The dead silent black majority (op-ed)

In 2010 Michelle Alexander published a book called: The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the age of Color Blindness.  Alexander argued the “war on drugs” produced the highest rates of incarceration in the world and over the decades, black males ended up with the largest rate of imprisonment in the United States.  The targeting of people of color, disproportional sentencing practices, and high minority prison rates became known as -- mass incarceration.  Every 2020 Democratic presidential candidate has condemned the 1994 crime bill and vowed to end mass incarceration if elected. 

In between 2010 and 2020 professor Michael Fortner published a book called: Black Silent Majority, The Rockefeller Drug laws and the Politics of Punishment.  Fortner stated the voices of black Americans living in neighborhoods turned violent due to the drug trade was missing from The New Jim Crow/Mass Incarceration analysis.  Fortner argued the mass incarceration narrative was incomplete without acknowledging the fact that many black people in high crime neighborhoods throughout the United States advocated for more policing and harsh sentences for drug crimes.  Fortner recently discussed his book on an internet talk show.   The host was surprised there was a “black silent majority” that gave so much support for drug policies that would eventually lead to mass incarceration.  The host acknowledged there was a vocal black progressive elite that dominated the national discussion on race issues and gave an example of a conflict between the black progressive elite and the black rank and file.  

        

In 2016 over 100 black parents and grandparents went to Cincinnati to protest the NAACP’s decision to call for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools.  For decades the majority of black parents were in favor of “school choice” and the black progressive elite opposed it. EAGnews reported, “The NAACP has officially lined up against black parents who want the best educational options available for their children.”  After the Cincinnati police broke up the demonstration an angry black parent asked a reporter, “Where was the NAACP when so many public schools were failing our children?”  This led the host to ask Fortner if there were any other issues that separated the black progressive elite from the “black silent majority”.   Surprisingly, Fortner said no, the main issues were criminal justice and education.

          

But there are others.

The 2018 Harvard-Harris poll revealed that blacks were the racial group most opposed to immigration because blacks were left to bear the brunt of immigrant labor competition.  The majority of black residents that live in violent neighborhoods do not favor the type of gun control policies suggested by Beto O’Rourke, many blacks do not favor the Medicare for all plan advanced by Elizabeth Warren, and most blacks don’t have an interest in what Bernie Sanders refers to as democratic-socialism.  If the author of a book called Black Silent Majority doesn’t even acknowledge other divisions between the black progressive elite and the black rank and file then the black majority isn’t just silent it’s dead silent.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 10/30/19