Oliver and Shapiro and Interest Convergence

This was a dense and thought provoking read for sure. I really NEED to read this text in its entirety because every time I found myself wanting to hear more I read that I would get to hear more in a later chapter. The only concern I had with this particular piece was the fact that the authors never seemed to address or anticipate the counter arguments to their own. As I was reading, I continually found myself imagining how this book would be reviewed on the Fox News Channel and I was yearning for a stronger defense! I am sure that some of the arguments are expanded upon significantly later in the text and, unlike a Fox News reviewer, I intend to read them.

As I paged through the Oliver and Shapiro chapters, the ghost of Derrick Bell kept whispering in my ear that he had distilled all of their arguments into a two word phrase over 30 years ago- "interest convergence". Having been dead for just a short time, Bell was not so good at being a ghost but he was a great reading partner for the time that it took me to finish the chapters. Professor Bell and I came to the conclusion that the "sedimentary" position of many African Americans in society today can be entirely explained by the unwillingness of individuals in positions of power (most commonly white folks but I argued that this what not an exclusively white domain but probably a common human trait) are not going to support social equality unless they see a tangible benefit to doing so. There are very few instances in the history of the United States that one can point to to counter that argument. Oliver and Shapiro point to American slavery as the manure that fertilized the growth of racial bias and oppression that persists today. Slavery also died by the sword in the United States as a more powerful faction asserted its will over a mass of slaveholders. It is also important to note that, by his own admission, the "Great Emancipator" wouldn't have emancipated anyone if he could have achieved his ultimate goal by any other means. So, I argued that the emancipation of American slaves really fit well with Dr. Bell's assertion that progress toward equality is only supported by whites when there is a mutual benefit. He was originally speaking in reference to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 but the fundamentals of his argument were on full display during reconstruction. I reiterated my argument that we couldn't paint too broad a picture of whites when making this claim however....we needed to focus on whites with some degree of political power or social capital. If the emancipation created a political and military situation that weakened southern resistance to the will of the Union- then let those people go! Powerful whites, even some of the most progressive-minded of the group really weren't signing up for citizenship in an nation where they would be on equal social and political ground with freedmen so reunion probably had more perceived benefits than costs.

As the conversation progressed and my ghostly companion and I polished off our second 6-pack of Ballantine Ale, we moved on to more modern instances of how a white dominated power structure ensured unequal access to opportunity in the US. (There are two things that you should all know about ghosts. 1) Ghosts have a limitless tolerance for alcohol. 2) Black ghosts are black. The movies are bullshit. ONLY WHITE PEOPLE HAVE WHITE GHOSTS!) We delved into Oliver and Shapiro's critique of the American tax code as a means of allowing wealthy whites to build and preserve wealth. It was in this conversation that we found the heart of the problem. You do not have to be a rich white person to have a vested interest in protecting white privilege in the United States. The beginning of our discussion was harmonious as we lambasted the corporate elite for benefiting from tax loopholes that they wouldn't have know existed if they had run in different circles. Captial gains tax- unfairly formulated! Corporate income taxes- too low!!! Greedy bastards.... Mortgage interest and real estate tax deduction- unfair! (insert scratching record sound here) Mortgage interest and real estate tax deductions are perfectly fair. I am not rich and that is one of the few benefits that I have earned by working hard and buying a house. I told Dr. Bell that it wasn't middle-income whites that were the problem here and my tax benefits were earned and legitimate and available to anyone in my position. Dr. Bell agreed with this and I had won!

Bell then asked me when I bought my house and who I bought it from. I knew that I was above reproach in this instance and prepared to take his grilling. I told him that my brother and I purchased the house after my grandmother died in 2001. We almost the total appraised price of the property with the final asking price adjusted slightly so that my father and uncle would not only be hit with minimal taxes on the transaction- all done perfectly legally and without consideration of the color of my skin. Dr. Bell smiled- he knew I had him! He could not deny that my wealth was acquired legitimately and that a Black person of the same income could have done the same. Dr. Bell then questioned the price of the house. "Did you not purchase your 'wealth' for less than its true market value thus acquiring more wealth than you 'earned'?" I decided to concede this point as it really was a small amount less than the appraised value of the house and really didn't damage my stance in this un-losable argument. I explained to Dr. Bell that my grandparents purchased the house in 1961 for its full market value of $12,000 which was nearly the exact amount of the difference between our appraised value and asking price. When my grandparents moved from Providence, they probably took advantage of an FHA loan to purchase the property- again- all done legally and without any unearned benefits.

"So, that Black man with an identical income would have had this identical opportunity?"- he
said.

I replied- "of course- if his grandparents had been smart and bought that house for $12,000 he would be sitting pretty as having a 50% stake in a $150,000 dollar property- it is really very simple."

I honestly expected more of a guy who was supposedly a brilliant critical race thinking in life. Maybe the process of dying was traumatic and he lost some of his stuff.

He kept trying though- "What if the African American man with identical income had grandparents who were not able to get a loan to buy that house in the suburbs?"

Well- I conceded that would be unfair. My tax deduction for mortgage interest and taxes was something that needed to protected. It was fine to go after the rich but leave the middle of the road folks alone. I was paying taxes on that house based on its whole value...not what we paid. At least he didn't have to pay taxes on a rental property! He actually takes home more money than I do every week if you think about it. If we both make the same amount and I have to pay property taxes then who is wealthier old sage from beyond the grave?

Dr. Bell advised that I reread the Oliver and Shapiro chapters to get a better handle on the distinctions between income and wealth. Bell and I finished the remainder of our case of beer while taking turns reading aloud. After 24 beers and 120 pages we both came to the conclusion that I was totally full of shit. Dr. Lemons taught me a word about 15 years ago- feculent....I was a fountain of feculence. Privilege is protected because those who enjoy it nearly always perceive that they earned it. While much of the above drama was exaggerated for your enjoyment, I have always felt that the mortgage interest deduction was not so much an unearned privilege as a small benefit to help me maintain my 988 square feet of the "American Dream". I now exclusively own wealth appraised at $203,000 that was likely acquired by by family by a 1961 FHA loan for an investment of $12,000. When my parents die, this wealth will likely nearly double with no further financial investment on my part. My daughter was born on 10/8/10 probably somewhere between first and second base....

Kevin is a camera hog!

I sprung from my kid's macaroni eating exposition hoping to see someone I knew on TV with the coverage of Occupy RIC on local news and there he was.... The bearded bandit himself hamming it up for the camera! Don't let this new celebrity go to your head. I already heard on a local Fox affiliate that Kevin has traded in his green Bug for a Bentley disguised as a Yugo...

Michael Moore's Giant Candy Apple

I admit to thinking Michael Moore a bit of a hypocrite for professing solidarity with the 99% and while owning a vacation home that, in terms of square footage, is larger than all of the houses in my neighborhood combined. I then thought back to the candy apple at Burnside Park argument. While it is an enormous stretch to compare a palatial estate to a candy apple- the underlying arguments were similar. Does vast wealth mean that one must abandon his or her working class roots? Should Moore stop producing films/books or give away all but the money necessary to subsist in order to maintain his claim to being authentically "working class"? I doubt that. I recently confessed to spending an absurd amount of money (modestly absurd but still absurd) on an anniversary dinner with my wife and another couple- should I be banned from Burnside Park? No. My ban from Burnside Park should be for my failure to do much meaningful to counter the system that has created the income inequity in this country and not for overspending on one meal this year. This logic makes sense in the Michael Moore argument. Conservatives are lambasting Moore for living a lavish lifestyle while disavowing his membership among the 1%. It would arguably be more hypocritical for me to criticize corporate elites while actively consuming the products that have made them elites and doing nothing to stem the consumerism that allows the income gap to expand.

Moore has unquestionably crossed class in terms of income and the ability to purchase waterfront properties but I can believe that he still feels as though he shares some cultural and social links with the people he left behind in Flint...even though recent revelations make that harder to buy.

Lazarus Blog

I am going to attempt to raise my blog from the dead! I have just returned from a 2 city recruiting venture for the college that yielded some material for a diary post. The national college fairs provide a large venue for students to meet with representatives from hundreds of institutions in a central location. The National Association of College Admissions Counselors coordinates the events and estimates that 1/2 million students attend them each year. This year's fall fairs were located in:

• Birmingham, AL
• New Orleans, LA
• Baton Rouge, LA
• Cincinnati, OH
• Phoenix, AZ
• Long Island, NY
• Minneapolis, MN
• Milwaukee, WI
• Chicago, IL
• Indianapolis, IN
• Jacksonville, FL
• St. Louis, MO
• Washington, DC
• Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Boise, ID
• Atlantic City, NJ
• Seattle, WA
• Philadelphia, PA
• Baltimore, MD
• Spokane, WA

The fairs in Philadelphia and Baltimore that I attended last week always attract an extremely diverse crowd of students in huge numbers. I think it is worthwhile to define what I mean by "diverse" in this sentence. In the college admissions lexicon- "diversity" often means the absence of white people. Baltimore City Public Schools, for example, are 87% African American and it is hard to argue that this represents a "diverse" population. The term "diversity" in its admissions context focuses on how recruiting in such schools can increase the level of "diversity" in a particular college. With that said, Baltimore City Schools represent a fountain of "diversity" for predominantly white institutions.

It was a scheduling anomaly that led to an eye opening experience during this year's Baltimore National College Fair. The Monday November 7th college fair included a morning and an afternoon session. The morning is always heavily attended and very "diverse" (almost exclusively Black). Baltimore City Public Schools bus upwards of 10,000 students to the Convention Center over the course of a three hour period. The evening is typically attended by a diverse (without quotation marks) crowd of students and parents. The following morning buses filled with a "diverse" group of students begin arriving again for the final four hours of the 2 day fair schedule. This year was different. November 8, 2011 was an election day and all Baltimore City Public Schools were closed. This resulted in much smaller and much whiter crowd. What does this have to do with class? Here goes....

The students attending Baltimore City Schools are predominantly poor with 83.9 percent of students eligible for subsidized meals in school. In the absence a yellow bus ride to the convention center, very few of these students were in attendance during the final day of the college fair. I can't prove this. I am basing this assumption on the decline in the number of students in attendance and the corresponding decrease in the number of "minority" students that came. I am also not making the simple generalization that the students that did NOT attend Baltimore City Schools were generally wealthier and more mobile but- I think they are. One reason for this is the fact that all schools in Baltimore were not closed on Tuesday. Private school students arrived in uniform and in reasonably large numbers.

There were two important distinctions between the private school students and the Baltimore Public kids beyond the ethnic composition of the classes. First, college fairs are less useful to students in private schools. The college fair is a recruitment tool that is rapidly going the way of the cassette tape and the ice box. There is very little that is made available in the college fair setting that isn't found just as easily online or in the school guidance office. Private school students generally have greater access to online college resources both inside and outside of school. Private school students can use college fairs more as a networking opportunity than simply an information gathering exercise. The approach of the public school student is markedly different. The handshakes and introductions that are common from private schoolers are replaced by practical questions from the Baltimore City group. While both groups of students are obviously concerned with the programs that are available at a particular school, students in private schools tend to arrive at the fair already armed with this information. It is also important to note that some of the most selective and prestigious institutions in the country are conspicuously absent on the national college fair circuit. The Ivy Leaguers do not tend to mingle with the state universities and second-tier privates in the competition for students. They are as selective in their recruitment activities as they are in their review of their applicants. Private school students are FAR more likely to receive personal visits from admissions representatives at very selective universities and are able to use the college fair for purposeful conversations rather than information retrieval.

The private school contingent that enjoyed free reign of the fair in the absence of the several thousand public schoolers that would typically compete for the attention of representatives essentially participated in mini-interviews with schools of their choice.