Soapbox A MARSHALL PLAN FOR BLACK LIVES Nandini Patwardhan Originally from India, I have lived in the US since the 1980s. I am a grandmother, a writer, and a retired techie. It was only after moving to the US that I became aware of the country’s horrifying history of slavery and the huge shadow that that particular history casts on the present. Deeply affected, I started supporting African American organizations such as the
I would be on board with a Marshall Plan concept for uplifting those struggling to enter our society in a meaningful way. BUT. . . Yes, there's a but.
Leaping from the story of Denice in this article does not take us into that Marshall Plan. No one can dispute her tale of woe, nor of Nandini Patwardhan's personal efforts to work with Denice. But, having been a welfare worker in the 1960s in Brooklyn, and realizing the many job programs that have come and gone, I have to pull my hair out in waiting to see how government can be the answer that Nandini Patwardhan expects.
There's another but . . . all of the wishes Nandini lists sound like a nanny state run by Bernie Sanders. From there, she jumps into a Marshall Plan. That seems like a giant disconnect between what I imagine as a Marshall Plan and all of the hopes she has about getting employers to be welfare workers. Business is not welfare. Well, maybe in some other country. Here, the golden goose that drives the economy can only have so many restraints (however well intended) before the goose says, 'enough, no more gold.' This may sound harsh, and to some extent it is, but I can't think of an economy that does what Nandini would like -- not here, not India, nor China, not Venezuela.
So, perhaps, Nandini can do a follow up with the pragmatics of what can be done that either hasn't been done before or can be done with a difference.
I commend Free Black Thought for publishing Nandini's thought bubble. Perhaps it will drive an important discussion that is worth having.
Read Amity Shlaes' "The Great Society, A New History" and you'll see that a "Marshall Plan" of sorts started in the '60's and has contributed to much of the present pathology in communities of color. I also commend Thomas Sowell's "Race and Culture" and Glenn Loury's works on race, culture and achievement.
"Why isn’t it considered modern-day slavery when a person is expected to live on $10 per hour?" Because millions of people in the U.S., and a billion+ people outside of the U.S. manage to do it. Given increases in the "minimum wage"--I use quotes because the only true minimum is the $0 you'll be paid when no employer will hire you because the price, i.e. the wage, is too high--have demonstrably disproportionately harmed black people, the solution to higher wages isn't legislation but instead becoming more productive.
Nandini, you address many different challenges in your article:
---guns
---drugs
---challenges specific to African Americans versus others when holding income constant
---poverty
---real wages for different types of workers
---punishing individuals or businesses that pay less than a certain amount for goods, services and labor services
Maybe consider writing an article on each othese issues?
Let me address two issues you bring up, guns and drugs. One argument for legalizing guns and drugs is to prevent mass incarceration of african americans. If guns and drugs were legally restricted, is it worth 40% of ADOS males spending much of their lives in prison?
One country that has tried to restrict guns is Mexico. A strong case can be made that gun control facilitated a civil war and collapse of Mexico. Please read the following comment for details on how Mexico collapsed:
"In 2019, in Mexico 14,378 people disappeared. In addition, 44,576 people were murdered if we include manslaughter in 2019. About four times as many as were murdered a dozen years earlier in 2007. This is one of the highest per capita rates of murder in the world, higher than many countries at war. 19 of the 50 most violent per capita cities in the world for which data is available were in Mexico in 2019. Mexico has devolved into civil war as the Mexican government and Mexican police have lost control over much of Mexico and even outright withdrawn from much of Mexico.
Organized crime gives people electronic bracelets and electronic accounts to keep track of the taxes they owe and pay to organized crime. It is almost as regularized as the formal Mexican tax system.
Mexico is increasingly controlled by three organized crime families that also are very influential in West Africa and are growing in power globally. These organized crime families have capable air forces with smart bombs, armies (with artillery, IFVs, APCs), navies and have a larger GDP than many countries put together. One friend estimated that these three organized crime families were collectively possibly worth around $500 billion."
How would you restrict access to guns without dooming the USA into a collapse similar to Mexico?
I would be on board with a Marshall Plan concept for uplifting those struggling to enter our society in a meaningful way. BUT. . . Yes, there's a but.
Leaping from the story of Denice in this article does not take us into that Marshall Plan. No one can dispute her tale of woe, nor of Nandini Patwardhan's personal efforts to work with Denice. But, having been a welfare worker in the 1960s in Brooklyn, and realizing the many job programs that have come and gone, I have to pull my hair out in waiting to see how government can be the answer that Nandini Patwardhan expects.
There's another but . . . all of the wishes Nandini lists sound like a nanny state run by Bernie Sanders. From there, she jumps into a Marshall Plan. That seems like a giant disconnect between what I imagine as a Marshall Plan and all of the hopes she has about getting employers to be welfare workers. Business is not welfare. Well, maybe in some other country. Here, the golden goose that drives the economy can only have so many restraints (however well intended) before the goose says, 'enough, no more gold.' This may sound harsh, and to some extent it is, but I can't think of an economy that does what Nandini would like -- not here, not India, nor China, not Venezuela.
So, perhaps, Nandini can do a follow up with the pragmatics of what can be done that either hasn't been done before or can be done with a difference.
I commend Free Black Thought for publishing Nandini's thought bubble. Perhaps it will drive an important discussion that is worth having.
Read Amity Shlaes' "The Great Society, A New History" and you'll see that a "Marshall Plan" of sorts started in the '60's and has contributed to much of the present pathology in communities of color. I also commend Thomas Sowell's "Race and Culture" and Glenn Loury's works on race, culture and achievement.
"Why isn’t it considered modern-day slavery when a person is expected to live on $10 per hour?" Because millions of people in the U.S., and a billion+ people outside of the U.S. manage to do it. Given increases in the "minimum wage"--I use quotes because the only true minimum is the $0 you'll be paid when no employer will hire you because the price, i.e. the wage, is too high--have demonstrably disproportionately harmed black people, the solution to higher wages isn't legislation but instead becoming more productive.
We’re too busy trying to funnel $40B to military contractors in Ukrainian “aide” to be bothered with helping the Denice’s of the world.
Nandini, you address many different challenges in your article:
---guns
---drugs
---challenges specific to African Americans versus others when holding income constant
---poverty
---real wages for different types of workers
---punishing individuals or businesses that pay less than a certain amount for goods, services and labor services
Maybe consider writing an article on each othese issues?
Let me address two issues you bring up, guns and drugs. One argument for legalizing guns and drugs is to prevent mass incarceration of african americans. If guns and drugs were legally restricted, is it worth 40% of ADOS males spending much of their lives in prison?
One country that has tried to restrict guns is Mexico. A strong case can be made that gun control facilitated a civil war and collapse of Mexico. Please read the following comment for details on how Mexico collapsed:
https://glennloury.substack.com/p/john-mcwhorter-the-immigration-debate/comment/6832668?s=r
An excerpt is:
"In 2019, in Mexico 14,378 people disappeared. In addition, 44,576 people were murdered if we include manslaughter in 2019. About four times as many as were murdered a dozen years earlier in 2007. This is one of the highest per capita rates of murder in the world, higher than many countries at war. 19 of the 50 most violent per capita cities in the world for which data is available were in Mexico in 2019. Mexico has devolved into civil war as the Mexican government and Mexican police have lost control over much of Mexico and even outright withdrawn from much of Mexico.
Organized crime gives people electronic bracelets and electronic accounts to keep track of the taxes they owe and pay to organized crime. It is almost as regularized as the formal Mexican tax system.
Mexico is increasingly controlled by three organized crime families that also are very influential in West Africa and are growing in power globally. These organized crime families have capable air forces with smart bombs, armies (with artillery, IFVs, APCs), navies and have a larger GDP than many countries put together. One friend estimated that these three organized crime families were collectively possibly worth around $500 billion."
How would you restrict access to guns without dooming the USA into a collapse similar to Mexico?