Bailout Watch 308: NYT Plays the Race Card
Previously, on “We Can Confabulate the Managerial Incompetence Behind Motown’s Meltdown and Federal Cash Grab by Raising Issues About Race, Regionality, Class and (it’s coming) Religion,” Washington Post Carmudgeon Warren Brown argued for Motown bailout bucks as a “thank you” for the auto industry’s help to African Americans. The Detroit News said “amen” and added a little ditty about how black workers are more exposed to the Detroit “downturn” than their Caucasian union brothers. And now The New York Time s is adding the official seal of approval of the “minorities need the bailout” meme, with “As Detroit Suffers, Black Workers Hurt.” Not surprisingly, Gray Lady scribe Mary M. Chapman follows DetN wordsmith Louis Aguilar’s template to the point of plagiarism– and beyond! Do these stats seem familiar? “By last month, nearly 20,000 African-American auto workers had lost jobs, a 13.9 percent decline in employment, since the recession began last December, according to government jobs data analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington research firm. That compares with a 4.4 percent decline for all workers in manufacturing.” First of all, define “lost jobs.” Does that include workers who took a buyout? Jobs bank? Second, let’s compare apples to apples; what’s the differential between black workers auto industry layoff rate and that of white workers with the same jobs? The Times offers more misleading stats and insinuations, but my work here is done.
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Just for the record... women and minorities constitute the majority.
Race carding and race pimping aside, the simple fact, as RF and others have pointed out, is that the domestic auto industry hired blacks and other minorities long before many other US industries integrated their work forces and it still continues to be arguably the largest employer of blacks in the country excepting government agencies. Also, and I hate to say this because she's so stupid and insane, Maxine Waters was right about many of the single store or independent dealers being minority owned (the figures I saw were about 15-20% of dealers were owned by blacks, Asians, Hispanics and women). Ford started a minority dealer program in the last 60s and early 70s, and GM & Chrysler have followed suit. While I'm no fan of affirmative action programs, it's worth pointing out that Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai do not have similar programs - most likely because a) they don't feel similarly responsible towards Americans (cf. Responses to disasters like Katrina and 9/11) and b) Asian cultures have their own issues with racism.
Ronnie, Before you get too upset about the minority dealers losing their stores, be aware that about half of them had very little of their own skin in the game. The other half were rich, and therefore, the libs hate them whether or not they are black. While I feel for anyone who loses a business like that, I can't see why I should feel especially sad for anyone just because they are a minority. Somehow, a lot of the press feels the opposite. As far as affirmative action programs go, that Ford program was probably one of the best. Mostly because it wasn't federally forced, and thus burdened with all that baggage.