000

Augustine - its nice to see someone posting here that actually knows what he's talking about (and read the article LOL). I liked the article too and thought it was pretty dead on. People who arent from around here will have a hard time understanding just how important the Big 3 are to the culture here.

The only problem I have with the article is that every MSM article about Detroit tends to highlight the blight and decay of the city while ignoring all the great things this city has to offer. It really is a diverse, cosmopolitan city with lots of stuff to do.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Xica_da_Silva — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:25:18 -0000

The other part about the article that I found fascinating was the generation gap between Powell's parents and himself.

Perhaps having grown up in the South, his parents didn't seem to have faith in Detroit as an everlasting land of 'milk and honey' as Powell still seems to. Their visions of their son being a college grad, and their palpable disappointment at him not being able to do so, clearly indicates that they didn't see Detroit as an end, but a means to a more prosperous end. And they seemingly did everything right: saved enough money to pay for college, encouraged him to be ambitious, his mother herself had graduated from Tuskegee. But the fact that, as his mother states, he made more money at the factory than most college graduates says something about the incentives that factored into such a decision. What else could they have done? Or did they try to do too much, as so many parents, regardless of race, have done?

And interestingly, it's his parents who are worried enough about their son's future that they are willing to move to Georgia (after living in Detroit for 30 years) in order to ensure that their son has a home to live in. They are the ones willing to take a huge risk. I'm not sure what it all means. It seems like more of a personal and generational story than a specifically 'black' one, but maybe I'm wrong?

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Liza — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:02:41 -0000

I agree and I read the whole article.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

brucds — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:41:35 -0000

I still haven't had a chance to do more than glance at the Times piece, but I have a funny feeling I just got more food for thought from reading your comment thatn I will from the article.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Liza — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:40:52 -0000

Good summary that illuminates the depth of our collective shithole.

I just want to add that as much as I despise the Bush Administration for what they did to this country, the decimation of the manufacturing sector and the inevitable decline of the automobile industry was well underway when Bush became president.

It was the ramp up for Y2K and the multiplier effect of that injection into the economy that camouflaged the trouble we were headed for as we shrank the manufacturing sector and expanded services. And, of course, the housing bubble fueled by excess liquidity (related to financial deregulation policy going back to Reagan and supported by Democrats) replaced the technology bubble, and our economic day of reckoning was postponed until the liquidity bubble burst. It was also the excess liquidity that postponed the final day of reckoning in the auto industry because a lot of people could still borrow money to buy the 40K SUVs despite the fact that it was insane to manufacture them in the first place.

Major technological achievement, much of it driven by Y2K, bailed us out in the 90s and we tend to credit Clinton for good economic policy, but the house of cards was already being built. Bush just poured gasoline on the fire with his runaway spending while giving huge tax cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations.

I guess there is some argument as to whether or not we have come to the brink of economic catastrophe and stepped back. But what difference does that make to those who have already borne the brunt of the whole debacle?

The pain is never felt at the level it should be by those who actually create these problems. It is always felt by those who have little or no say in much of anything.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Xica_da_Silva — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:49:39 -0000

The title is stupid; but the article itself is pretty interesting, if not representative of every middle-class black person's experience(not that it ever could be).

To me, the most interesting aspect of the article was the effect the church seemed to have as a stabilizing and empowering force within the community, but at the same time it seemed to prevent some people from being able to avoid the sinking ship that was Detroit(I am thinking of Powell's wife who left college because she didn't like the party atmosphere; who said she felt more comfortable around the church). It's tragic because the same values that most people would laud (loyalty, generosity, honesty, sobriety, lack of risk-taking) on an abstract level are the same ones that seem to hinder the Powells from moving on or up. e.g. his inability to 'play the game', to be dishonest when interviewing for a management position.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

augustine — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:46:28 -0000

Ta - Nehisi

You are ignoring the role that Detroit has historically played in the black community for producing political actors and for the provision of mass employment opportunities in well paying jobs. To begin with it's the blackest city in the United States and the local university, Wayne State , produces more black doctors and lawyers than any university system in the nation.

For good or bad when you look at Detroit you see a city govt. completely dominated by blacks, local school board, city council, police commission, etc. for many years Detroit produced a black political class that was unique for black Americans in the scope of its reach.

I'm not talking about a couple of alderman’s or council members tossed about a few districts. I’m talking 85 % or more of your elected officials with real policy making ability directing city government, being black folks. I’m talking about having the longest serving black congressman, John Conyers, head of the Judiciary Committee and a graduate of Wayne State law school.

The Big 3 and their supplier networks provided access for black people to learn the skilled trades necessary for work in a high tech manufacturing economy. The knowledge necessary for electrical and engineering work in robotic manufacturing and tool and die / stamping operations are valuable; and the people who possessed those skills commanded very generous compensation.

That’s the base for your formation of a black middle class and Detroit, at the public level with city government and the private sector with the Big 3 / UAW, played a significant role.

Executive and management training programs at GM and Ford produced many black professionals, not to mention the programs that the Big 3 sponsored for aspiring black engineers. Talk with folks who belong to the NSBE and ask them how they felt about Detroit, the auto industry, and a path to the middle class. When the auto industry was healthy GM, Ford, and DCX actively recruited and employed black accountants, engineers, and marketing professionals.

How many black folks worked in the public sector in Detroit or at the Big 3 and took the training and experience and moved elsewhere? How many black cops cut their teeth in the Detroit Police Academy, acquired leadership positions, and then moved on to better opportunities after beig trained up in Detroit? If you were an aspiring police officer seeking a career path that didn't stop at beat cop Detroit was a place for you.In Atlanta you practically trip over yourself with all the folks who used to live here and relocated after getting that experience.

These are not anecdotes. For a very long time if you were an aspiring black professional or politico Detroit was a place where you could gain that experience, relatively free of the oppressive racial bullshit that would accompany you in other cities were black people did not control the levers of power.

Becasue Detroit is....well it's Detroit right? The 3rd world city in America,it becomes easy to misplace the importance it had on forming a base where black folks could be nurtured and actually find employment as professionals.

Of course Atlanta has surpassed Detroit in that role and this article does a pretty good job of explaining how this occurred – reliance on an economy that was not diversified enough to withstand the systemic changes that foreign competition and new energy demands required.

This is a cautionary tale for policy makers at state and local levels, and for folks (black or white) who are dependent on one industry for employment and tax revenues. But if you can't accept that Detroit has played an important role in the genesis of a black middle class the essay looses it's effectiveness.

A terrific book that explores the formation of the black middle class and Detroit’s role: The Origin of the Urban Crisis, by Thomas Sugrue.

http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Urban-Crisis-Inequality-Princeton/dp/0691058881

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2005/is_2_32/ai_53449389/

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Liza — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:06:52 -0000

The title is misleading because the article is focused on how the automobile industry assisted the rise of a black middle class by providing increasingly better jobs for blacks throughout the latter half of the 20th century.

It really isn't that great of an article. The author relies too heavily on trying to tell the story of a dying industry and the plight of the autoworkers by telling the story of one man. In this case, a young, married black father of two who is now facing all of this uncertainty with very limited options.

I don't think you would have posted and linked it if you had read it the article first, TNC. The ratio of the length of the article to the information it conveys is kind of top heavy.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Acromion — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:26:35 -0000

What's going on in Detroit is going on all over the Rust Belt for decades. It isn't just the black middle class its everyone.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

brucds — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:55:59 -0000

NOTE: "Re: black folks, 'middle class' means 'black person with a full-time job.'" Not in my book, but to too many casual observers who shouldn't be writing long articles about this stuff, but are...

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:41:55 -0000

When you title something "The Fall Of The Black Middle Class" people generally assume you're talking about something more than one city.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

brucds — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:41:42 -0000

When mainstream journalists and others who have limited analytical skills discuss the "middle-class" it's almost total bullshit. Re: black folks, "middle class" means "black person with a full-time job." Detroit was a town that epitomized "working class" in all of its complex permutations. But focusing on what that's about might require that the writer has actually got a grasp of the dynamics of class and some working class history - better yet some notion of how that's been complicated by race. Maybe even read a bit of Marx. God forbid...

Putting Detroit autoworkers on the cover of a mag article about "the fall of the black middle class" suggests a large measure of cluelessness about both race and class.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

CitizenE — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:29:29 -0000

The article does display the limits of anecdotal reportage however sympathetic. Aside from TN and lennox,et al considerations, which go to the heart of the post, I think it's ridiculous to think that tha middle class across America. is not shrinking. We had a huge transfer of wealth to ten percent of the populace from the rest of us during the Bush years, and nothing convinces me that the tendency has been reversed since Obama took office. We are mired, crippled with personal debt and at usorious interest rates (not until recently a middle class phenomenon); we are one medical tragedy away per family from more than one generation so far in debt they will, winning the lottery or becoming a pro athlete notwithstanding, not manage to get out. No one can afford higher education, and even public universities require at minimum a decade of paying back loans. The state of California just reported 11% unemployment and that is before the budget crisis is yet to hit. Until green industry kicks in, if, when, we have no foreseeable industry to drive our economy, and everyone in the nation owes on our national debt an ungodly amount of money while we continue to drop our treasury in Iraq, among other places. We have a generation of elders who will neither have the wherewithal to retire, nor ability to compete with younger people for jobs that produce anything like a middle class income. And now that unions are persona not grata in the US, good luck to younger generations who have no more skills than those auto workers in Detroit upon entry into their field.

Of course all this hits communities who have not done as well as others harder, but the hard truth is most of America needs to get their umbrellas out.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Acromion — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:22:06 -0000

Where do you find that in the article? I read it and it is specifically about Detroit and doesn't say anything about the rest of the black middle class.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

geo — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:58:23 -0000

it's amazing that they are linking one city's economic problems to every black family in the united states. i don't think the black middle class is vanishing, just as i don't think the middle class as a whole is being wiped out.

i don't understand the link they are making.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Acromion — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:43:07 -0000

Whoops wrong link.

http://tinyurl.com/l27v3m

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

Acromion — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:36:50 -0000

Man its so hard to find good press about Detroit. Its a really fun city and most of the people here are really nice. And we have great pizza! Check out this article:

http://tinyurl.com/create.php

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

permazorch — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:13:59 -0000

MJ's passing has really stirred up alot of stuff in my soul and mind, about who we are as a people (and by people I mean Americans, black, white, brown, US citizens, or otherwise) and how little self-awareness we really have about ourselves, especially when it comes to our uglier tendencies.

This hits a place in me, too.

As totally twisted as we are (and we are, and everyone can see it, because we've perfected the art of doing our dirty laundry in public, and we're also perversely proud of it), you can really get a sense of a unifying identity between us all if you leave our hemisphere for a few months. However, if you leave for over a year, the USA looks totally psycho-sci-fi, in a mostly negative, utterly bizarre way. Time Magazine does not help.

Re: A Funeral For Funerals

pete from baltimore — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:10:27 -0000

For what it's worth I did not get to finish the article[It's finally nice weather in Baltimore so im going outside to lay under a tree and read a book].But it does look interesting.

Maybe it's just me[I am white], but i think that too often blacks are portrayed in the news as either upper middle class proffesionals or underclass thugs in the inner city.Either they are carrying a briefcase or are in handcuffs.

They seem to never show blue collar black people.Blue collar whites like myself tend to be stereotyped and condescended to in the media.But at least they acknowledge that we exist.

This article is about working class blacks who have worked hard all of their lives.I remember last years election where the media said that Obama was having trouble with "working class voters". A lot of the media did not even bother saying that they were talking about white working class voters.For them working class seemed to be synominous with white people.

With the exception of Detroit the media seem not to make the connection between the state of our urban neighborhoods and the loss of good paying manufacuring jobs in those same neighborhoods.

In the British newspapers [I like to read foriegn newspapers online] they make the connection when talking about British cities. I think that is because they are often talking about white areas, and the British tend to be obsessed about class, not race [ we are the oppisite].

I am not saying that there is not racism in this country and that does contribute to our urban unemployment.But it would seem to me that all of us should realise that our urban areas have taking some massive beatings in the last 40 years. They have survived riots [rarely mentioned thesedays]that burned down large parts of some of our cities [ Dc ,Detroit,LA,Newark and Baltimore].They have also survived massive de-industrialisation as well.Our government seems to have felt that we did not need blue collar jobs and that we could all live off Wall Street[ so much for that plan].

I think that it is a credit to many of the people who have survived these events that our cities are still standing.

As i said ,I am glad that The New York Times has written an article about the loss of jobs in the cities .I feel terrible for the suffering that is happening in the small towns in the heartland.But we are suffering in the cities as well. And despite what the media portrays , most black people [ or whites for that matter] in Baltimore and other cities, are hard working people who are not on welfare.

Thank you Mr Coates for the link to the article.