Author: redict239

(This essay was originally published on Medium.com on August 31, 2018.)

(A response to “Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap”)

In his recent article, “Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap,”[i] Columbia undergrad Coleman Hughes argues that activities which he regards as Black-American cultural traits such as conspicuous consumption and a lack of financial education result in Whites having economic wealth that is ten times that of Blacks. Hughes believes “there are certain elements of black American culture that, if changed would allow blacks to amass wealth.” Because these elements are held by both White- and Asian-Americans, central to Hughes analysis of culture and economy is the notion that the vague entity he refers to as “white culture” is superior to that of Blacks. His assumption of white superiority is made evident in the dichotomy he constructs when referring to Irish-Americans and German-American Jews as “formerly lagging ethnic groups” who embraced so-called dominant White cultural traits and became successful. In Hughes analysis it is cultures, not social classes, that engage in certain practices that lead to economic success.

Hughes does indeed approximate a truth when referring to how culture can beset us with limitations, because he himself is an example of precisely that. He adroitly proves his limitations as an American scholar who inserts himself into an academic arena to analyze economics with the pretense that Marxist analysis of economy does not exist. As a scholar living within the depoliticized social and cultural sphere of the United States, he seems unaware of how Marxist analysis of society is able to flourish both in the academy and within the broader cultures of industrialized Europe and Latin America while not being able to do so here. Hughes is oblivious to the forces within U.S. society which have both co-opted social movements that advocate for economic change and depoliticized the populace such that there is almost no critique of the capitalist economic system. By limiting himself to the cultural confines of U.S. society, Hughes establishes two misconceptions. The first is apparent in his title “Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap” in which he readily ignores the most significant analysis of modern economy done by Karl Marx and proceeds to argue that “self-defeating behaviors” in “black culture” account for Blacks having less wealth than Whites. A second misconception is his use of vague terms such as “the academic Left” and “the Left.” While the term “academic Left” may be fairly precise in the U.S. context given that Marxist analysis is accepted within the confines of the American university, “the Left” when used to refer to politics in the broader society is a nebulous term. What is this Left and who are its members? Would these be Liberal Democrats who, as economic Liberals, advocate the same laissez faire capitalism that the American Right espouses? U.S. Democrats would hardly be considered “the Left” in the industrialized societies of Europe and Latin America. Or is Hughes as limited in his provincial U.S. intellectualism as Blacks are limited by their purse strings in that same society?

According to Hughes, if small-b, black culture were to change, there would be an end to small-b, black poverty. But what is the Black culture he refers to? He is disinclined to refer to small-b blacks as African Americans. In his essay African Americans are mere appendages to the broader Euro-American culture. Would the term “African American” necessitate the writer having to discern how colonialism functions in a capitalist society and how economic and cultural dominance are intertwined? Hughes states that “Asian-Americans…are on track to become wealthier than whites.” How does the fact that Asian-Americans are not a colonized people (i.e., Native Americans, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, and Hawaiians) factor into their success? As an immigrant group that for the most part did not suffer conquest, many Asian American cultural groups have unhampered access to Confucian teachings that equate education to godliness. On the other hand, White enslavers forbade the African-American enslaved to read books and when they did, those books did not connect them to the Caribbean culture Hughes praises nor to African culture. Furthermore, various cultural groups within the United States, such as Korean Americans, have financial institutions in their U.S. communities that link them to financial assets in their highly-industrialized homelands. Yet in Hughes worldview, the dominant culture exerts no control over marginalized cultural groups and treats them all the same. But if that were the case, why then the anecdotal evidence showing Asian American parents push their children to study engineering, the sciences, etc. to circumvent discrimination in professions based on the liberal arts?

Hughes claims “a nation’s wealth has more to do with the economic system it adopts and the set of skills its citizens possess.” But just like surplus value in a capitalist economy, the exact economic system he refers to remains an unstated allusion. Capitalism is the dominant global economic system; yet, Hughes dares not call it by name because that would require reference to its arch critic, Karl Marx. If, as he states, wealth is indeed based only on the current economic system (capitalism) and the skills of its citizens, why is U.S. capitalism wealthier than that of not only Nigeria or Mexico, but also of Great Britain and Finland which both have lower per capita gross domestic product rates than the U.S.? Is this where culture, referred to in Hughes’ title, becomes a dominant factor? Yet European societies have experienced intense levels of industrialization. Perhaps Europeans lack the skills to produce the American products sold by apple, Nike, and Mattel. But Americans no longer manufacture most American consumer goods now that U.S. companies outsource production internationally seeking cheap labor to enrich U.S. CEO’s and leaving the U.S. worker deskilled.

In his negation of racial discrimination as delineated by Ibram X. Kendi and his repudiation of a call for justice through reparations as advocated by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hughes argues solely for a form of self-help to end Black poverty. Denigrating any form of reparations for Black Americans, Hughes states “slavery is hardly the root cause of America’s prosperity (because) if it were, we would expect American states that practiced slavery to be richer than those that did not.” Hughes contrasts the wealth in the Northeast of the U.S. with the poverty of the former slave-holding South with no reference to northern industrialization as if the U.S. were still a horse-and-buggy economy. Yet to remain dumbfounded about why a geographical region is not wealthy after its wealth and natural resources have been expropriated is akin to asking why a worker is not wealthy after his labor has been appropriated to create surplus value. Following Hughes argument that cultures, not social classes, engage in certain practices that lead to economic success, he believes entire swathes of “children from one culture may routinely hear phrases like ‘asset diversification,’ ‘mutual fund,’ and ‘inflation rate.’” Yet how ironic that while these terms are supposedly heard by Asian-Americans and Whites regardless of class and despite where they live in the U.S., Hughes remains oblivious as to how wealth can be extracted from a specific region with scant benefit to that region just as wealth can be expropriated from a worker with surplus value going disproportionately to his or her boss, the company, or the corporation that employs that worker

In a capitalist economy the wealthy get wealthier and the poor get poorer according to Marxist analysis. This reality can be seen not only in U.S. society but in the global arena as well. As such, it is not incomprehensible that in the U.S., the groups that started with the least, Native Americans and African Americans, would have minimal economic advantage in a laissez faire capitalist system that added genocide, slavery, racism, and colonialism to the brutal economic system it imposed. Citing “spending patterns” as a direct cause for Black cultural deficiency, Hughes ignores the economic system in which African Americans live as he constructs a false argument that culture determines wealth. In his disregard for the breadth of global, intellectual wealth on the topic of the economy, the writer’s attempt to analyze the circumstances of Black Americans is constricted by the limitations of the dominant, depoliticized, provincial American culture he fetishizes.

How will the circumstances of small-b blacks change according to Hughes given that “no element of culture harms black wealth accrual more directly than spending patterns”? The writer criticizes Blacks ownership of smart phones, at 71 percent, and contrasts it with that of Americans in general, at 62 percent. Ironically, even though Blacks purchase more technology, Hughes concludes Blacks “are ill-suited for success in the information economy.” At the close of his essay, he appears to allude to the fact that the revolution will occur via media as he laments both the “ignorance” of the American “Left” and the “impotence” of “the Right” and emphasizes how the latter cannot help change Black culture because they are “too far from the media channels through which blacks tend to communicate.” If the revolution is going to occur via media, why bemoan the purchasing of smart phones by Black people? If technology in an “information economy” will be used to transform culture in a future with no reparations because the latter “would not address the root causes of black underachievement,” wouldn’t the purchase of smart phones be advantageous? Yet the “information economy” the author refers to exists in the present economic order which is capitalism. And yes, capitalism impels reparations — for Black Folk and all exploited peoples as well.

[i] Hughes, Coleman. “Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap.” Quillette 19 July 2018: 1–11. <https://www.quillette.com/2018/07/19/black-american-culture-and-the-racial-wealth-gap/&gt;

The book, “Mama Fannie,” evolved into a musical instrument as her daughter simultaneously read from the text and addressed the live audience. Jacqueline Hamer Flakes was a guest at the City of Asylum community center in Pittsburgh on January 14. Her presentation was a reading where she shared her new book about her mom, Fannie Lou Hamer. Her reading from the biography was one of the most unforgettable and affectionate I’ve witnessed because Jacqueline Hamer, also known as Cookie, rendered the book a musical instrument – she read a series of short sections, and following each, inspired by memories of her mom, she related her own stories that each narrative in the book motivated her to tell. The result was a splendid and engaging series of riffs on who Fannie Lou Hamer was and how she championed social justice throughout her lifetime. Here is some of what Jacqueline, the daughter, shared:

The chords: Fannie Lou Hamer

The riffs: Born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, Fannie Lou Hamer was a Civil Rights activist and community organizer who resisted white supremacy by working with both the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). During her early forties, she visited a doctor to have a cyst removed, and unbeknownst to her, she was given a complete hysterectomy. Unable to bear children, she eventually adopted four girls, and Jacqueline Hamer Flakes, the author of the biography, was one of them.

The chords: Not just 40 acres

The riffs: Black Folk in the U.S. (and globally) have yet to receive reparations for enslavement, but where there is a will, there is a way. Fannie Lou encountered barriers simply trying to buy a home, and when she did finally acquire one, it was firebombed. Along with Maya Angelou and others, she went on to raise money in 1969 to purchase 40 acres in the Mississippi Delta. That land was central to the founding of Fannie’s Freedom Farm Cooperative which she expanded by an additional 640 acres in 1970.

The chords: Africa

The riffs: Fannie Lou was part of a SNCC delegation sent to Conakry, Guinea by Harry Belafonte. The trip in 1964 proved both life changing and inspirational. A child of the segregated US South, her travels in West Africa opened a window to a view of Black people capable of running their own societies.

The chords: Advice

The riffs: “What would Fannie Lou Hamer tell us today?” Jacqueline Hamer responded by saying her mom, the activist and organizer, would tell Black people to get an education. (Fannie had to labor in the cotton fields starting at age six, consequently she only attended school three months out of the year.) She would advise us to go into communities and help others get an education and to pay it forward and pay it back.

The chords: A pot of peas

The riffs: Jacqueline Hamer criticized how authors have written about her mother and built their own books and reputations without really knowing the real Fannie. She said was wonderful that, in the past, writers interviewed Fannie Lou before they wrote about her. But she reminded us that those who didn’t sit with her mom and shell peas, didn’t really know the real Fannie Lou Hamer.

I imagined myself buying several books at Eso Won Bookstore in Leimert Park during their final sale. Rumor was the Black-owned bookstore would be closing after thirty-six years in business. A landmark for Black Los Angeles, it was awarded 2021 Bookstore of the Year by Publishers Weekly. Despite its compact size of 1800 square feet, it had also been recognized as one of the largest Black-owned bookstores in the U.S. It was where I’d spied, surrounded by other books, the cover of the 869-page, Library of America edition of James Baldwin’s Baldwin Collected Essays and knew then that I had to buy it. My Baldwin purchase completed a couple of years ago, now the store’s founders, James Fulgate and Tom Hamilton, had reached retirement age. They started Eso Won initially inside a home and later as a book-on-wheels concept in the late 1980’s. Eventually the store would find a home at various storefronts in South Los Angeles before the owners settled on Leimert Park in 2006. I’d heard they would be closing sometime at the end of the year. So, I went to the bookstore at the beginning of November 2022 planning to make final discount purchases and say my last goodbyes.

In the years following the 2014 police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, Eso Won, along with the California African American Museum, was the location to hear Black writers and activists engaged with political and social life talk books and politics. It was at Eso Won that I heard Kali Akuno, co-founder of Cooperation Jackson, a Mississippi cooperative, speak about his book, Jackson Rising. That was an evening in 2017 when I headed to the bookstore after work. As they normally did on evenings of book talks, Fulgate and Hamilton converted the small walking space inside the bookstore into an auditorium by bringing folding chairs from the backroom and arranging them on the salesfloor. Using a small desk as his podium, Akuno faced the audience as we sat on the metal chairs anxious to hear his reasons for leaving California and starting a cooperative in the South.

On other occasions, we might be ten people in the audience, and sometimes we were twenty with standing room only. The common thread connecting us was curiosity and a craving for answers from Black people who had analyzed our common oppression. Amongst the speakers and the audience, some were comfortable with reform while others sought revolt. Sitting in the small space on Eso Won’s sales floor, I also heard Ibrahim X. Kendi speak on How to Be an Anti-Racist, Kelly Lytle Hernandez on City of Inmates, and Daina Ramey Berry on The Price for their Pound of Flesh. As the nation confronted its violent legacy of racism and witnessed protests against police brutality, the Eso Won website and calendar became a lifeline connecting me to the next scheduled appearance of a writer, activist, or scholar.

Because I had heard the store would be closing at the end of 2022, I arrived at the beginning of November. Turning on to Degnan Avenue, I noticed a store with brown paper covering its windows. There was no sign above the storefront. My first thought: Is that where it was? I stopped my car momentarily. The commercial space that had sheltered the grandest dreams and creations of so many Black writers seemed now so tiny. I drove towards the park at the end of the block, turned around and drove back to the storefront. Yes, that is where Eso Won was. And it was now gone. I was too late. Silently, I cursed myself, and I cursed the city.

After parking, I got out and walked towards the former bookstore. Although I couldn’t enter, I figured I could at least allow my body the fiction that I was going to. A letter-sized paper taped on the closed glass door assured me that, yes, the store, with brown paper covering the windows was the former Eso Won. Beyond the storefront, I was drawn in by the Saturday morning environment of Leimert Park. It was a cross between movie set and maroon village. With cars parked at an angle on both sides, the middle of the street, which functions as a plaza, served as a marketplace for merchants selling t-shirts, jackets, and African clothing made of bold and colorful Ankara prints. On the northern end of the block, a man opened his black iron cast barbecue pit. He waved his arms at the billows of smoke causing apparitions of Tubman and Garvey to rise. At least two different sets of speakers on opposite sides of the street blared different reggae songs. Near the vacant Eso Won building, a Black homeless man huddled near a closed door while a young woman with a large Afro sat near the curb in a high metal chair and typed on her laptop that she’d placed on the metal table. Two Black men in expensive sports attire brisked past. Continuing down the block, I noticed at least two other stores had closed. I believe one had been a store that sold clothes and wooden sculptures from Africa. In front of an empty storefront, three or four musicians had started a session of African drumming. The drummers pounded resonant and rhythmic beats into the animal skin as a small group of mostly men stood by chatting and listening. At the southern corner of the block, men hurried in and out of a barbershop.

While it’s not the only Black bookstore in Los Angeles, the closing of Eso Won is a double loss. It is symbolic of the decline in the Black population of Los Angeles that has fallen from a high of thirteen percent in the 1990’s to its current eight percent. For various reasons, many Black LA residents are moving to the nearby suburbs or as far as the neighboring counties of San Bernadino and Riverside, while others have moved out of state. The outward migration means Black spaces like Eso Won disappear.

Eso Won is also symbolic of the disappearance of independent bookstores in the Los Angeles area. During my high school years, my teacher sent ten or twelve of us students who were in her AP Spanish Lit class to the long gone Librairie de France/Librería Hispánica on Olive Street, near Seventh, in Downtown Los Angeles. There used to be separate Spanish and French bookstores on Book Sellers’ Row on Westwood Boulevard.  Book Sellers’ Row started at Pico and ran all the way up to UCLA. Other bookstores on Westwood included a medical bookstore, Sisterhood feminist bookstore, and the pride of the region, Westwood Bookstore itself. Near West Hollywood there was the Bodhi Tree which specialized in religion, philosophy, and spirituality. And in Santa Monica, on the now gentrified Third Street Promenade, the leftist bookstore, Midnight Special held court for twenty-three years and hosted writers, thinkers, and activists such as Maya Angelou, bell hooks, Elaine Brown, and Edward Said. I didn’t have the fortune of seeing those luminaries in Santa Monica, but I was in the audience to hear the reading by Chicano poet, Jimmy Santiago Baca. After his reading, he signed my copy of Martín & Meditations on the South Valley.

While the moneyed classes might argue that the growth of a conglomerate like Amazon — which has precipitated the closure of independent bookstores — has led to lower prices and the convenience of warehouse-to-door shipping, for the Black population, the loss of a space like Eso Won offers no rainbow on the horizon. As members of a community that has languished for centuries without reparations, the owners of small Black businesses almost never have the economic foundation and investment to grow into large capitalist enterprises. And while the forces of capitalism allow privileged classes of White residents to build stronger and newer communities, those same forces tend to split up established Black neighborhoods. I’ve seen evidence of this along Crenshaw Boulevard, just two blocks away from Leimert Park, where numerous Black businesses have closed due to the economic hardships caused by gentrification as well as the pandemic and subway construction.

So, on a November day in Lemeirt Park, the notification taped on the closed glass door was proof Eso Won was gone. Like Central Avenue, Santa Barbara Avenue, Rodeo Road, the old Eastside. Now a memory amidst the rolling rhythms of music, the greetings of smiling street merchants, and cars driving away into the distance.