The United States cannot achieve racial justice without recognizing the frequent intersection between race and poverty, Georgetown professor Peter Edelman said at a lecture yesterday.
Defining destitution in terms of annual income, slightly less than 12 percent of Americans are poor. According to Edelman, however, a far higher percentage of minorities live in poverty.
"Around twice as many African Americans and Latinos are poor," Edelman said. New civil rights problems, according to the professor, therefore center on issues of economic justice.
"The challenge of civil rights now is really not vindicating rights against the state and the dominant majority anymore. We need to find ways to work together," Edelman said.
Speaking to a full auditorium, Edelman sketched two rival histories of poverty in America that, according to him, "have been competing in the political marketplace for 30 years or so." In one history, poverty is the fault of either the poor themselves or the proliferation of welfare.
"The feeling is: Horatio Alger made it, why can't poor people?" Edelman said.
In the second history, poverty exists because of a long-term weakness in the American labor market.
"There are not enough jobs that pay enough to live on," Edelman said. Although it is more difficult to explain, in the professor's opinion the second story is more salient.
The first history, according to Edelman, has been used by politicians running on fundamentally anti-minority platforms. "It became unfashionable to use the 'n-word,'" said Edelman, "so we heard over and over again that the problem was welfare. Who was receiving that welfare? Them, they, the other."
Edelman then characterized a number of areas in which "structural racism" -- which he defines as racism inherent in the institutions of American society -- maintains the persistent poverty of minorities.
Topping the list, according to Edelman, is the "residential hyper-segregation of America's inner cities." In the late 1960s, the middle class fled urban homes and apartments for the suburbs, taking with them any sense of community.
"Too many poor people all living in the same place means more rotten outcomes," Edelman said.
The housing problem is exacerbated by rising real estate prices, according to Edelman. The urban poor have little choice in where to live, which translates into fewer job prospects and more persistent poverty.
"There is not one state in America where a family with one minimum wage job holder can afford to pay rent for a two-bedroom apartment," Edelman said.
Edelman also addressed inequalities in education and the criminal justice system. With regards to schools, Edelman acknowledged that it has been difficult to accomplish "full racial desegregation." He noted, however, that there is growing evidence supporting "economic desegregation" in middle and high schools.
"I have a suggestion about affirmative action," Edelman said. "How about affirmative action for four-year-olds?"
Although he spoke on race and policy, Edelman advocated as many cross-cutting and inclusive solutions to the problem of minority poverty as possible. "We need to create partnerships that transcend race."
