No one can deny that blacks have languished in the American society. It is stupefying that other minority groups have come to the United States and have outpaced blacks in terms of sheer economic success. Vietnamese individuals and Muslim Arabs are a classic example of this. In the city of Syracuse, for instance, it is mind-boggling that Muslim Arabs own numerous small run-downed grocery stores in the very heart of the poor black neighborhood. It is utterly incongruous that Muslim Arabs own these small grocery stores and not blacks.
It is very easy and simple to proffer racism as the explanation. And that is the very problem. The explanation of racism is so easy that it ceases to explain anything. How exactly is racism the explanation for why black people patronize run-downed stores that are owned by non-blacks in black neighborhoods? There is nothing that takes the place of buying power. So if blacks can sustain a run-downed grocery store in a black neighborhood that is owned by non-blacks, then it surely follows that the very same blacks could just as easily sustain a black owned grocery store—even a run-downed one.
How can racism be the explanation for blacks not doing that? Accordingly, how can racism be the explanation for a group of blacks not setting up just such a grocery store in the black neighborhood?
If racism is no barrier to blacks spending money in run-downed stores owned by Muslim Arabs in black neighborhoods, how exactly does it turn out that racism is the barrier to blacks spending money in stores owned by blacks and, in particular, to blacks setting up run-downed stores in black neighborhoods? It is simply not enough to say racism.
This question becomes all the more poignant when considers all the talk one hears about black unity and black pride. Given all the talk that one hears about that, it seems only reasonable to think that it would take something akin to the very gates of hell to prevent blacks from owning (small run-downed) grocery stores in black neighborhoods.
Even if racism is part of the explanation, it simply cannot be the only explanation.
Well, my answer is that somewhere along the line blacks have become dysfunctional. My reason for saying this is that no other ethnic group makes more of a fuss about ethnic unity and pride than blacks, while having so very little to show for all the hand-waiving that is done in this regard. In general, we have some form of dysfunctionality when a person fervently insist upon the good of doing something and yet refrains from that very behavior notwithstanding the constant opportunity so to behave, even when doing so has no negative consequences.
A mark of dysfunctionality is the failure to see the woeful incongruity in one’s behavior.
Now, some will read this and insist that I am a black who is more than a little besotted with the idea of denying the reality of racism. Not so, however.
I do not doubt for a moment that blacks experience genuine racism. In fact, although I have done quite well by an reasonable standareds, I hold that the professional of philosophy is one of the most racist professions in the academy.
The issue, any rate, is whether racism suffices as an explanation for the behavior of blacks when, as a matter of fact, there are things over which blacks have considerable control, namely how they spend their money. And precisely what we know from the mere fact that, for instance, Muslim Arab stores continue to exist in the black neighborhoods of Syracuse is the fact that indeed blacks spend ample sums of money in these stores.
Racism has not prevented blacks from having ample sums of money to spend in Muslim Arabs stores located in black neighborhoods. So presumably it would not prevent blacks from having ample sums of money to spend in stores black neighborhoods that are owned by blacks. That is, the story that racism has rendered blacks too impoverished to own their own businesses cannot do the work it is supposed to do. Conclusive proof of this is the very fact that other minorities have made a quite suitable living off of the spending of blacks in poor neighborhoods.
What we have here is none other than a glaring inconsistency in the self-avowed commitment of blacks and their actual behavior. And merely racism is not the explanation for that. Dysfunctionality is a much better explanation. I shall defend this view in a forthcoming entry.