Chapter 1

Excuses that Hold no Water

Fifty-five years after the passing of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, both the economic and social situations of African Americans remain the same, if not worse than they were before the passing of the bill into law. While the nation continues to make progress through incredible strides in every aspect of human and scientific areas of endeavor, the vast majority of African Americans continue to terribly lag behind. The thought was that the end of racial segregation was going to usher in a time of both social and economic development for African Americans as the people’s lack of progress was often tied to slavery and racial segregation. However, half a century after the Civil Rights Act, the stark reality of the social and economic backwardness of African Americans comes to light when compared to the social and economic situations of the other ethnic groups that made up the nation.

Considering the extraordinary progress that this nation has made right from its birth like no other in the history of the world, people in other parts of the world often wonder why some sections of the population should be struggling socially and economically. Of great interest is the socio-economic backwardness of the African Americans compared to the progress of other ethnic groups that make up the country. For instance, African Americans are at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder in this country in comparison to other ethnic groups like the Caucasians, Asians, and to some extent, Latinos. In almost all areas of endeavors, African Americans are far behind all other ethnic groups. The people are only in front of Native Americans in all socioeconomic indices.

Collectively as a group of people, there seems to be no direct route to catch up socially and economically with any of the other ethnic groups. There is usually a level of surprise for people from different parts of the world visiting when they see the disparity between African Americans and the other ethnic groups. Newly arriving black African immigrants often go into a great deal of cultural shock when they discover that they are better off than their American ethnic brothers and sisters socially and economically in most cases. What could be responsible for the people to be collectively backward socially and economically in the nation that gave the world the airplane, internet, and other significant technological and scientific innovations? Why should there be people that are outrageously and financially backward in a nation that produced most of the wealthiest people in the world?

Many reasons have been given for the negative socioeconomic position of the people. To a highly discerning individual, the reasons often given to be responsible for this situation are mostly excuses. One of the rationalizations usually offered is the historical background of the people concerning the slavery experiences of the ancestors of the people. The claim is that the enslavement of the originally indented African laborers and the subsequent shipment of Africans as slaves, which lasted over two hundred years, is one of the factors responsible for keeping the people down. Similarly, the effect of the racial segregation policies created af