A couple of days ago, I commented on a previous open thread aboutMardell's latest journey amongst the great unwashed in search of more hope for the President's chances of re-election. It was basic human interest stuff, anecdotes about how the economic crisis and continuing New Depression have hit black people hardest. He didn't do any in-depth analysis in that piece, as it was just supposed to set the stage for his next, more profound installment, in which he said he'd find out why this is the case.
Mark Mardell Is Depressed, But It's Never The President's Fault
>> MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2011
I gave my own two-cents worth about why black people have been affected most by unemployment in these times, wondering how Mardell would approach it seeing as how we have a black President and, according to all of Mardell's previous reporting, none of it is His fault. To save people scrolling through the open thread to find the comment, I'll reproduce that bit here:It's pretty obvious to someone who doesn't live inside the bubble, but let's see if Mardell discovers for himself that a far higher percentage of blacks work in blue collar and service industry jobs. These are always the first to go when the economy sags. I wonder if Mardell will understand the irony of the President's penchant for attacking the rich, when it's the rich who provide the bulk of the jobs in the service industry.
As it turns out, in his next installment, Mardell has a partial clue. But he's got other problems.
If rich people have less to spend, they don't hire cars, they don't have parties, they don't go out to dinner as often, they don't spend so much on vacation, they don't buy more products so less needs to be manufactured, their businesses don't have as many cleaners or secretaries or maintenance workers. I can say from personal experience and lots of first-hand accounts I've heard that the service industry in NYC has been hit very, very hard. When there are less of these kinds of jobs, there are a lot less employed black people.
And it's not just the evil rich, of course. The unloved middle classes also spend money on all these things, and they're tightening the belts as much as anyone right now.
Not to mention the fact that there are a lot of blacks in blue-collar government jobs, and guess which jobs get cut first in times of budget restraint.
Why blacks are overwhelmingly employed in the lower, more vulnerable job ranks is a topic for another discussion entirely. But the fact remains that they are more vulnerable, no matter who is in charge. We'll see how Mardell deals with it.
Success for a Chicago school in a poor neighbourhood
It's kind of an odd title for a piece in which the success story is only the first part, while the rest is, as Mardell himself puts it, "depressing". The first section is about the success of a new charter school in Chicago. I'm sure many here will enjoy the BBC actually reporting that one of these non-government schemes for education works very well for minorities, considering how they attack Michael Gove for his attempts to provide the same chances for success to minorities in Britain. In any case, Mardell starts things off with this bit of hope for the future, which is nice.
Then he gets into the details of unemployment. As it turns out, Mardell actually discovered that, as I said, blacks are especially vulnerable to public sector cuts as they are proportionally over-represented in government jobs. So good for him for actually doing a bit of research for a change. He missed out, though, on how so many of the service industry jobs held by black people vanish when everyone - evil rich and unloved middle class alike - tighten their belts due to increased taxation and economic recession. I suppose it might be too difficult for Mardell to admit that the evil rich and the sneer-worthy middle class actually provide lots of jobs. I have no problem with him adding the bit about "cultural and historical" reasons for blacks mostly having jobs on the low end of the scale, as it's not exactly false. But it is a topic for another discussion, so he leaves it at that, as he should.
But the big problem for Mardell is when he learns this about his beloved Obamessiah:'The president is not God'
What's this blasphemy? Who said such a thing? Another person whose criticism of the President is based on race? Er, no.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Posts
