Study after study has shown that when women make more than men, women generally don’t want to marry them. And maybe they should want to marry them, but they don’t. Over big populations this causes a drop in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births and all the familiar disasters that inevitably follow. More drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the next generation.

– Tucker Carlson

My first thought when I saw this quote pop up on Twitter was “Tucker Carlson said something shitty, that tracks.” That’s Tucker Carlson’s job; to say nonsense in a way that sounds reasonable. I don’t give Carlson too much thought. He’s a conspiracy grifter who learned how to tie a Windsor knot after losing his job at CNN on account of being intellectually bested by a puppet. But, because he can string sentences together with grammatical (if not factual) clarity, he gets to be on TV and treated as a “serious thinker.” His recent series “War on Men” a vapid monument to meninist insecurity of which he is an architect, has mostly been laughed off, and rightly so. But part of his remarks last week sent a chill down my spine: he tied the rise of women in power to the socioeconomic fear around population drops. And I thought to myself “it’s coming.”

How do you know when a lie is going to get traction? If you told me at the beginning of Barack Obama’s presidency that three years later there would still be media coverage about whether or not he was born in the United States, I wouldn’t have believed you. Why? Because it was a stupid, racist, theory devoid of fact. I was naive to social pendulum swings that follow a shift in power ownership, and the lies that drive them.

This has been a pretty good year for women, insomuch that life in a hellscape can be good. There are more women in positions of power than ever before. Conversations are happening between women and between men and women, realistic conversations about what a society built on the pillars of patriarchy and white supremacy does to a culture. And while it’s been uplifting and encouraging, I’ve kept my eye out for the pendulum swing, nervous about missing it before it hits me squarely in the jaw.

How do you know when a lie is going to get traction?
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It hasn’t been easy for those looking for a way to push back against women (well at least not as easy as it has traditionally been). Yes, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, but the support for Dr. Blasey Ford and outrage surrounding his confirmation was overwhelming. The amplification of angry voices from women across the country, united in their exasperation with patriarchal dictates, was visceral. Collective anger begets organized and energized movements, and action follows.

Attempts to pit Rep. “Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me”, Ocasio-Cortez against House Speaker, “Do not characterize the strength I bring to this meeting” Pelosi have largely failed because both women refused to take the bait and instead focused on issues. Calls for civility after the Red Hen incident were met with an annoyed eye roll from anyone seeing children in cages on the nightly news. Even the recent faux pearl-clutching about Rep. Rashida Tlaib use of the word “motherfucker” faced a ton backlash and garnered almost no censuring from Democrats, except Sen. Joe Manchin (also the only Democrat to vote yes for Kavanaugh’s confirmation) and who the fuck cares what he thinks.  

With what seems like a strong female army at the helm of the resistance, and a smart social media presence pushing back against antiquated stereotypes, what is the response going to be? I tried to filter out any nonsense and focus only on things that I believed would have traction. Late in 2017, I filed something away in my brain that sounded so close to the justification for a quick march towards Gilead I was surprised someone said it out loud:

“This is going to be the new economic challenge for America: people. Baby boomers are retiring — I did my part, but we need to have higher birth rates in this country” – Paul Ryan, Former Speaker of the House

That’s right, ladies. The newest economic downfall is going to be all your selfish fault for not reproducing. (Sorry, I meant white ladies — but more on that in a moment). The problem with Ryan’s statement is that it’s not technically incorrect. Birthrates in the United States are the lowest they have been in three decades, according to the latest numbers from the Center for Disease Control. It’s also well below the replacement population rate. With elderly dependents outnumbering people in the workforce, the financial system will take a hit, and the structure of the economy currently has not adapted to social changes in the last several decades.

Also a “serious thinker,” but one with legislative power, Paul Ryan could helped the economy adapt. Instead, Ryan suggested he “did [his] part” because his wife had four children, putting their family above the national average in terms of birthrate. Because Paul Ryan doesn’t want to use the many tools at his disposal to address realities of parenthood and why cost is a preventative factor in having children, he wants to blame people not having babies for a weak economy.

And that, I believe, is the angle from which the weight of the pendulum will be pushed back. It has everything. It takes a complicated issue and boils the solution down to three words: Have More Babies. It places the blame squarely on a certain type of woman. You know, those ambitious bitches who don’t value family, who insist on having jobs or not getting married or using contraception. Now not being pregnant isn’t just a rejection of the duties of being a woman, it’s a rejection of civic duty. Suddenly, all these women in Congress would be better serving their country if they shut up and got pregnant. It has a nice socio-economic nativist ring to it. Have more babies! For America! Well, not all of you.

It takes a complicated issue and boils the solution down to three words: Have More Babies.
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Make absolutely no mistake, when Paul Ryan, Tucker Carlson, and every other conservative pundit talk about women needing to have more babies they mean white women having white babies. The maternal mortality rate for Black women is over thirty percent higher than it is for white women, and yet there is no War on Pregnant Black Women chyron on any Fox News Broadcast. The birth rate for first-generation Americans is higher than the generations that follow, but the White House insists that the crisis at the border is all of the brown families that want to become citizens.

Let’s take a look at why people may not be having babies. We don’t have policies to that to ease the financial burden of having children, like federal paid maternity leave, or policies that require large corporations to make childcare available to their employees. The cost of decent education is a preventative factor for people looking to expand their families, and people of birthing age are drowning in student debt. And the wage gap means women fear further financial punishment for choosing to have children. There also isn’t a smart pathway to citizenship, considering first-generation Americans are likely to have higher birth rates than second or third. Though we know how these pundits feel about immigrant children.

There’s also the issue of choice. Many people just don’t want kids, whether it’s because of their carbon footprint or their other priorities or just because parenthood has never appealed to them. Access to abortion is precarious, but it exists. Women can use contraception. The social stigmas around being child-free are beginning to be challenged. But instead of devoting resources to the issues facing those who want to have children, or working to create an economy that doesn’t rely on an ever-increasing birth rate, conservatives can conveniently blame it all on women.

Not everyone has the luxury of Rep. Steve King, using the world’s least funhouse mirror to mimic the credo of white nationalist David Lane. Or the overtly racist platform of family separation architect and (alleged) childhood glue eater Stephen Miller. No, some will need to take a more thoughtful approach when pushing back on a progressive movement.

Take a kernel of data, create a crisis around it, and make someone responsible for it. And if you’re smart, lay some groundwork first. Target the person you want to be held responsible and ask if they’re “likable” or “genuine.” Chip away first at their credibility and then at their intentions, while slowly introducing the crisis. Wait for others to start parroting your concerns about your target. And then, at the right moment, release the manufactured hysteria and watch the pendulum swing.

By Michal “MJ” Jones

When she returned one evening from what I thought was a routine dog walk around the neighborhood, my partner was nearly in tears. Perplexed and concerned, I probed for an answer.

She explained the sinking feeling of watching her hometown of Oakland, California, become unrecognizable: The urban farm and playground that recently popped up on Peralta Street had not a person of color in sight. Tent encampments with dozens of newly shelterless black people sprawled out beneath freeway overpasses. White neighbors shot quizzical or fearful looks as she passed. Walking the dog — a practice that once brought her joy and rejuvenation — now left her feeling deflated, angry, and seemingly powerless. Her home, her community, had vanished. It had all been building up over the past few years, and in those moments as she walked, it became too much to take.

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Walking the dog — a practice that once brought her joy and rejuvenation — now left her feeling deflated, angry, and seemingly powerless.
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A news search of “gentrification” will land you with thousands of perspectives both for and against. Though the debate has emerged most vocally in the past several years, for residents born and raised in major cities, the ongoing loss of home is felt deeply.

“It is a feeling of powerlessness,” says Bie Aweh, who was raised in the Roxbury and Brighton neighborhoods of Boston. “You’re already vulnerable because of poverty, and it makes you feel like you have no power because capitalism talks the loudest.”

While many in support of urban renewal and development cite decreased crime rates and increased revenue as benefits, long-term residents from coast to coast echo concerns about the impact of gentrification on historically poor, predominantly of color neighborhoods.

Each of the people I spoke to were raised in historically black, poor communities now experiencing continued or more recent waves of gentrification. Noni Galloway, of Oakland, defines gentrification as, “when an environment or culture is taken over or redefined by another culture.”

On a surface level, the changes that come with gentrification are physical — new beer gardens, condominiums and bike lanes — and happen seemingly overnight. Many residents are left to grapple with what, where and whom to call “home.”

1. Shifts in demographics: ‘White people jogging was the first sign.’

When I first moved to Berkeley as a teenager in the early oughts, my peers had endless warnings for me about the neighboring city of Oakland. People living outside of Oakland, many of them white and/or middle to upper class, generalized it as “sketch,” “dangerous,” and “crime-infested.”

The neighborhoods they cautioned me against visiting are now, over 10 years later, spaces where young professionals are flocking to, often describing them as “up-and-coming.”

When asked to reflect on the first signs of gentrification they saw in their cities, three of four interviewees specifically mentioned “white people jogging,” especially in areas they previously would not have set foot in. The influx of white and middle-class newcomers on its own is not the issue; rather the loss of culture and diversity that comes when a city’s long-term inhabitants can no longer afford to stay.

“We used to be a Mecca for black home ownership. Now illegalforeclosures.org reports that thousands of illegal foreclosures take place in Wayne County,” said Will, an activist from Detroit. “The discussion of so-called ‘improvement’ should not be separated from the misery being created for tens of thousands of Detroiters.”

Much of the conversation in support of gentrification is coded in a racist and classist belief system that blames the residents themselves for crime rates, rather than lawmakers, local politicians, and complicit newcomers who are disinvested from solving the causes of poverty.

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Much of the conversation in support of gentrification is coded in a racist and classist belief system.
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The increase of white and/or middle-class new residents to traditionally poor neighborhoods tends to follow or reflect changes in infrastructure, another highly discussed symptom of gentrification.

2. Shifts in infrastructure: ‘Government housing began to disappear.’

“Government housing began to disappear and the projects were being torn down,” said Crystal Lay, of Chicago. “People were being displaced to other areas and put in these quickly built homes.”

The shifts that happen to city landscapes undergoing gentrification are more than physical, they are symbolic of efforts to “improve” an area for incoming residents.

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The shifts that happen to city landscapes undergoing gentrification are more than physical, they are symbolic of efforts to ‘improve’ an area for incoming residents.
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For those who have called these cities home since childhood, there are some strange contradictions: new bike lanes and rent-a-bike programs on streets riddled with potholes; sleek, market-rate apartments popping up beside historic Victorians; urban gardens and beautification in prior dumping grounds.

Oakland’s Noni Galloway summarizes the complex feelings that arise from witnessing these shifts overtime: “I have mixed emotions because… there were much-needed upgrades to the area that I feel didn’t happen until the gentrification started,” she said. “But it hurts to see my old neighborhood turn into the hot spot for someone else to enjoy.”

Another undeniable impact of the skyrocketing housing market is the increase in individuals without shelter, some of them former residents who have been recently evicted. In Oakland, homelessness increased by over 25%, and complaints went up by 600% between 2011 and 2016.

When developers are allowed to build housing starting at $3,000 a month in a neighborhood with a median family income of $35,000, what is being improved? Where can a family call home after their house becomes unrecognizable and unaffordable? What is the cost of gentrification? And who pays?

“Whites and the rich benefit the most,” said Crystal Lay. “I believe poor people and people of color lose. I think any mom-and-pop businesses also lose their customer base and those familiar faces.”

3. Shifts in safety measures: ‘Police make areas safer for suburbanites.’

“We saw blue lights go up in high-crime areas; it was like a sign for people to stay out of those areas. I feel like it was the early 2000s when they began,” said Lay.

Creating the perceived sense of safety associated with suburban areas, including policing, is part of what facilitates the process of demographic changes in major cities.

Sites such as Nextdoor and SeeClickFix encourage residents to report various issues, from car break-ins to graffiti, for resolution. These methods rely heavily on collaboration with law enforcement and public works officials, but also limit community members’ ability to resolve and express concerns together.

The desire to live in an environment that is free of violence, building decay and trash is obviously not unreasonable. I am certain that many long-term residents in urban areas have long wanted to see these changes. The issue is that local governments only invest in these changes when the demographics shift, and that the strategies of “safety” fit the new demographic as well.

The presence of law enforcement does not equal safety in many inner cities, but in urban environments undergoing gentrification, it is common to witness increased policing.

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The presence of law enforcement does not equal safety in many inner cities, but in urban environments undergoing gentrification, it is common to witness increased policing.
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Not only does gentrification push residents out of their homes, it can make them feel unwelcome, or even feared, on their own streets. “

I’m going to have a shirt made,” my partner said, once again returning from walking the dogs, “that says, ‘I’m not a criminal, I’m just from here.’”

Although interview participants overall were not optimistic about the possibility of stopping gentrification, they did have words, advice and requests for new residents.

“Are you moving into the community with the intentions of contributing to the existing culture, by supporting our businesses, or are you coming to disrupt it?” asked Bie Aweh of Boston. “If the answer is disrupt, then please don’t move here.”

“Consider the history of the neighborhood; understand the relationships that are among the neighbors,” Oakland’s Galloway concluded.

This story originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission.

America’s Racial Wealth Divide Is Worse Than Expected And Deepening Under Trump

The future existence of the middle-class hinges on whether we reverse the trends of growing racial economic inequality.

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By Steven Rosenfeld

America is heading toward “a racial and economic apartheid state.” As the country becomes more diverse, today’s wealth gaps between whites and non-whites are poised to grow unless government policies helping people build personal wealth are reformed.

That is the takeaway from a dramatic new report, “The Road to Zero Wealth,” co-authored by the Institute for Policy Studies and Prosperity Now. It finds America’s racial wealth gap is larger than thought and deepening. Ironically, the report comes as working-class whites who feel economically adrift helped elect a president and Congress to prioritize their community — as opposed to reviving everyone in a sinking middle class.

Working-class whites who feel economically adrift helped elect a president and Congress to prioritize their community — as opposed to reviving everyone in a sinking middle class.

“We don’t know how to make sense of the two stories happening at the same time,” said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies, and one of the report’s four co-authors. “One is overall inequality, which is happening to the bottom half of wage earners [including whites]. And then there’s the story of the legacy of racism and wealth and asset building, which is a longer story going back centuries. Both these things exist at the same time.”

He adds:

“We’re missing the ways in which the overall inequalities that are affecting a lot of white working-class people are supercharging these racial wealth divides. So you have a white working class that legitimately feels like they have been betrayed or left behind, and they can’t hear the story of the racial dimensions of this because they are feeling their own pain. So how do we recognize that those two stories exist and they are intertwined and connected? And a lot of times, the solutions would be good for everyone who has been left out — free education would be a good thing; raising the minimum wage would help all kinds of low-wage workers.”

The report tells a stark story by using a new way to measure personal wealth — it doesn’t count assets that fall in value like cars and household appliances.

“A disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth is held in white hands, while households of color own a shrinking slice of the proverbial pie,” it said. “Today, this translates into a racial wealth divide in which the median net worth of black and Latino families stands at just $11,000 and $14,000, respectively — a fraction of the $134,000 owned by the median white family. Even more disturbing is that when consumer durable goods such as automobiles, electronics and furniture are subtracted, median wealth for black and Latino families drops to $1,700 and $2,000, respectively, compared to $116,800 for white households.”

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The authors project forward, to the years of the next presidential election, and further down the line to the early 2040s, when non-whites will become the majority of the country’s population. Looking to the near future, the racial wealth gap is poised to grow.

“By 2020, if current trends continue as they have been, black and Latino households at the median are on track to see their wealth decline by 17% and 12% from where they respectively stood in 2013,” the report said. “By then, median white households would see their wealth rise by an additional three percent over today’s levels. In other words, at a time when it’s projected that children of color will make up most of children in the country, median white households are on track to own 86 and 68 times more wealth, respectively, than black and Latino households.”

“Current trends suggest that by 2024, median black household wealth will have declined by a total of about 30% from where it stands today,” the report continued. “In that same timeframe, the median Latino family can expect to see their net worth decline by a total of 20% over today’s levels. By then, median white household wealth will have increased by about five percent over today’s levels.”

There are many reasons why this is happening. Going back nearly 75 years, the federal government prioritized policies favoring home ownership for whites but not for non-whites. One example from the post-World War II years is the government would not make home loans to black veterans. That policy, and others, such as making mortgage interest rates tax deductible, gave an edge to families with a higher foothold on the economic ladder.

However, the election of President Trump and the GOP Congress is deepening these long-simmering structural factors because the administration is shifting resources up the economic ladder or removing protections that kept lower- and middle-class people from slipping down.

The election of President Trump and the GOP Congress is deepening long-simmering structural factors.

“The racial wealth divide is not a new phenomenon, nor can a single presidential administration or other policymaking body expect to ameliorate the racial wealth divide overnight,” the report says.

“However, since the inauguration of President Trump in early 2017, two phenomena give cause for concern that the trends of the past 30 years might become even more pronounced in the near future. First, less attention has been paid to the growing racial wealth divide compared to previous administrations. Second and more alarmingly, there have been a bevy of policies proposed or championed by President Trump — from healthcare to immigration to housing and financial services reform — that would inevitably and exponentially exacerbate racial wealth inequality.”

The report poignantly notes that the reasons for inequality in America have little to do with the work ethic espoused by the political right.

It continued:

“While some falsely argue that this racial wealth divide stems from choices made by individuals and communities, the facts tell a different story. Recent research shows that the racial wealth divide persists across all levels of educational attainment and family structures, seriously diminishing the ‘personal choices’ argument. Case in point? White high school dropouts own more wealth than black and Latino college graduates. Furthermore, single-parent white households own more wealth than two-parent black households.”

Further, the report says the country is on a precipice, and unless government policies — at the federal and state level — do not do more to bolster the middle class, regardless of its racial composition, the middle-class will keep shrinking and disappear, creating “a racial and economic apartheid state.”

“To claim that the future existence of the middle-class hinges on whether we reverse the trends of growing racial economic inequality is by no means an exaggeration,” the report said. “Indeed, the rise of a once-strong American middle class didn’t happen on its own. Rather, it required a healthy, vibrant economy, including significant investments in Americans’ ability to build lasting financial security, such as through homeownership, higher education and transportation, all of which enable families to build wealth.”

Does Seattle Have The Solution For America’s Income Inequality?

“However, these policy investments haven’t had a lasting positive effect on the middle class because most often, they were intentionally directed at white communities and away from communities of color,” the report continued. “Although the intentional exclusion of communities of color from opportunities to build wealth is a morally repugnant feature of American history, it remained economically viable at a time when the vast majority of our populace was white. As we look ahead to a time when people of color will comprise the majority of the population, however, we are committing economic suicide if we continue believing that we can exclude the majority of the country from opportunities to invest in the future.”

Collins, a co-author, said the solutions start with understanding that America’s economic woes traverse racial lines — and shouldn’t pit struggling whites and non-whites against each other. But the solutions also include acknowledging and reversing many decades of institutional racism.

The solutions to America’s economic woes include acknowledging and reversing many decades of institutional racism.

“I think it is owning up to these two dynamics,” he said. “But then if we want to address the racial wealth divide, we have to understand that it has its own historic dynamics. We, in the report, say you should have a racial wealth audit. Any [government] policy that we think will be good for everyone, let’s just not assume that if it’s a universal approach. Let’s make sure, let’s look at how it affects the racial wealth divide.”

Collins also said that the top 20% of wage earners — disproportionately whites living in large homes in better-off suburbs, who send their kids to private schools and work in upper echelons in corporate America, finance, medicine and law — should surrender some of the government subsidies they receive to lift people below them.

The top 20% of wage earners should surrender some of the government subsidies they receive to lift people below them.

“We also talk about this upside-down subsidy thing,” he said. “We already spend $600 billion-plus helping people build wealth in this country. But it’s mostly going to the top 20% of the already-haves. So just reversing some of those upside-down wealth-building subsidies would be a really good start, and should be politically more acceptable. You’re not looking at new revenue. Look at the resources we are already using to help encourage home ownership [such as the mortgage interest deduction], which is mostly going to people who already have big houses and two of them.”

Collins said he and others will try to raise these issues when Congress turns to tax reform this fall. But he is not optimistic about the Republicans in Washington. Instead, he looks toward state governments for near-term progress.

“We are trying to make that an issue, like let’s look at the upside-down subsidies,” he said. “I guess I don’t have any short-term optimism about the national picture. I do think people can start to pilot some of these things in states. It goes to the Dream Hoarders book.”

“That’s where you have the interesting politics of the top 20% who benefit from all these tax breaks and subsidies,” Collins said. “If you get that constituency to recognize that they are a barrier to greater equity and maybe they shouldn’t be getting those levels of subsidies. We see that discussion happening in a lot more places than two years ago.”

This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished here with permission.

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