Written by Matthew C. Whitaker
Now that Black History Month is winding down, I urge readers to pause, reflect upon the spirit of inclusion that upholds the month, and move past the standardized foci and platitudes that mark our commemoration. “Black History is American history,” but is also a history that challenges us to address vestiges of intolerance and redress the inequality that still undermines African American upward mobility throughout the year.
We are shown myriad images of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to the almost uniform exclusion of other major players in African American History, for 28 days during the second month of the year. Carter G. Woodson, the “father of Black history,” and other more quarrelsome luminaries such as Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Marcus Garvey, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others, remain unknown to the masses. The limited concentration on a handful of non-threatening African American history makers, reflects a society that is willing to embrace the soothing and inexpensive lessons of our past. Many Americans, particularly in the corporate world, are unwilling to hear the echoes of our past that challenge us to move beyond rhetoric, act boldly, and invest real dollars to engender economic equality. Like freedom, however, equity and inclusion are not free.
Since King seems to be the safe and acceptable embodiment of the best of Black history to those who are wary of more “radical” elements, let us marry King’s visionary brilliance with his practical, bolder prescriptions for racial equality. King was more than a transformative Black preacher. He was a social architect who demanded specific actions to move Black people from the back of the bus to the boardroom. The legendary March on Washington in 1963, for example, was not merely an interracial love-in. It was a call for action. Indeed, it was a “March for Jobs and Freedom,” with an emphasis on jobs and the financial independence that comes with economic opportunity at every level. In 1968, as King delivered one of his last speeches, he passionately addressed America’s failure to acknowledge White privilege and redress the lack of commiserate economic opportunity for Black people.
“At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But not only did they give them land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms. Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm, and they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And this is what we are faced with, and this is the reality. Now, when we come to Washington in this campaign, we are coming to get our check.”
This is not the kumbaya King that we are bombarded with every Black History Month. This is King drawing attention to the history of affirmative action for White people and the need for Black people to have seats at the economic table at every level. “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter,” he questioned, “if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?” Likewise, what good is having the right pedigree if corporate “culture” (Whiteness) and the glass ceiling, relegate Blackness to the margins? What good is having the right to participate at the highest levels of corporate authority and financial independence if the opportunities are not there?
King argued that “practical racists affirm the existence of racism with their lips, and deny the existence of racism with their lives and their actions. They have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.” His “practical racism” can be used as a prism through which racial disparities in the workplace, earnings, and wealth can be illuminated and corrected. Indeed, corporate leaders often affirm the existence of racial inequality and disparity in their offices with their words, and reject their existence in their hiring, promotions, management, and board appointments patterns. The consequences of which include low morale, decreased productivity and attrition, in addition to lost creativity, innovation, intellectually diversity, and goodwill with the larger Black community, whose purchasing power, according to Black Enterprise Magazine, will top $1.1 trillion dollars by the end of this year.
King was very concerned about economic inequality. Indeed, Jobs, upward mobility, and access to the highest levels of influence within the business world, are as crucial to establishing racial parity as the civil rights that King fought and died for. In 2014, however, journalist Michael W. Chapman wrote that the Black American unemployment rate was 11.4%, more than twice the 5.3% rate for white Americans. Furthermore, according to sociologist G. William Domhoff, nearly 50 years since King’s assassination, “American wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few [predominantly white] hands. As of 2010 20% of the people owned a remarkable 89%, leaving only 11% of the wealth for the bottom 80%. The PewResearchCenter puts these statistics in racial perspective, demonstrating that by 2013 “The wealth of White households was 13 times the median wealth of black households” and expanding. This gap will not be shuttered by conveniently extracting financial teeth from the teachings of historic figures like King. Too many leaders embrace diversity as long as they do not have to expend uncomfortable levels of social and economic capitol, which means that they are not really committed to it at all.
So as Black History Month expires this year, let us not only bask in stories of African American heroism, framed by King’s faith and soring oratory, let us also remember his calls for financial manifestations of our commitment to equality and opportunity. Meager hiring, penniless affinity groups, symbolic public service announcements, infrequent cultural competency training, and 28 days of hastily prepared Black History Month activities that often go underfunded and unattended by management, is not enough. Some companies and wealthy individuals put their money where there mouths are, but far too many cry poverty when the inclusion cup is passed around. The “bottom line” that corporate authorities like to reference is that Black History Month is not merely about looking to the past for inspiration and affirmation, it is about using the hard lessons of the past to make us act boldly and generously on behalf of inclusion and equality now.
Matthew C. Whitaker is ASU Foundation professor of history and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, in the College of Letters and Sciences, at Arizona State University. He is also the owner and CEO of The Whitaker Group, L.L.C., an equity and inclusion, cultural competency, and human relations consulting firm. He can be followed on Twitter at @Dr_Whitaker. The views and opinions expressed by the author are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, and official policies of Arizona State University.