August, 1996
I'm not certain the leftist influence in black communities is as complete as he implies. certainly affirmative action is a compromise primarily directed at integration of the workplace and promoting social peace, not economic justice. This fundamental insight is why Malcolm X and other nationalists, thought it rather pathetic. The rhetoric of 'diversity' continues with that fundamental 'cant we just get along' strategy.
But of course when black people get involved in any previously all white area of society, down come the microscopes. The level of scrutiny faced by corporations increased the professionalism of the 'employment office' which became 'personnel' which then matured to 'human resources'. Manpower planning, succession planning, on the job training at dedicated corporate facilities, and affirmative action all came together during this period. It is not coincidental that the army model for affirmative action was adopted by larger corporations. Whereas few corporations could account for the 'legitimacy' of any of their employees in the 50s, all of that was now very professionally locked down by the mid 80s. Further scrutiny came the form of psychological profiles taken of prospective employees in simple forms like Myers-Briggs to full fledged psychological profiles. It is not surprising that corporate 'societies' brag about their ability to place blacks in more comfortable conditions than does the larger society.
Ironically, many blacks who had been hired before there was a such thing as affirmative action were always shuffled off into lower paying management positions with no market exposure, like personnel. That influence cannot be underestimated. Some of the most excruciatingly correct Negroes I have ever known were mother hens in the employment department - no compunction about telling you how to act in front of the boss, young black man.
In the early 80s, during the great fight to combat Japanese market share and the popularization of terms like 'pacific rim', corporate leaders (notably David Kearns of Xerox) got on their high horses about public responsibility for educating the high-tech workforce. Anybody who remembers the map/top protocol wars, can recall how fiercely debated was the issue of automation on the factory floor Vs pushing responsibility down to individual workers. Corporations had to decide whether or not to train workers or buy robots. In the end, training workers was cheaper, but of course corporations would rather not foot the bill. So, corporate education/employment was becoming big business. Corporations proved their ability to bypass society in certain ways. The American public could not create this ideal entry level employee, so corporate America, notably in the high tech sector made every effort to create that employee. It required some extra effort to seek out people of color, but the effort was made. There is no phenomenon quite like the corporate job fair at the state college engineering department. Talk about groveling. It was not coincidental that under Kearns, Xerox had America's best affirmative action program (if the Urban League is to be believed).
Yet the entire paradigm of corporate direction of public education and the corporate lifestyle as the moral center of the future of America worked better than anyone expected thanks to a bit of conservative spin. Since affirmative action was all about 'diversity' not economic empowerment of communities, window-dressers could stand for anything their corporate pimps decided. Corporate budgets for recruitment served the social purposes of many a Latino or black political activist 'working on the inside'. Some of the best and brightest took that path. I recall a particular conversation I had with a button down brother from r.j. Reynolds who we all should recall used to sponsor the Kool jazz festival. Remember back in the days before white companies would advertise on black radio stations? Think about Revlon and the essence awards, think about a half a dozen brewers and black film festivals, museum shows, drug intervention programs... All thousands of points of light, generating a little heat and a little energy as long as the corporate batteries were fully charged. And thanks to convenient mouthpieces like thomas Sowell, the high tech employment of (professionally mapped) highly qualified Asian college grads, became the new private citizen ideal. While there is still conflict and debate over the proper sort of community leadership is the proper model as provided by grass roots activists and the 'insiders' there is no question as to which type America prefers: the paternalistic minority face offering corporate dollars to 'charitable' efforts blurring the distinction between 'constituency' and 'market'. All of these social influences under corporate control further served to legitimize corporate standing over social standing in society at large for people of color.
Yet outside of the world of money, respect is not something easily gotten by blacks and other people of color. Many of us young members of corporate America found ourselves in unique situations - black faces with American express cards as sneers become apologetic smiles. While colleagues at corporate work, especially in boom cusp and generation x, are very comfortable with the mix. So in the end it is not surprising that the ideal of corporate society has been adopted as the ideal of middle class society and that black mobility in corporate America hands over a great moral victory to the corporate sector that the mainstream public has yet to duplicate. The ability for black people to 'fit' in the corporate environment has been proven seven ways to Sunday. Yet a black man can still reliably be harassed in neighborhoods in which he 'doesn't belong'. A black woman who directs advertising campaigns during the day is still disregarded at PTA meetings.
Affirmative action backlash is the result of a mean-spirited political campaign combined with a naive and gullible public lacking an historical understanding of the origin and a realistic understanding of the operations and purposes of affirmative action. It is a simple matter for those corporations who have gone to such lengths to employ blacks to justify their expense, and demonstrate the credibility of their programs. As well, it is a simple matter for politicians on either side of the issue to give examples which satisfy their claims. it is not so simple, however to make sense of the progress of integration and race relations in terms of the debate over affirmative action. It's as good a place as any to start - since so many issues are related to it and race, as is regularly demonstrated by the conflation of arguments here and everywhere.
Aside from the larger issues of race relations, there is a deeply entrenched interest in the corporate world to maintain its social control. And the inclusion of people of color is central to the integrity of that interest no matter what system was used. The corporation has a need to show that it can employ anybody and that it can fulfill its labor requirements from any applicant pool, domestically or otherwise.
But on the larger issue, defeat of the CCRI is in the interests of corporations for the simple reason that the goodwill of resourceful employees of color is necessary. In today's society, that integrated mix as small as it is, has been a consistent anchor. Face it. You know 'some of your best friends' from that corporate or military experience - all of which heavily invested in affirmative action. If that supply is not kept up, all we will have is the rest of American society, an unhealthy scenario. People of color *will* boycott and disrupt business if they feel persona non-grata.
Both of these reasons are conservative, not liberal. The rhetoric of 'diversity' supports these two reasons in terms of 'colorblindness' for the first and 'community service' for the second. Affirmative action programs addressing 'diversity': integration for social peace under corporate control will always be supported for those conservative reasons. Any government intervention which forces the corporate hand in terms of its methodology will be evaded. There are a lot of people who are comfortable with this compromise, but CCRI advocates are the least sophisticated of them all.
'Quota' is just a loaded word. There *is* no other way business monitors its progress on important issues other than by numbers. Sooner or later, no matter what the system is, it boils down to counting noses by color. 'Quota', 'target', 'budget'. It's all the same thing. Either the required employees are there or they are not. Either way, you count them.
The important thing about affirmative action programs themselves no matter how they are implemented, is that they show a good faith effort on the part of the employer to meet the demand of black communities to be employed. People still talk about the laziness of black folks as a substantive issue to deal with ('the culture of anti-success, resentment, and leftist ideology') but ghetto dwellers have successfully boycott and otherwise disrupted business operations when they got no jobs. Jobs remain the issue for them despite their educational lack. The question of the visibility of these affirmative action programs can make all the difference.
I don't believe anybody expects reasonable amounts of employment to be generated by affirmative action for poor black communities. In that respect, goodwill is still an acceptable compromise. But 'culture of poverty' arguments foreclose that possibility. As long as some black folk can be considered as an 'underclass' and somehow deservedly poor, there is no reason for such marked individuals to respect that which any beneficiary of employment gets. Quite clearly any middle-class individual would be equally impoverished with a job taken away, which poor people recognize. But the poor quality of their education - determined geographically and racially - is beyond their control. And thus these people are systematically impoverished. Under such circumstances it *is* better to make work. And that is many companies and municipalities are willing to do. But it is the social acceptability of a 'black underclass' which sustains this injustice. Reform begins with destruction of that acceptability.