Bell, Derrick. And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice . New York: Basic Books, 1987: 45-50

A conversation between Geneva Crenshaw, a contemporary and fictional Civil Rights thinker, and Derrick Bell as narrator:

"Of course, I understand that, with the removal of formal segregation barriers, it is a rare area of endeavor where at least a few blacks have not made notable achievements-a progress in which civil rights workers can take pride. But all but the most optimistic among you must concede that the once swiftly moving march toward racial equality through law reform has slowed to a walk, leaving millions of black Americans no better off that they were before the civil rights movement."
Geneva handed me a sheaf of news clippings and reports along with a summary of each which she had copied out in long hand, "Though you know this material, I am sure," she said, frowning, "you can imagine how, after the many years I had been unaware of what was happening, it hit me to learn-as these data indicate-how little had in fact happened."
The reports were all too familiar. One study showed that "blacks in every income strata, from the poorest to the most affluent, lost ground and had less disposable income in 1984 than in 1980, after adjusting for inflation." In sharp contrast, the top 60 percent of the white population experienced income gains; and, worst of all, the study found "a consistent pattern of widening income inequality between blacks and whites since 1980.
The National Urban League in its annual report, The State of Black America, charted the decline in the economic fortunes of many black people. In his overview written for the 1985 report, the Urban League president John E. Jacob found that, in virtually every area of life that counts, black people made strong progress in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, and have been sliding back ever since. In 1975, he reported, black unemployment was 14.1 percent, about double that of white unemployment (7.6 percent). At the end of 1984, black unemployment was 16 percent; white, 6.5 percent. Constituting some 10 percent of the labor force, blacks account for 20 percent of the jobless. Then in his 1986 overview, Jacob noted that "the median black family had about 56 cents to spend for every one dollar white families had to spend, which was two cents less than they had in 1980, and almost six cents less than they had in 1970.
The long-term impact of joblessness and underemployment on the economic well-being of black households was traced with depressing figures in a Bureau of the Census report. Based on a sampling of 20,000 families, the study revealed that white families, whose median income is almost twice that of black families, have accumulated assets almost twelve times as high. Figures varied by age, income, and marital status; but while the median net worth of all families was $32,667, the overall black median was $3,397, compared with assets for the median white family of $39,135.39
"I would think," Geneva remarked, "that few civil rights proponents can feel much satisfaction about the progress of some blacks when the statistics on the woeful state of so many loom large even as they, month by month, grow worse."
"You're right. We all acknowledge the devastating impact of these statistics on the black family. Focusing on female-headed households, a recent summary by a group of black academics pointed to statistics showing that 48 percent of black families with related children under eighteen are headed by women, and that half of all black children under eighteen live in female-headed households. The 1979 median income for black female-headed households was only $6,610 compared with close to $20,000 for all families.
"We must, of course, keep in mind," I cautioned, "that, despite the disparate statistics on virtually every measure of black/white comparison, not all blacks are adrift on the sea of poverty. In the deluge of statistics concerning the plight of the black family, we must not lose sight of the fact that over half of them (53 percent) are intact, married-couple families. Such families represent the most economically viable family unit, boasting a median income in 1983 of $26,686 when both husband and wife were in the labor force. Unfortunately, the married-couple family as a percentage of all black families has declined over the last two decades from 68 percent in 1960 to 53 percent in 1983.
"Isn't the major issue here," Geneva asked, "the disappearance of black men, whose absence has led to the tremendous growth in black-female-headed families and the accompanying rise in poverty among black families?"
"It would seem obvious," I replied, continuing to skim through the reports. "One paper here suggests the 'economic status of black, adult men is the other, largely unnoticed, side of the troubling increase in single-parent black families. The report focuses on your word disappearance, Geneva. Unemployment is only one cause of black male absence. As of 1982, there were 8.8 million black men from the ages of sixteen to sixty-four. Only 54 percent of them were working, compared with 78 percent of white males. The balance of these black men were unemployed (13.1 percent), not in the labor force (20 percent), in prison (2.1 percent), and unaccounted for (10.5 percent). These percentages are not only much higher than those for white males but are higher for black males than in 1960 when, according to the report, 'nearly three-quarters of all black men included in Census data were working; today, only 55 percent are working.'
"But, beyond overt racial discrimination, these grim figures are influenced by a great many factors, including the automation of many jobs at low-skill levels and the loss of so-called smokestack industries where great numbers of blacks used to be employed. The severe cutback in social service programs has also worsened unemployment statistics for black workers, though whites have been hurt by all these factors as well."
"There is, I gather," Geneva broke in, "a widening income gap between the top and bottom of U.S. society. In fact, some of the most distressing data relate to income distribution of American families. In 1983, the wealthiest two-fifths of all U.S. families earned 67.1 percent of the total national income, while the poorest two-fifths earned only 15.8 percent, and the poorest fifth-where nearly one-half of all black families fell-earned only 4.7 percent of the national income."
"What percentage of blacks are in the top fifth?" I asked, looking for some positive note.
"Only 7 percent of all black families are in this group. Worse yet, the top fifth of American families earned 42.7 percent of the income, or nine times as much as the bottom fifth-hardly a basis for your perverse optimism since 9.9 million blacks, nearly 36 percent of our population, are living in poverty. This is the highest black poverty rate since the Census Bureau began collecting data on black poverty in 1968.
"Let me anticipate you, Geneva," I suggested. "Yes, these statistics reflect many ruined lives for whom the oft-heralded legal gains have been fatally tardy. Professor William J. Wilson, one of the most perceptive of contemporary observers, reports: 'The pattern of racial oppression in the past created the huge black underclass, as the accumulation of disadvantages were passed on from generation to generation, and the technological and economic revolution of advanced industrial society combined to insure it a permanent status.' "
"My conclusion may be premature," Geneva interjected, "but my reading indicates that because the Supreme Court is unable or unwilling to remedy the real losses resulting from long-held, race-based subordinated status, the relief the Court has been willing to grant, while welcome, proves of less value than expected and exacts the exorbitant price of dividing the black community along economic lines."
"Precisely one of the points Professor Wilson makes as he compares the ever-worsening situation for unskilled black workers with the increased opportunities for educated blacks with skills. In fact, Wilson has upset some civil rights advocates by noting that 'affirmative action programs are not designed to deal with the problem of the disproportionate concentration of blacks in the low-wage labor market. Their major impact has been in the higher-paying jobs of the expanding service-producing industries in both the corporate and government sectors.' Furthermore, Wilson shares your concern, Geneva, about the 'deepening economic schism . . . developing in the black community, with the black poor falling further and further behind middle- and upper income blacks.'
"So," said Geneva, "to sum up this discussion before moving on to my second Chronicle, there seems little doubt that the abandonment of overtly discriminatory policies has lowered racial barriers for some talented and skilled blacks seeking access to opportunity and advancement. Even their upward movement is, however, pointed to by much of the society as the final proof that racism is dead-a too hasty pronouncement which dilutes the achievement of those who have moved ahead and denies even society's sympathy to those less fortunate blacks whose opportunities and life fortunes are less promising today than they were twenty-five years ago.
"Despite your optimism, you seem ready to agree that the future for a great many black people is bleak. The necessary question that I hope we can decide during our discussions is whether this result-this economic-political disadvantage set in motion by the Framers-is beyond any known power to halt or even alter. Or, whether different strategies might make the annual observances of the Brown decision celebrations of great expectations realized rather than increasingly sorrowful commemorations of what might have been. And finally, whether, as I tried to suggest to the Framers, the real problem of race in America is the unresolved contradiction embedded in the Constitution and never openly examined, owing to the self-interested attachment of some citizens of this nation to certain myths-myths that I hope my Chronicles will allow us to examine in detail."
"Your summary, Geneva, is a good place to start, but my optimism about the future doesn't mean that I'm not as disturbed as you are about the current condition of black people in this country. It is all too true that much of our effort in the courts and in getting civil rights laws through Congress fell far short of eliminating our subordinate status in this society."
Geneva looked suspicious. "I sense a thinly veiled but in your statement."
"Not really. I am troubled, though, by the challenge you faced in your first Chronicle, and continue to wonder whether there wasn't some way to get the Framers to acknowledge that their compromises on slavery could only have dire human consequences."
For far from the last time that day, Geneva was exasperated. "And what makes you think that the Constitution's Framers who saw us as slaves, and used that lowly status to convince themselves that we were an inferior race, would have been more likely c to recognize our humanity than are the country's contemporary . leaders who, having every reason to know that we are not inferior, seem determined to maintain racial dominance even if that aim destroys us and the country?"
"Yes, white policy makers' racial motivations seem hardly to have changed at all over these two centuries-but, Geneva, before you go on to your next Chronicle, tell me, what was the main lesson you derived from your debate with the Framers?"
She answered at once. "That they would not, or could not, take seriously themselves or their ideals." Noticing my puzzled look, she tried to explain. "The men who drafted the Constitution, however gifted or remembered as great, were politicians, not so different from the politicians of our own time and, like them, had to resolve by compromise conflicting interests in order to preserve both their fortunes and their new nation. What they saw as the requirements of that nation prevented them from substantiating their rhetoric about freedom and rights with constitutional provisions-and thus they infringed on the rights and freedom not only of the slaves, who then were one-fifth of the population, but, ultimately, of all American citizens."
"If this situation is part of the nation's basic law, how are we to reach the whites in power today and gain redress?"
"That's a hard question," said Geneva, standing, "and one even the Celestial Curia has had trouble answering. Indeed, that's why they sent me here."
"The Celestial what?"
"Curia," she said calmly, heading for the kitchen, "a sort of supreme court with more than the usual judicial power. You'll understand in the next Chronicle-the one with which my visions began. But before I start on it, let me put on some more tea."

Carl Gutierrez-Jones,

Department of English

University of California

Santa Barbara, CA 93106

E-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu