Econoracism: the Next Great Divide

ECONORACISM

THE NEXT GREAT DIVIDE

DR. RUTH E. TODD

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Econoracism: The Next Great Divide

Copyright © 2010, 2011 by Dr. Ruth E. Todd.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-3113-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-3114-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-3115-3 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011916639

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 11/08/2011

Contents

ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 4

DATA ANALYSIS

GLOSSARY

REFERENCES

ABSTRACT

This work was produced to fulfill the dissertation requirements of Warnborough College. Its purpose is to examine the current social strife, unrest, and dissatisfaction occurring throughout the world as the physical manifestation of an economic class struggle masquerading as racial discrimination. The divide between rich and poor has grown visibly and statistically throughout the world and this divide has displayed itself through genocide, isolation, and disparity in all elements of the human social structure: education, health and health care, housing, wages earned, and employment. Cases from Canada and the indigenous people of Canada, the African continent in both the struggle in Darfur and the problems in Rwanda, Mexico and the Chiapas region, as well as the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast states of the United States demonstrate the linkages between the economic structure and the economic divide between classes. Other areas could be included in the study and while each area of unrest seems unique, they all follow a pattern of discrimination born of economic inequality. Each area in this work is unique racially, culturally, geographically, and socially but they all share and demonstrate economic racism within the geographic borders of the United States, Sudan, Canada, Mexico and Rwanda.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Life is not fair but it is your job to make it as fair as you can within your span of control.

—John Schmoeller, entrepreneur

I dedicate this dissertation to all who work for social justice and toward the effort to evoke change. I would also like to acknowledge those who I love and who have supported me throughout this journey: my husband, Malcolm Todd, John and Loretta Schmoeller, Jeanne and Roy Bowman, Mark Bowman, Joann Bennett and Barbara Goldsmith, Therese and William Barker, Patrick Barker, Kristin Barker, Anjanette Anderson, Danielle Todd, Malcolm Todd III, Micah and Malachi Beecham, Faith and Charity Anderson, Richard LaRosa, Darrell Maret, Seldon Thomas, Ming Wu, Kevin Sexton, Peter Knoetgen, Lemuel Grant, Leo Bilancio, Melissa Kilgo, Nanette Turner-Thomas, William Shropshire, and Bruce Hetherington. Without the encouragement and support of many people, this research would not have been possible.

I could thank so many others but their names would fill a book by themselves. I am thankful to all of the people who argued with me, agreed with me, disagreed with me, would not let the nagging questions go unanswered or unasked, and who encouraged me no matter what happened. I am thankful to all who encouraged me and also those who dissuaded me because that just gave me more desire to complete this.

I would also like to thank all the statistics gatherers and report writers from all the agencies that produce the material for governments and private agencies that actually show the state of the world. It is a thankless job. I have been mindful that numbers never lie but liars always use numbers and so I have endeavored to use the material and statistics as generated in a truthful and straightforward manner. Someone has to do it, and I appreciate the effort it took to pull it all together.

Additionally, I want to thank all of my students at University of Phoenix for their support, and encouragement. Calling me Dr. Ruth long before I earned it was a great incentive to keep up the effort and get it done so I could once again say, I did it and so can you. I also thank Dr. Judy Bullock, Mr. Stephen Flatt, Michael Hearon, Mack Bayles, AJ Merrill and Ms. LinLin Lu for making sure that I knew I was valued and needed and when things got tough I knew someone had my back. This friendship, support and caring made it easier to keep going when things got tough.

Finally, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Noor, my dissertation mentor. With patient insistence, he encouraged and guided me though the process. He challenged me to look for answers in places I was unfamiliar with and to continue my research because it was important and had value. It is the dedication of mentors like Dr. Noor that gives researchers a sense of hope and that allows for completion of a goal and dream.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Econoracism

Econoracism is not a well-known term but it will be. Economics is the driving force behind every activity that humankind performs daily. Economics determine where we live, where we work, whom we elect to govern, how we eat, and how healthy we are. When any academic study is undertaken, the economic position of people or a country are always present and this information is always important in understanding events and why the events occurred. This creates problems as economics causes discrimination to occur within cultures and societies. The ability to discriminate is rampant in societies around the globe. Christians discriminate against Jews. Hindus discriminate against Muslims. Whites discriminate against Blacks and Blacks discriminate against Hispanics. The list continues on to the thin discriminating against the fat and the fast discriminating against the slow. All these are scenarios of visible discrimination but the real discrimination occurs at a different level of the human experience. The real discrimination occurs at the financial level. Racism is rampant because the wealthy have an economic advantage over the poor. The poor are not just disadvantaged in the economic sense but in all areas of their lives: housing, education, employment, and health care. Being disadvantaged means barriers exist that must be overcome, but that feat might not be possible. This then becomes the real racism and Econoracism is the next great divide.

Economic discrimination is rampant worldwide and while there is much discussion about poverty, the poor are growing in numbers and real wealth and power are increasingly more concentrated in a handful of people. Being poor is an economic and societal problem that has widespread cultural and social problems attached to it. The implications of this economic discrimination are visible but seldom do the dots connect on a global map.

Poor people do not have ready access to health care, affordable and decent housing, employment that provides a living wage, police protection, or quality education. Many living in poverty have no access to clean water, stable food sources, or proper sanitation facilities. This lack of access to what most consider basic necessities then ensures that the cycle of poverty continues as without these necessities there is no way to leave the ranks of the poor. The widening gulf between rich and poor has also created points of discrimination that are more obvious than ever before. Wealth is increasingly more concentrated in the hands of fewer people. The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population (approximately 2,800,000,000 people) accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income (Global Issues, 2009).

Racism is, in general, considered a form of discrimination based on race, and race is usually associated with color. There is an unlimited number of ways that discrimination can manifest itself based on someone’s education, clothing, color, hair color, age, religion, weight, and social class, to name a few. In racism, discrimination seems to be based on the belief that one race is superior to another. Wealthy people can certainly discriminate against poor people by feeling superior. Doctors, hospitals, restaurants, and a variety of businesses can also discriminate based on the person’s perceived ability to pay, and the quality of the service received is proportional to that perception. As racism is expressible individually and consciously, or socially and unconsciously, or individually and unconsciously, or socially and unconsciously, it creates an environment of separation. This separation is the Great Divide caused by Econoracism.

Racism is expressed through explicit thoughts, feelings, or acts, or through institutions that promote inequality between races and laws passed—from the number of police in a patrol area to the number of teachers in a school. It is observable in the opportunities or lack of opportunities that people have that would allow them to improve their status in society. The element that is missing is the awareness of people that a deeper form of racism exists, Econoracism. This is the systematic and invasive discrimination practiced all over the world. This is economic racism, as practiced by the rich and suffered by the poor.

People assume that racism is just that, a strong bias for or against one race of people or another. This view has always attributed racism to one’s color; however, if one expands the understanding of racism, it would be obvious that this is poverty-linked discrimination and not just because of color. The reason that this goes undetected is that generally people of color are poor. Sociologists Noel Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as … a highly organized system of ‘race’-based group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology of color/‘race’ supremacy. Racist systems include, but cannot be reduced to, racial bigotry (Cazenave and Maddern, 1999: 42).

This picture of poverty as a form of racism manifested itself to the world many times over the years but never more clearly than when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005. The pictures of trapped and abandoned poor people and elderly were overwhelming. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and a black man, was asked whether he believed that the reason behind what was happening in New Orleans was because people were black. He answered that, he did not think that race was a factor in the slow response but that many of those unable to leave New Orleans in time were trapped by poverty which disproportionately affects blacks (ABC News Online, 2005). His meaning seemed clear. The color of the people was not the reason for their being trapped and abandoned in New Orleans but their poverty was the cause. Many had no access to transportation to leave town and many had a reluctance to leave because while they had almost nothing, the little they did have was in the city. It was no surprise to poor people that they were trapped and ignored and those who were not poor would not know the difference or understand as nothing had changed for them.

Real Wages

On November 3, 2009, the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) published a report on the decline of real wages. Real wages appear to be stagnating worldwide for the second consecutive year, underlining the fragility of any potential recovery from the global economic crisis, the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) reported today. The ILO’s annual study of global wages shows that growth in real wages—measured across 53 countries—declined from an average of 4.3 percent in 2007 to 1.4 percent last year. In some of the biggest economies sampled, real wages actually fell by 0.2 per cent last year (UN News Centre, 2008).

Real wages are an important indicator in determining the wealth of a nation’s people and the nation’s economy. Real wages refers to the income of an individual after taking into consideration the effects of inflation on purchasing power. It is also applicable to a country or a business. If real wages decline, it affects the purchasing power of each consumer, tax revenue, and employment. Real wages is what drives nations to declare a minimum wage. The minimum wage is involved in this as minimum wage is the minimum an individual can earn to survive, according to federal standards. When real wages decline, poverty numbers increase.

United States Census Bureau Numbers

The studies from the US Census Bureau paint the picture of increasing poverty and decreasing incomes in the United States. Year over year, the Census Bureau creates their reports and publishes them. Year over year, these statistics seem to be ignored by policy makers and decision makers. There were centers for poverty studies formed, yet the work that is communicated from these centers does not equate to action.

Year 2005 Data Published in 2006

Statistics from the US Census Bureau data published in August 2006, using 2005 data, demonstrate the inequalities in earnings between rich and poor by race. In 2006, the South continued to have the highest poverty rate at 13.8 percent. The other three regions had poverty rates that were not statistically different from one another—11.5 in the Northeast, 11.2 percent in the Midwest and 11.6 percent in the West (US Census Bureau, 2006:14). The US Census Bureau also noted a 4.2 percent poverty rate for Whites, a 3.5 percent poverty rate for White, not Hispanic, a 10.9 percent poverty rate for Black, a 5.1 percent poverty rate for Asians and a 7.7 percent poverty rate for Hispanic (any race) (US Census Bureau, 2006:15). These numbers are for those who are at 50 percent of poverty level. The numbers for those at 100 percent of poverty