Nitty-Gritty 101: Let's Educate Our Community

Chello everybody. Sorry, I have been away for a short minute. I left the Burgh on the 5th and am now residing in Baltimore for the holidays. However, I'll be leaving for Darien, Connecticut early tomorrow morning and will be gone until Saturday evening. I return to the Burgh probably sometime around Jan 12ish so make sure to get at me.

As with all holidays, there is this notion that many people spend the season feeling lonely. I have addressed this topic once before (I think) so I will not elaborate on it. However, I must say that I am not amongst the lonely bunch but I cannot say that I do not get a little down. For some reason, it is around the holidays, especially Christmas and New Years, that I remember all the people who I've been close to that have gone home to meet the man upstairs.

Two people in particular, my paternal grandmother and a childhood friend, continuously are at the forefront of my mind every holiday. These are the two people who I have always felt held the most genuine concern for me. My grandma is still physically here but she is mentally gone because of Alzheimer's Disease. The majority of my life she has been perfectly healthy and when she got sick, it was not a gradual change...but she was gone overnight. My friend from back in the day, lost his life due to gun violence.

Loss is something that is common amongst many Baltimorians. I do not know not one Baltimorian who has not lost someone due to violence. Every time I return back home to Baltimore, I get so discouraged by what I see. Everyone is just so angry. It seems that many have really forgotten how to love people....primarily because many of us have forgotten how to love ourselves. Despite our facade of invincibility, we are truly a group of unconfident people. I honestly think our facade is what holds us back. We spend so much time trying to tweak our outsides to give off a certain image, that we never allow ourselves to deal with the issues underneath. Because of this, many of us do not grow emotionally and we are nothing but cowardly, unnurtured little girls and boys in our insides.

I can go on and on with these sentiments about loss and the lack of confidence in the black community but my main purpose for writing to day is to educate. We can talk all day about the problems....we can talk all day about how we feel...we can even talk all day about possible solutions...but what I rarely hear anyone talk about is how did this come to be?

Most of the time when we talk about these issues that face Baltimorians and other black communities, we blame our families, we blame our friends, we blame ourselves. We also blame the white man. I have always felt that the white man is the main cause of many of our problems, but I have also felt that we never look deeper than pointing a finger. We know about Martin Luther King, Jr. We know about slavery. But most black people do not understand the depth of how the trends in history play out to our detriment. This is the crux of the problem. And once that is excepted then and only then can we start piecing together a solution.

I'm talking a little broadly so it may be hard for many of you to understand exactly where I am going with this but just hear me out for a second. In previous journal entries, I have practiced the habits that I have listed above when discussing racial issues as it pertains to the black community. But I want to take a more academic approach to really get people's wheels turning.

The world is not divided into just black and white. As a whole, the world is divided between the haves and the have-nots. Black people in America have so much in common with many other groups globally. As Nas stated on his song Be A Nigga:

"I'm a nigga, youse a nigga, we some niggas, wouldn't you like to be a nigga too. To all my kite niggas, chinc niggas, that's right yall my niggas too"

The same habits that we have adopted and the culture by which we live by is something that is experienced by all the have-nots in the world. It is not just a black problem, it is not just an American problem....our problem is a global problem. I have more in common with Shuang Xie than I do with Susy Doright. When we think of places like China for instance, most of us automatically imagine a crowded country of yellow people in glasses and pocket protectors who sit in their homes and study all day. At the same rate, when people in China think of America, they do not think of black people at all. All they see is white America and it never occurs to them that racism here even exist. Just like we are completely unaware of the drastic class discrimination that takes place over there.

The reason why we have these notions that our case here in America is unique is because many of the foreigners that come over are amongst the top tier in their respective countries. The only Asians that they are letting in are the ones wearing pocket protectors. The U.S. government does not give visas to poor people. It is the same with many Africans who rumored to have a hatred toward black Americans. But the reality of it is, that it is these same people who are doing very little for the poor Africans back in their homes.

There is a trend by which an "underclass" is created. The underclass being the oppressed group of people. And there are certain behaviors and reactions that are common amongst underclasses everywhere. To get to the heart of the problem, it is not only about understanding the history for each individual group. Rather, it is more about understanding the general trends that effect all groups as a whole. By taking this perspective, I believe that the our problem becomes more objective and less subjective. Making the problem a little more objective to me, makes finding a solution more manageable.

With that said, I would like to offer a little bit of knowledge for everyone:


Married to Capitalism BY COURTNEY THOMPSON

On an early Monday morning, a black American college student from Baltimore, Maryland cell phone rings. It is her aunt from Wilmington, North Carolina calling with a lucrative business proposition. Her aunt, a former high school and cosmetology school drop-out, has decided to elicit her niece’s skills and talents towards producing a new product based on the fact that her niece has a noteworthy college education. Her niece is one of the few family members that have pursued a college degree. The young, ambitious student takes up the challenge and within a matter of months begins negotiating business contracts with a manufacturer in Guangdong, China and a U.S. investor. As stated by the student:

Even though I am a full-time student with a part-time job and my time is very limited while I pursue my degree, I decided to do this project with my aunt because I know that she is in desperate need of money. She hates her husband and she wants to leave but she is afraid of being poor…especially with two kids to take care of. My decision to work on this project is not entirely humble…I too am willing to attempt this hustle to make some cash.

When asked about what decisions were involved in choosing the manufacturer she stated:

First and foremost, we had to figure out who had the capabilities to engineer the project. Secondly, it was imperative that we chose a company that would mitigate our production cost. It came down to a company in the U.S. and a company in China. China was cheaper.

Lastly, referencing her pursuit for cash and the importance of low production cost she said:

I need the cash because I want stability. They don’t make it easy for Black folk. I want to know how that feels like…to be financially independent and have a better quality of life. Even if I were to get my degree, the amount I would make may not be enough. I have a sister on welfare back home who lives in a one bedroom apartment with my mother who helps take care of my sister’s three kids. They are always asking me for money even though I have tuition to pay and need to supply my own basic needs. There may be a possibility that I may have to get custody of my niece and nephews after graduation. I am single and have no time to pursue a relationship. That’s why I need to be independently financially successful. It is also important that we satisfy our investor. The last thing we would want is for our investor to pull out or take over. The lower the production cost, the more profit we will make to satisfy all parties involved. If it were up to me, I’d go with the U.S. manufacturer so I could see what was going on with my project…but without independence, I have to go overseas.

Little to the student’s knowledge, this is a classic symptom of capitalism. She has insufficient conscientiousness that her plight for independence, financial stability, social justice, and obligation to her family is much like that of the female factory workers in manufacturing plants across Guangdong, China and in many other parts of the world. In addition, she is unaware of how her own plight has a significant impact on the difficulties imposed on those in other parts of the world. It is the classic capitalistic formula that in attempting to reshape economic conditions for some, a substantial group of people must be excluded in order to capitalize on economic gains. In the case of the many have-nots of the world, many have left the culture that they know best to pursue a romantic relationship with transnational capitalism, the male archetype. In their marriage to transnational capitalism they hope to leave their previous home life behind, gain status, and gain financial freedom. They want transnational capitalism to buy them nice things like diamonds and rings. But are they being too idealistic? As many ethnographic accounts have observed, transnational capitalism is a controlling and unjust husband.

In this write-up I explore how changing economic opportunities and constraints within labor markets of contemporary globalization have a significant impact on social dynamics regarding patriarchal controls, independence, familial relationships, and identity through the comparison of Mayans in Guatemala, low-wage workers in Jamaica, and factory workers in China. I explore how there is indeed a general trend regarding globalization and its relationship to these social dynamics. Lastly, I explore the implications of this trend on global generations to come by relating it to conditions in the already developed U.S.


Capitalizing on Economic Opportunity

In assessing the impacts of capitalism on societal relationships, one must first ask “where has the economic change come from?” As seen in the story of the black American college student, the change in global economies begins with transnational businesses’ in developed countries need to mitigate their production costs in order to increase profits and placate eager investors. To mitigate their production costs, these businesses seek cheap labor overseas in less developed countries. In order to attract transnationals in the hopes to industrialize, these less developed nations have lackadaisical labor laws. The leniency of these labor laws as well as the presence of transnationals is the catalyst in creating economic differentiation which in turn, impacts social dynamics. Waves of modernization due to the changes in economics produces inequalities. Thus there is a trend regarding globalization and its relationship to social dynamics.

The shaping and reshaping of relationships within a society first begins with an elite group’s dependency on a part-time, robotic workforce. This workforce is chosen through the exclusion of others based on differences in race, gender, class, and culture. It is the idea of localistic despotism but on a much larger scale where localism is a pseudonym for commonality. Examining the aforementioned case studies, this is more than evident. On the onset of Guatemala’s participation in coffee production for export, state, global, and national elites created an eternal underclass of subservient people, Mayan Indians, as a docile, cheap labor force. The Guatemalan state has and continues to depend on racial ‘Otherness’ as the ideological key to domination of Indians by non-Indians. In the case of low-wage workers in Jamaica, black Africans were brought to the island and initially coerced to endeavor the sugar trade. In China, the division of class was used to determine a person’s social and/or political status. In this case, class membership was not determined merely by socioeconomics. Rather, class level was determined by a family’s economic position under the ancient regime. This detrimentally affected those living in rural areas. Lastly in the case of the black American college student, her plight begins, much like those in Jamaica, in the days during the U.S. tobacco and cotton trades where black Africans participated in coerced labor.


Enfranchisement of the Underclass

The next step in the trend regarding globalization and its relationship to social dynamics is what some describe as the “enfranchisement of the indigenous majority” where the subservient class of people are more fully integrated into the capitalist system and had more rights. In the cases concerning Guatemala, Jamaica, and the U.S., the subservient classes were eventually permitted to sell their labor and participate in government. In China, the need for the support of revolutionary change was the catalyst for land reform. Land reform permitted people in rural areas to work as part-time laborers.


Male Dominated Labor Markets

The members of the subservient classes who were permitted to sell their labor and participate in politics were male. Women were not the major breadwinners in their households and families and were really supported by their fathers or husbands. It was widely accepted that womens' needs should not direct the policies and practices of business management and development specialists. Initially there was mutual dependency and a complementary division of labor between men and women. However, the change in economics destabilized gender relations because the labor market was geared toward men (i.e. heavy labor). Men in turn, were looked at as providers and heads of households which substantially devalued and marginalized the contributions of women.


Discrimination in Politics

Even though the underclass had been enfranchised they were not fully able to assimilate due to non enforced politics, violence, and repression (i.e. literacy test, lack of access to good education, etc.). This in turn further maintained or increased differentiation between different groups of people. For instance, in Jamaica, the U.S. had restored its military and economic superiority by de-nationalizing and privatizing public sectors of the economy in order to increase sales of their exports through a global hierarchy that was class, racial, and gender biased. In Guatemala, a coup precipitated a return to and intensification of exploitation and repression against Mayan Indians who supported social change and prompted the redistribution of land. In China, there was a reintroduction of harsh class policies in response to the desires and demands of the peasantry. In the U.S., black Americas and other non-whites were subjected to Jim Crow laws where the notion of “separate but equal” was very separate and unequal.


Women in the Labor Market

Because of national repression, much of the underclass continued to have a hard time synchronizing with changes in their respective economies and getting ahead. Thus, many family households of the underclass have been left very dependent on the economic contribution of women and youth since men have been increasingly unable to provide. In some instances, conditions were so severe that members of the underclass could not afford to live as well as slaves whose access to food, fuel, and work tools were more adequate. Women are said to be the “social shock absorbers” that mediate a crisis at the local level of their respective households and neighborhoods. There had also been a shift in the labor market where the production needs of transnationals were primarily geared towards “womens' work”. The allowance of women into the workforce was more a response to the organization of the respective labor market than a response to constraints imposed by the state. Womens' work in the context of the case studies is generally defined as unskilled, low-paid labor. In Guatemala, as defined like maiden workers in China, the new labor market emphasized young womens' single status, immaturity, imminent marriage, short-term commitment to factory work, low job aspirations, and low motivation to learn skills. For those who were much older the new labor market emphasized a womens' obligation to her family, dependence, and a tendency to be monetarily unmotivated. In Jamaica, women have become the heads of households and are expected to make a lot of sacrifice for their families in terms of the quality of life. This includes giving up lucrative opportunities to immigrate to a more developed nation. There is a good portion of women in Jamaica who temporarily emigrated overseas to save and/or send money to their families back home. In the U.S. during the twentieth century, the labor market required less heavy labor and there was an increase in office jobs which permitted more women to work.

As far as youth are concerned, many families further released patriarchal controls in the hopes that their sons and daughters would contribute to the financial stability and survival of their families. This is widely practiced in China and Guatemala where many rural young women leave home to work and live in factories. Both the workers and their families are well aware of the exploitative conditions under which they are laboring. Yet the necessity of procuring cash, however little has left many families few other options than to allow their adolescent daughters and sons to work.


Marriage to Transnational Capitalism: Distancing from Home

Once women enter the labor market, it is then that there is a drastic change in the social relationships amongst the underclass. Women and youth are equipped with a greater sense of independence. In Guatemala and in China, young women gained more freedom to associate with men thus gradually relinquishing the tradition of arranged marriages. Furthermore, many of these women had personal goals such as gaining experience, saving for dowries, or financing their educations. Becoming active participants within the labor market also allowed them the capacity to consume items they never would have been able to buy. Clothes in particular, allowed many to further express their identity. There is an important point to made that most of the young women and men did not invest much of the cash into the household economy. However, the dispersal of women and children leaving their homes relieved the household of considerable financial pressure. Because of the distance imposed by international migration, factory work, and/or schooling, many become further and further detached from their families and communities. Hence, they felt less obliged to their economic responsibility regarding their familial relationships. In a way, many youth marry themselves or begin an intimate affair with transnational capitalism where the perks outweigh their metaphoric spouse’s need for control. In Guatemala for instance, while in factory work they transferred their patriarchal notions of obedience and authority, once the prerogatives of their fathers, to the factory managers. In the U.S., much of the underclass work low-income jobs, such as fast-food restaurant cashiers, where they are kept under the watchful eye of strict management. The perks were not limited just to an increase in the ability to consume. Rather, the vision of marriage became less like housewifery but rather of partnership in an endeavor to find more important and meaningful work. Transnationals commit to the relationship of these young women because of the myth of unrestrained availability, the lack of legal strings attached, and the short-term commitment.


Increase in Violence

When women leave their fathers and husbands to be consumed by their new, complex relationship with capitalism, what happens to the men? According to many experts, there becomes a substantial increase in violence. Some of these same young Mayan men who are temporarily employed and do not have a viable future began participating in youth gangs where they find sociality, community, and the bonds of friendship. Through these gangs, young men gain access to power and authority that has been stripped away from them and the only power available to them is both the real and symbolic power of the gun. In Jamaica some resort to the desperate illicit measures such as thievery or dealing drugs like crack cocaine. Local constructions of masculinity are grounded in guns and organized crime. This has greatly effected how men relate to women. Men, jaded by the womens' affair with capitalism, attempt to achieve social balance by using violence to control women but gaining respectability by providing women and children their material needs by living by the gun. Similarly in the U.S., drug trafficking and violence continues to be major problems within black American communities across the nation although the majority of illegal drug use is done by white Americans.


The Identity Crisis

Through the drastic change in social dynamics it is apparent that many members of the underclass may suffer identity crisis. What does the underclass do and how do they relate once they are no longer a member of the underclass? Those in this circumstance are put in a difficult situation of choosing between their individual needs and desires, and their commitments to their family and their community. Many are deemed to have rejected their roots and culture but are expected to continue to support their families financially. They are left with contradictory images and feelings of being proud of where they came from even though they want to be someplace different. Many Jamaicans build a transnational family network that is founded on international migration. International migration is thought of as a traditional survival strategy although some believe that eventually they should come home. In the interview with the black American student she stated:

You experience a sort of culture shock every time you leave home, return home, and then leave home again. The environments that you’re in are so different. I know that it is hard for people at home, but in freeing myself from being a financial burden on them, they are determined to be a financial burden on me. You can only take care of others once you yourself are taken care of. I have taken many breaks from my family even though I feel isolated because there is no one out here in the world to relate to other than them. Who do I identify with? I understand that it takes a lot of endurance, confidence, and money that you don’t have to make it but at the same time, you need to find the right hustle. You can’t keep perpetuating the status-quo. Generations before have fought long and hard so my hustle could be legit. I just don’t understand why everyone has grown content. They are not afraid of dying on the street from drugs, violence, or inadequate health care but they have become so afraid to stand up and take the things that are suppose to be theirs. I understand the need to progress but I also understand the struggle. The average person, whether white or black, does not have the endurance to overcome such obstacles. It takes exceptional and courageous people. And exceptionality is rare throughout all of humankind.


Summary

The general trend regarding globalization and its relationship to the social dynamics regarding patriarchal controls, independence, familial relationships, and identity is straightforward. Generally, the change in social dynamics in the context of globalization begins with a want for economic gain whether it is mitigating production cost or desiring to become more industrialized. Following is the creation of an underclass, achieving rights for the underclass, creation of a male dominated labor market, manifestation of discriminatory politics, permission of women into the labor market, and independence from familial obligations.

After Thoughts

In the case studies regarding the underclass in Guatemala, Jamaica, and China, the book has yet to be written as what is to become of future generations. But observing those such as many black Americans and non-White Americans, there is hope that one day they will be able to reach outside the status-quo and obtain a better quality of life. However, there still remains the question as to whether or not the status-quo of elitism will be maintained. Once members of the existing underclass are able to break free from their social, economic, and political constraints, will they too participate in the devaluing of ‘otherness’? Will a new underclass emerge? Is it possible to have equal justice and opportunity for all or can humanity only perpetuate if there exist both haves and have-nots?