Ep. 86 — Reimagining Wealth Disparities: Barriers, Policy, and Pathways Forward

00;00;07;07 – 00;00;21;22
Peniel Joseph
Welcome to Race and Democracy, a podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship.

00;00;21;24 – 00;01;02;23
Peniel Joseph
Today we are joined by Doctor Derek Hamilton, who is university professor, Henry Cohen, Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at the New School, considered one of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals. Professor Hamilton redefines how an economy should work. Identifies powerful opportunities for investment and human capacity, and propels collaboration alongside field leaders to advance the realization of economic inclusion, social equity, and civic engagement for all people in the U.S. and across the globe.

00;01;02;25 – 00;01;36;06
Peniel Joseph
One of the pioneers of identity group stratification, Doctor Hamilton has been profiled in The New York Times, Mother Jones, Bloomberg’s Business Weekly, and The Wall Street Journal. He has developed and collaborated on transformative policy proposals that have shifted billions of dollars into the hands of people, inspiring legislative proposals at the federal, state and local levels, including baby bonds, guaranteed income and a federal job guarantee.

00;01;36;09 – 00;02;04;20
Peniel Joseph
Professor Hamilton was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. He advises national and global leaders on economic policy, including the Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. Born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, Bed-Stuy Do or die. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and received a PhD in economics from the University of North Carolina.

00;02;04;23 – 00;02;07;25
Peniel Joseph
Okay, doctor Derek Hamilton, welcome to Race and Democracy.

00;02;07;27 – 00;02;16;02
Darrick Hamilton
Such an honor to be here. Grateful for that warm introduction that, probably went a little long, but, I appreciate it. Thank you.

00;02;16;05 – 00;02;39;26
Peniel Joseph
Derek, you’ve been one of my favorite, public intellectuals to watch, rise. And it’s interesting because I’ve read those, profiles, including the one in the New York Times and that you did all those things. So I love seeing you shine nationally and globally. You know, my first question is there are so few African American economists in the United States.

00;02;39;28 – 00;03;02;16
Peniel Joseph
What made you interested in this field? Because I want people to know. So because you’re really a role model, so to know it’s possible. But what made you interested in economics as a vehicle for both scholarship? Academic scholarship, but also service oriented public leadership?

00;03;02;18 – 00;03;30;03
Darrick Hamilton
Some of it is plain dumb luck. When I started out in college, I majored in economics because I thought it was a gateway towards law school or business school. And, frankly, I did not want to be poor. I, grew up, as you mentioned, in Bed Star. I had the benefit and privilege of, of, parents that reached over the head and sent me to, certain elite school environments.

00;03;30;06 – 00;03;51;12
Darrick Hamilton
And I like to make the point. I lost my parents. So this is not a story of a Cinderella story that I’m trying to give. I would actually call it a, a sad story that I lost them trying to put forth effort to to put me in that environment. But nonetheless, there’s nothing romantic about poverty. And I majored in economics, thinking there was going to be a feeder.

00;03;51;15 – 00;04;06;07
Darrick Hamilton
To law school of business school. The reality is that when I was in college, I also got exposed to many affirmative action programs like the Ronald E McNair, fellowship program. I see you clapping. You might have had experience.

00;04;06;13 – 00;04;09;06
Peniel Joseph
Been a mentor to McNair scholars. So, I mean, yes.

00;04;09;06 – 00;04;28;15
Darrick Hamilton
Yes, that’s what’s up. But I guess it’s also suggesting you’re much older than me, so I like that. Let me try to be funny. But then also, there were other ones. It was the Ford Mellon fellowship program. So I got exposed to doing some deep research with faculty members. And I realized at that point, I’m passionate about scholarship.

00;04;28;17 – 00;04;53;24
Darrick Hamilton
So I got lucky. That was luck. And then I also realized from those experiences that I can make a good living. I wasn’t going to be poor, that I could have a really good living and pursue passions that that that inspired me. You also began this talking about why there’s so few economists. And, unfortunately, I believe that the discipline has reached an orthodoxy.

00;04;53;26 – 00;05;24;05
Darrick Hamilton
There is not welcoming, in, in terms of its scholarship. And I say orthodoxy and frankly, dogma, because one of the limitations of economics is its inability to explain persistent group despair, disparity beyond human capital, beyond, some attribute within the group, as explained, and as to why they’re not as successful as another group. So that’s, that’s, you know, almost prima facie kind of hostile to black people.

00;05;24;11 – 00;05;38;19
Darrick Hamilton
Because if we see these gross disparities that exists in the discipline has, inadequacies and trying to explain that persistent inequality, beyond some deficit narrative that would be applied to black people.

00;05;38;24 – 00;05;40;15
Peniel Joseph
So I say it’s behavioral.

00;05;40;17 – 00;05;41;25
Darrick Hamilton
They would suggest is behavior.

00;05;42;00 – 00;05;47;03
Peniel Joseph
Instead of structural. And the histories and the institutions, they’ll say it’s behavioral.

00;05;47;07 – 00;05;57;10
Darrick Hamilton
And all of the work you do, for instance, can point to, certain institutional interventions. And, and, you know, we’re we’re dancing around it. We can say the word discrimination.

00;05;57;10 – 00;05;58;26
Peniel Joseph
Discrimination.

00;05;58;28 – 00;06;20;29
Darrick Hamilton
There’s a long and consistent and present history of discrimination directed towards, black people. And if and, you know, the good thing is that there are people in the discipline who perhaps aren’t mainstream that are, coming up with theories and approaches that is, that are better able to explain this persisting group disparity.

00;06;21;02 – 00;06;41;19
Peniel Joseph
That’s a great segue into what I want to, lead the conversation into, because your work has done so much. And I was reading in your bio two, but to really address what we call the wealth gap and really the racial wealth gap in the United States of America, which has a long history going back to antebellum slavery to the present.

00;06;41;21 – 00;07;13;29
Peniel Joseph
I want to ask you about 2020 and the inflection point, the racial inflection point in the aftermath of George Floyd’s really public execution and murder. On May 25th, 2020, there was a huge Black Lives Matter movement. There was a huge push by activists to challenge corporate America, but also federal, state, local governments to really enact what I would call redistribute justice policies.

00;07;13;29 – 00;07;45;18
Peniel Joseph
Some people would call it reparations. I think reparations are inclusive of that. But I think redistributive justice is even bigger than reparations, because I define redistributive justice as not only repair for racial slavery or Jim Crow or, what happened in Selma or a discrete thing that happened. I think redistributive justice is saying we are going to actively utilize resources that are publicly funded resources to help the least of these, right?

00;07;45;18 – 00;08;12;22
Peniel Joseph
And that could include everything from a universal basic income. It can include everything from free transportation, free education, not just K through 12 and community colleges, but all the way through and also free housing. Right. So there was a real conversation about these things. People gave money to Black Lives Matter, but corporations pledged at times billions of dollars, towards what I would call redistributive justice.

00;08;12;29 – 00;08;33;00
Peniel Joseph
My first question is really what happened, to that sentiment especially I’m speaking to you in the midst. It’s Black History Month of a huge national backlash, really global, even against the very idea of what I call black citizenship and dignity.

00;08;33;02 – 00;08;59;06
Darrick Hamilton
You know, first off, I’d say that we can simply call the framing justice. We don’t even have to have, adjectives like redistributive or reparations. They all fit within the category of justice, and they all have their place, and they all come together. We don’t need a a single silver bullet. Frankly, we need it all. So there is the redistributive aspect.

00;08;59;07 – 00;09;23;08
Darrick Hamilton
There’s a reparations aspect, and they might have overlap, but they ain’t the same. The special element to them. And then I’ll interject another word which is investments. Why don’t we think about the direction of public resource directly towards people to enhance their capabilities? Well beyond consumption, but literally to facilitate them to do big, bold, productive things.

00;09;23;11 – 00;09;45;23
Darrick Hamilton
So that that is another concept in the way at which I see it. The, the other real quick, aside, I’ll say is I love guaranteed income but can’t stand UBI universal Basic income. And I’m being somewhat tongue in cheek. The universal aspect, the basic income would be a problem if you literally gave everybody the same amount throughout the whole economy with UBI.

00;09;45;25 – 00;09;46;04
Darrick Hamilton
Yeah.

00;09;46;04 – 00;09;47;07
Peniel Joseph
It doesn’t it doesn’t work.

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Darrick Hamilton
It’s inflationary almost by definition. And and it also would promote inequality because those would resources they’re better positioned to invest because their consumption needs are already taken care of. If you’re low income then it would make sense. If you get additional income. Well you’re subsistence. You got to buy food. You got to eat. So, we would need some grade-A, you know, some graduated, some progressive implements of guaranteed income.

00;10;13;11 – 00;10;14;16
Peniel Joseph
So not everyone gets it.

00;10;14;24 – 00;10;36;10
Darrick Hamilton
Not everyone gets it. And if everyone did get it, it would be progressively seeded. But no, everybody wouldn’t get it. That that wouldn’t make sense. All right. So long winded answer. Thank you for bringing me home. We’re naive if we don’t recognize that everything we do has political aspect to it. Everything we do has political, economic and identity group stratification aspect to it.

00;10;36;12 – 00;10;57;29
Darrick Hamilton
And what do I mean by the latter? We think about who is deserving and undeserving, who we deem worthy of receipt of some public resource. Is is related to politics and economics. So all three of those elements take place. Long winded answer to get to the point that it was a political moment. It was a political time period.

00;10;58;00 – 00;11;21;24
Darrick Hamilton
Thank goodness for the activist. Part of Black Lives Matter who talked about violence a little bit different than some of the more, recent previous struggles that, you know, we’ve been experience violence throughout, but they made it more structural and into more structural arguments around violence. They also linked it to economics as well. Politics and economics. And it was through that nuance.

00;11;22;01 – 00;11;45;29
Darrick Hamilton
We had a moment. We had a sliver where, there was enough agitation and pressure, that that presented to corporations, to government, to various entities, almost all entities in our society, that there was something that needed to be done about the persistent, oppressive economic structures that were linked to the violent structures and vice versa to be addressed.

00;11;46;02 – 00;12;12;26
Peniel Joseph
And, you know what? I’ll say. The next thing I want to ask before I even get to the contemporary is really how do you think the Biden administration did? Because in certain ways, as a historian and as a scholar of social movements and as somebody who’s also participated in in activism, I look at the Biden election, the Biden Harris election.

00;12;12;28 – 00;12;44;03
Peniel Joseph
From my perspective as clearly a byproduct of a social justice movement, the way in which Biden Harris got 81 million votes to 74 million. It’s not just the pandemic. It’s Black Lives Matter becoming the largest social justice movement in the history of the American republic. Upwards of 25 million people in the streets in the spring and summer of 2020, according to the New York Times and other data points.

00;12;44;05 – 00;13;08;01
Peniel Joseph
I think Biden Harris is the result. Some people were very disappointed about what Biden Harris were able to do for black people, but also for people who are workers. Which obviously includes black people, but also is bigger than, than than black or even people of color, because there’s white workers, even though people try to make the working class just white.

00;13;08;02 – 00;13;37;21
Peniel Joseph
I don’t want to exclude white people from the working class, too, because they’re part of it. But some people are very, very discouraged. Especially the fact that Biden’s $3.5 trillion, ten year Build Back Better plan did not get passed in the way that the administration had envisioned because of two senators, former senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona.

00;13;37;24 – 00;14;06;06
Peniel Joseph
How would you judge the Biden administration over the last four years and their policies in terms of that 2020 moment and really the politics of investment? The justice politics, right? For example, the child tax credit is usually applauded, but that ran out after the first year or so of the administration because the Congress refused to extend it.

00;14;06;08 – 00;14;44;24
Darrick Hamilton
So like, like me, I guess we’re academics. We had some low request issues with, with, part Abcdefg. I’m kidding with you trying to trying to add some levity to our very serious conversation. I think you’re absolutely right in the way you characterized the moment that led to the Biden administration. It was a social movement, that made him, do a lot of things that said, for the good things and the bad things, the way we judge administrations is regardless of the conditions, they often are the ones that bear the credit or the blame.

00;14;45;02 – 00;15;20;24
Darrick Hamilton
But, that point that you made, I certainly want to double down. And it’s also good for providing lessons, rather than, be, vulnerable to administration’s real power is when we make administrations, act on the ways that we desire from a social movement standpoint. And I would say that a lot of that occurred in this, in this administration, there were some unprecedented things that the Biden administration did, that ten years ago, 20 years ago, I would not have predicted this one.

00;15;20;29 – 00;15;47;11
Darrick Hamilton
First, executive orders, particularly if you contrast with the executive orders we’re seeing right now. Were to order the his federal agencies to take account of race and come up with plans and provisions to promote racial equity. Now, some may, critique it and say, well, where’s the real teeth? Rhetoric alone is important. It not not enough, but that should be applauded.

00;15;47;13 – 00;16;16;10
Darrick Hamilton
I had not it was unprecedented. I never seen a federal administration. I don’t believe there is one. Well, maybe LBJ misread the LBJ school, but there’s scarce federal administrations that would literally call for race to be explicitly taken into account in work plans and, for organizations to be accountable in promoting race equity. So that’s a start. And then if we look at how we govern during the pandemic, this really got lost.

00;16;16;13 – 00;16;54;09
Darrick Hamilton
It’s almost a miracle that we’re not still in a deep, recession right now, considering what we did and where we were. I think people have some memory, but some amnesia as to. We had extremely high levels of unemployment, and the federal government sent checks directly to the American people. However clumsily, the program was administered. And we know a lot of black businesses because of the relationships with banking, because of all the structural embedded difficulties by race that are already in the system.

00;16;54;12 – 00;17;19;27
Darrick Hamilton
Suffered a great deal even with Pip, but the reality is that we pretty much guaranteed employment for those that were already employed by offering those forgivable, payroll loans. I can keep going. But that we did forbearance on student loans. We did, what else do we do if people were not allowed to be evicted? People were not allowed to write.

00;17;19;27 – 00;17;23;08
Darrick Hamilton
At least that was the federal policy. I’m sure evictions took place.

00;17;23;10 – 00;17;27;23
Peniel Joseph
Loan forgiveness. The effort at complete loan forgiveness during the Biden administration.

00;17;27;29 – 00;17;30;26
Darrick Hamilton
Right. So that was another aspect that came out of the Biden administration.

00;17;30;26 – 00;17;33;09
Peniel Joseph
And also the reparations for black farmers.

00;17;33;12 – 00;17;55;24
Darrick Hamilton
Reparations for black farmers. But the big point I’m also trying to get across is the way in which we governed and managed the pandemic. I know inflation became the story, and I don’t want to be insensitive to some of the pain, that, that, individuals experienced and are still experiencing. But the reality is that we manage that recession much better than we have previous recessions.

00;17;56;00 – 00;18;15;19
Darrick Hamilton
It was the shortest recession on record, and we implemented essentially an economic rage platform. We as if you were sick and went to a doctor in that period. Now, who could get to the doctor given the pandemic? You were not saddled with a bill so that debt got lost. And, you know, I give the administration credit for that.

00;18;15;21 – 00;18;38;27
Darrick Hamilton
Although clearly the narrative space of describing it, they didn’t do so well because they lost the news cycles. They didn’t. And it’s important to, to be part of the news cycle. And I’d say that part of the knee jerk of not trying to completely overthrow the previous neoliberal experience that we had, was part of the narrative problem.

00;18;38;29 – 00;18;48;04
Darrick Hamilton
So trying to describe things as a new supply side economics, for instance, that’s not a good narrative. Get rid of supply side economics, all together.

00;18;48;07 – 00;19;21;25
Peniel Joseph
And when you think about the narrative problems that the administration had, was that because of Biden and age, was it because Kamala Harris was really, until last year, sort of set aside, and given tasks that were impossible to complete, like borders. And voting rights. Designee things that couldn’t get passed in the Senate. So she was, you know, the media narrative against her was was very negative and very harsh.

00;19;21;25 – 00;19;35;20
Peniel Joseph
Right. And in certain ways during her presidential campaign, she was able to break out of that. But in other ways, she was always held hostage to that. So when it comes to the narrative was it was it the white House or was it?

00;19;35;22 – 00;19;36;15
Darrick Hamilton
Yeah, big.

00;19;36;15 – 00;19;37;23
Peniel Joseph
Tech then the.

00;19;37;25 – 00;19;51;00
Darrick Hamilton
Shift is part of the narrative that I think I want to emphasize is the inability to completely divorce themselves from the previous 50 years of neoliberal framing of economic.

00;19;51;00 – 00;19;58;09
Peniel Joseph
And when you say neoliberal framing, Derek, tell us, sorry, how do you explain that to our viewers? But what do you mean by neoliberal.

00;19;58;11 – 00;20;29;10
Darrick Hamilton
Essentially believing that the market is the god, that, transact and small government that, the, the best way to determine, winners and losers, the best way to distribute resources is grounded in this concept of a free market, essentially neoliberal framework. Is that deregulation, government being small, that the market is the best arbiter of how worth the market is efficient.

00;20;29;12 – 00;20;49;19
Darrick Hamilton
It ignores a great deal. It it and it is problematic. And the administration started to engage in a new form of industrial policy, where they were directing resources to the American people and directing resources to ensure that we had a sustainable environment. Yeah. So that was a break from the past.

00;20;49;19 – 00;20;52;20
Peniel Joseph
But they had no way to, they had no new branding of what.

00;20;52;20 – 00;21;01;10
Darrick Hamilton
They were doing. They had no new branding of it and didn’t lean into it. No. And as a result, they were a little reticent to come out and fully come up with a new narrative.

00;21;01;10 – 00;21;05;22
Peniel Joseph
And then inoculation, then inflation. Because I think what’s interesting about inflation, I remember listening to.

00;21;05;22 – 00;21;23;04
Darrick Hamilton
And that’s the other example really quick, just to say that, it is their inability to divorce themselves from the previous genre of neoliberal framing that they allowed inflation to, to capture the imagination. They couldn’t, in forceful terms, explain price gouging, for example.

00;21;23;04 – 00;21;23;23
Peniel Joseph
Exactly.

00;21;23;25 – 00;21;41;27
Darrick Hamilton
So you know that if you’re willing to rid yourself of some of that baggage from the past, I suspect they would have been able to come up with better ways to dispute and refute the blame. That was, they were saddled with around inflation and also to put inflation in its proper context.

00;21;41;29 – 00;22;07;10
Peniel Joseph
So wrapping up this, part, because I want to get to Trump in the contemporary. What what do you think are the negatives of the Biden policy? We’ve talked about some of the positives. What was some low hanging fruit in the four years of the Biden administration? And here, I mean, specifically vis-a-vis black people that could have gotten done that weren’t that that was not.

00;22;07;12 – 00;22;37;09
Darrick Hamilton
You know, the other part that’s huge. And as it relates to black people and all their policies, their reticence in using their power, their reticence and being bolder and stronger in their statements. And again, I think that it is, at least in part because they weren’t quite ready to overthrow that previous 50 years of neoliberalism. As we began to conversation with social movements that got them to the place they were, and they should get credit for that.

00;22;37;09 – 00;23;01;01
Darrick Hamilton
And and as you can hear, the way I described the pandemic, it was miraculous how we governed during that pandemic and what we did despite all those losses. But where they they just quite haven’t gotten ready, to, with greater force, use the power they have for the American people and lean into the the narratives without hesitation.

00;23;01;03 – 00;23;28;10
Peniel Joseph
Let’s switch to Trump. So Donald J. Trump has been elected to a second term as president. United States took over, January 20th and has signed a raft of executive orders that are on. It’s on their face is anti-black and and and really discriminatory and racist. But he’s really focused on the federal government and federal workers. They’re trying to slash federal workers by 25%.

00;23;28;10 – 00;23;46;24
Peniel Joseph
They’ve basically virtually shut down USAID, which is really the arm of the United States that provides our soft power over the world, that gives Aids and HIV drugs, that gives clean food and water and and so many different parts, you.

00;23;46;25 – 00;24;12;25
Darrick Hamilton
Know, positive power. I’d say we, we impose lots of other power and stealth ways, that it’s a lot more repressive, mainly in the form of, of lending, the ways in which we lend. That’s, perhaps one of our monetary power, the ways in which we govern through lending with stringent, unreasonable terms and dictation as to how countries have to operate.

00;24;12;27 – 00;24;41;07
Darrick Hamilton
That’s how big, I guess soft stealth power. It for not just purposes, if you ask me. And you did ask me. But going back to what we do, what you would say, I’d to a large extent, we’re able to provide investments and intervene in positive ways, with, you know, not our huge budget. But yet he’s threatened to to not threatened.

00;24;41;07 – 00;24;50;08
Darrick Hamilton
He’s literally frozen, their resources. And it’s and also is threatening to eliminate that branch of, of U.S governance.

00;24;50;11 – 00;25;00;07
Peniel Joseph
So when you look at Trump, how do you think of Trump? Do you look at the Trump administration as neoliberals? Are they oligarchs? And, it’s a kleptocracy.

00;25;00;11 – 00;25;25;23
Darrick Hamilton
You know, we don’t like this word, but you got to add the word fascism to at least to some extent, I think it’s it’s, it’s beyond the oligarchs because there’s an explicit use of relative status. Is it explicit use of race so it can’t be reduced to class? His his power is grounded, at least in part, in offering for political allegiance, relative status to his base.

00;25;25;26 – 00;25;33;25
Peniel Joseph
Until you say relative status, you mean enhanced status for whites, especially whites interested in white ethnic nationalism like the new secretary of defense.

00;25;33;27 – 00;25;52;18
Darrick Hamilton
Yes. The reason why I’m using the word relative status, because it’s juxtaposed against some other group. So that that is where that power lies, that, in a relative sense, however bad your lot in life may be to his base, you are better than this other entity that I’m coming after. And.

00;25;52;23 – 00;26;00;08
Peniel Joseph
Yeah, and that’s why he’s trying to fire so many black folks. Because black folks are overrepresented in the federal workforce as well.

00;26;00;08 – 00;26;23;03
Darrick Hamilton
They become part of that symbol. They become part of the distraction. And not just symbol and distraction. That is the bargain. You know, the term we use historically to Faustian bargain, but that is the bargain. Go along with this. Look over here. Allow me to, engage with Elon Musk in, the ways in which he has access to Treasury.

00;26;23;06 – 00;26;43;05
Darrick Hamilton
I’ll transaction data, which is extremely valuable to, to a person like Elon Musk, allow all that to occur loud. Allow me to threaten the Department of Education. And in exchange, I will solidify your position, through relative status. That seems to be the grand old bargain. And we’ve seen this in the past.

00;26;43;05 – 00;27;06;03
Peniel Joseph
Absolutely. We saw this during reconstruction, and the period of redemption. We saw it during the Jim Crow period. What’s astonishing now is that we actually haven’t seen it when the federal government became the modern American state, which for me is post New Deal Second World War, because the New Deal is extraordinary. But we don’t get out of the Great Depression until the Second World War.

00;27;06;03 – 00;27;09;21
Darrick Hamilton
Have we not seen it? I mean, Barry Goldwater, that southern.

00;27;09;23 – 00;27;31;26
Peniel Joseph
The southern strategy, I think we saw people. What’s interesting, I’ll say this, Derek is a historian. I think what we saw and, you know, I just finished a book on 1963, freedom season. I think that what we saw is that what the 60s ushered in from my perspective as a historian is they usher in a 50 year of racial justice, consensus.

00;27;31;26 – 00;28;08;00
Peniel Joseph
And I’ll explain what I mean. They of ushered in a rough consensus where it’s imperfect. The rise of mass incarceration parallels it. But America has always been, two things or more at once. So there’s a racial justice consensus paralleling that is a, I would say, a white supremacist, far right authoritarian. John Bircher conspiracy theorist group, including connected to William F Buckley, Barry Goldwater, the National Review, and even certain liberals like Norman Potter.

00;28;08;00 – 00;28;31;08
Peniel Joseph
It’s become right wing before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Yeah, when you read My Negro Problem and Hours by Norman Potter, it’s in commentary where he’s railing against black folks, and it’s really a response to Jimmy Baldwin, his friend at the Times Fire. Next time, that is somebody who’s going all in on this authoritarian march, but what’s paralleling it in 63?

00;28;31;08 – 00;28;50;08
Peniel Joseph
And actually, what’s winning the day is the racial justice consensus. That’s why it’s it’s actually extraordinary what happens. We get no Barack Obama or Michelle Obama or anything without the movement that happens and really crystallizes in 63 before BLM in 2020, 63 is that magic moment.

00;28;50;11 – 00;29;21;16
Darrick Hamilton
You know, I am honored and privileged to be able to have this conversation with you because the the depth of your knowledge and I, I authentically mean that. And this is the I wish I had more of this in my life. Just from a selfish standpoint. This is where neoliberalism comes in. Yeah. So neoliberalism becomes the mechanism where you can have this explicit, racial justice framing from the period that you’d mark, but yet still apply these tactics of relative status.

00;29;21;16 – 00;29;50;28
Darrick Hamilton
And, you know, our good friend Eduardo Benita Silver in his book Racism Without Racist. Yes. So, the point that I’m trying to make with, with, I should add a little more clarity is that the assault on race and the use of relative status didn’t stop. It continued. It evolved. It did. So neoliberalism became the mechanism by which you can have this transformation towards, a country that is in this moment of racial justice.

00;29;51;01 – 00;29;56;26
Darrick Hamilton
And, and you know, obviously, that there were periods in which we had police brutality, etc.. Oh, absolutely. And I know yeah, I.

00;29;56;28 – 00;29;58;17
Peniel Joseph
Think at the same time, no.

00;29;58;19 – 00;30;31;28
Darrick Hamilton
But fundamentally, by the dawning of neoliberalism in the mid 1970s, the disparities across race became stagnant and that became the tool and a mechanism. This fictive market of being some fair arbiter, notions of meritocracy, became code words in which we could even today, I know we’re probably going to talk about this notion die, etc., that somehow promoting black is necessarily inefficient.

00;30;32;01 – 00;30;39;23
Darrick Hamilton
There’s this this, effectiveness, this discourse from neoliberalism that’s permissive of that. It became more stealth.

00;30;39;23 – 00;31;16;01
Peniel Joseph
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with that. I what I think about the racial justice consensus to talk about the positive, because you’ve talked about the underside, which I completely agree with you, is that between 63 and the Shelby v holder decision in 2013, which I marked as the end of that consensus. And because when you think about 2013 and that decision, what that decision does, 554 is and the Voting Rights Act as we knew it, and that Voting Rights Act, the most robust version of which gets expanded by Barbara Jordan and others in 1975, which includes Texas in the southwest.

00;31;16;01 – 00;31;38;12
Peniel Joseph
In it, in terms of when you think about the Voting Rights Act, it’s a five year act in 1965, it’s renewed in 1970 for five years, but then it’s renewed in 1975 for seven years. And in that renewal, that’s how we have, bilingual voter voto voto aqui. That’s how we have so many different aspects. And that’s how Texas becomes part of the Voting Rights Act.

00;31;38;13 – 00;31;59;20
Peniel Joseph
Then it’s renewed for 25 years till 2007, and then it’s renewed for another 25 years. So what’s interesting here is that for a minute moment, stay with me. John Roberts had no business if he’s a strict constructionist. Of of of judging that because Congress had renewed it for 25 years. So Shelby, the holder should have never happened.

00;31;59;20 – 00;32;19;24
Peniel Joseph
That should have been a pass. That should have been a pass. But what he does is that 2020, the census data showed us, for the first and only time in American history, 66% of black people voted in a presidential election versus 64% of white people. That’s the only time that’s happened in American history once. And right after that, you get Shelby Holder.

00;32;19;24 – 00;32;32;18
Peniel Joseph
And that’s how Barack Obama won two times. In 2008, Obama got 43% of the white vote by 2012, 39% of the white vote. Yet he still won a sizable electoral majority.

00;32;32;21 – 00;33;05;18
Darrick Hamilton
So my litmus is, and Barack Obama getting elected, I think it’s an important litmus as it relates to perhaps civil political inclusion, that a black person can be president. But for there to be justice, you need elements of civil, political, socio cultural and then here’s the other big one economic, economic justice. We also know that during the Obama presidency, we had some of the most growing inequality.

00;33;05;20 – 00;33;36;12
Darrick Hamilton
Even in the race domain, during that period. So having a black president in and of itself, particularly if they’re governing in such a way that is a continuity of the neoliberal policies that, led to divestment away from people and strategic direction of public resource towards firm and, a liberalization without addressing power and endowment in the first place.

00;33;36;14 – 00;34;04;17
Darrick Hamilton
You end up with conditions of growing inequality. So just to put a summation on it, and this is, I think, a valuable for us if we think going forward any concept of justice is not only incomplete if it doesn’t have economics in it, I actually think it becomes a co-optation. I think we, seemingly believe that we’re on a trajectory of inclusion and justice when we have the capability of vote.

00;34;04;20 – 00;34;30;04
Darrick Hamilton
That’s a necessary condition. But if there’s growing despair and inequality as well, that’s not a trend towards justice. Again, just to put a button on it. Civil, political, social and economic rights are intertwined and inseparable. So and if one were to exclude or separate any of those entities from the other, you end up with potentially co-opting notions of justice.

00;34;30;07 – 00;34;35;27
Darrick Hamilton
And that’s how I would characterize, the trajectory for black people in America.

00;34;35;29 – 00;35;01;15
Peniel Joseph
At this current moment. There are these national assaults on Dei diversity, equity, inclusion banned in state of Texas through SB 17. No more Dei trainings at the University of Texas at Austin, but also system wide. The Anti-woke acts happening in Florida, Texas, but even some blue states as well. University of Michigan is now talking about, you know, Dei in negative ways.

00;35;01;15 – 00;35;30;14
Peniel Joseph
One in certain ways. We’ve talked around it. And so I want us to specifically talk. Why do you think this anti Dei wave is happening. How do you think it hurts us economically in terms of being a more effective nation. Right. And is it just simply like what you were saying earlier, Professor Hamilton, you were saying, is it simply telling your base to look the other way?

00;35;30;14 – 00;36;02;23
Peniel Joseph
You can show them that you’re attacking Dei while you’re doing all kinds of things economically to enrich Elon Musk and Jared Kushner and to enrich yourselves and your family. And as you said so adroitly earlier, is it also simply just paying the dues that are owed the base because that’s what you promised them. You promised them in evisceration of that racial justice compact that I like to talk about.

00;36;02;23 – 00;36;26;17
Peniel Joseph
Right. Even with all its flaws, its flaws really produced us, even though neoliberal. I agree, everything. But the only way we get access to higher education, if we weren’t living in that 63 to 2013 period, I wouldn’t be teaching at University of Texas at Austin if I was born in 1883. Not at all. For I was born in 1903.

00;36;26;17 – 00;36;57;23
Peniel Joseph
I don’t care how how smart or talented I was, they simply wouldn’t let me teach here. Right? And so things were different over that 50 year period. There were some black people, not those who were imprisoned, not those who were marginalized, but there are some who got access to become Negro firsts and black firsts and all this excellence and get access to predominantly white institutions, including some who made vast amounts of wealth, not just celebrities and entertainers.

00;36;57;23 – 00;37;08;01
Peniel Joseph
I’m thinking about people like Robert Smith, Robert F Smith and others in in private equity and hedge fund, Bill Perkins, others. So yeah, a.

00;37;08;04 – 00;37;47;24
Darrick Hamilton
Lot there always is. So, you know, first and foremost, I hope I’m not, conveying a notion that there hasn’t been dramatic progress for black people, particularly since 1940. Right. There was dramatic civil, political, social and economic progress up to about the mid 1970s. And that’s when the economic progress stagnated. So that that that’s the one. Let me let me make that, that point, very clear that, a lot of that was the result of efforts of all of the various social movements that, that, that allowed for that, that’s being won.

00;37;47;27 – 00;38;13;20
Darrick Hamilton
The question as to the assault on the, today. Well, Trump is extremely effective, that that’s that should be obvious to us by now. If it wasn’t the first time at this point, we’d have to have our head in the sand if we don’t see, that that’s obvious. His effectiveness as well as, the embedded racism that in the social and economic fabric of the United States.

00;38;13;22 – 00;38;40;25
Darrick Hamilton
But, you know, I want to add this other point. It is a bipartisan economy, both Democrats and Republicans, that have facilitated the economic conditions that have made Trump’s message so effective to a segment of the population. It is through despair. It is through vulnerability that a message of relative status can become potent, that you can tell somebody that, your absolute status.

00;38;40;27 – 00;39;04;26
Darrick Hamilton
Yeah. You know, the system’s been rigged, you can acknowledge all that, and then you can leave them vulnerable to the base law of, here’s what I’m going to offer you. Relative status. And I keep saying that word. Relative status. Well, relative status in part can be distracting. You can offer somebody something over here. Look over here, while I do this other stuff.

00;39;04;28 – 00;39;38;09
Darrick Hamilton
But we would be naive to not recognize that there are material and psychological benefits associated with being part of a dominant group. Now, there are other values in the human psyche also, like solidarity and how we emphasize, you know, if we emphasize self-interested behavior without notions of solidarity, tranquility, longevity. Well, if we emphasize this set of human values over another, it will lead to debasing us.

00;39;38;09 – 00;40;05;02
Darrick Hamilton
It’ll lead to the type of society and pain that we’re experiencing right now. So Trump has been effective in exploiting, a condition that was, facilitated in a bipartisan way. I want to make that clear so all those things can be true. Then we want to be interested in solutions. And there are solutions. And there are periods in which we’ve had some progress.

00;40;05;02 – 00;40;31;17
Darrick Hamilton
We haven’t done it in a sustained way. But I believe the solution lies in the vision of King, for instance. And he’s not alone. An industrial policy that’s investing in an inclusive way towards the American people, ensuring that there there is health care, that there’s not the vulnerability of of not having a job with decent wages, that you at least have some capital foundation to build wealth.

00;40;31;19 – 00;40;56;24
Darrick Hamilton
If we are able to do that in an inclusive way. And this is a handout, these are investments I want to keep emphasizing that, that when you, provide people with the proper resources, guess what they do? They thrive. They create innovation and conditions for for growth, not only for themselves but for others. And then here’s another aspect of an economy with a vision like that tranquility.

00;40;56;26 – 00;41;29;24
Darrick Hamilton
It promotes the ability, peace and tranquility. What it doesn’t promote is the capability of Robert Barons to be able to accumulate ad infinitum, the way in which they’re able to do that in a democracy is look over here, look at these foreigners coming to, impact your way of life. Those things can become distractions. But again, I want to emphasize they, they do offer, particularly in, in vulnerable conditions, some relative status.

00;41;30;00 – 00;41;42;19
Darrick Hamilton
So our task is to offer a different set of value and invest in that different set of values and have a vision that, for instance, Doctor King in my mind, had come to toward the twilight of his life.

00;41;42;21 – 00;41;48;21
Peniel Joseph
And you’re speaking about Doctor King and the poor People’s Campaign and the beloved community and what he was trying to do.

00;41;48;24 – 00;42;13;27
Darrick Hamilton
Exactly. I’m sitting in your office with all the emblems and everything, and it makes clear it reminds me of that great vision that, whatever we’re talking about today ain’t so original. There was, literally the freedom budget that, black civil rights leaders put forth. Yeah, yeah. Which was arguing for this and this. And this again, leads to the bigger point, notions of political civil rights.

00;42;13;29 – 00;42;19;28
Darrick Hamilton
If they’re devoid of economic rights, you have a problem. All three are necessary conditions.

00;42;20;01 – 00;42;40;22
Peniel Joseph
All right. I think we’re going to end it right there. I think that’s a great way to end it. I’ve been talking with Doctor Derek Hamilton, who is university professor Henry Cohen, professor of economics and urban policy and founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at the New School, one of America’s, pioneering economists and public intellectuals.

00;42;40;25 – 00;43;03;01
Peniel Joseph
And we’ve had a great conversation about, really the wealth gap, trying to build a justice society and ethos both at the local, regional and national level. And what are some of the obstacles and challenges, but really some of the opportunities that we face, as well. Thank you for joining us here on Race and Democracy, Professor Hamilton.

00;43;03;03 – 00;43;12;15
Darrick Hamilton
Oh, I thank you. You are you’re awesome. This was awesome. I love this experience. And, anytime I get to engage with you, I’d be a fool to say no.

00;43;12;21 – 00;43;46;02
Peniel Joseph
Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode. And you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph, That’s Penn, IEO, Josep FX, and our website CSD, LBJ that you Texas STI edu and the center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

00;43;46;05 – 00;43;46;19
Peniel Joseph
Thank you.