The socio-economic improvement and political incorporation of African Americans over the last 400 years, from the nadir of complete political and educational exclusion in the chattel slavery of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to their much improved contemporary status of electoral enfranchisement and legislative civil rights, is a testament both to the indomitable strength of African people and the institutional ingeniousness of the ‘American experiment’ set up by the framers of the Constitution.  Ironically, many of whom were slaveholders themselves.  While this long and tortured journey toward the social equality of African Americans through complete political incorporation illustrates that, “[t]he arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”[1], the current disproportionately low rates of African American educational attainment, financial wealth, and employment are remaining socioeconomic impediments to further and complete political incorporation into the American power structure.

 

During much of the twentieth century, the intellectual debate about the proper method to assure the complete political incorporation of African Americans into the America power structure has been cast in a Booker T. Washington/W.E.B. Dubois dualist paradigm.  This Manichaeistic theoretical dichotomy had Dubois arguing in favor of African American political incorporation through social advancements like education, political participation, and desegregation and Washington achieving incorporation by advocating an economic focus on accumulation of Black wealth through employment. This dualist outlook pit African American economic and social advancement at odds with each other and required those that were proponents of one to attack the other as heretically counterproductive to African American advancement (Frontline 2007), (Chaffee 1956, 244-246). 

 

After the end of ‘de jure’ racism and its institutional deterrents to African American political empowerment, much of the academic and public policy discussion surrounding the full political incorporation of African Americans has been centered around the need for increased Black electoral participation through greater voter turnout, inter-ethnic and White liberal political coalitions, and more African American elected officials through ‘minority-friendly’ electoral districts and alternative electoral systems (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb, Protest is Not Enough 1986), (Browning, Marshall and Tabb, Taken In or Just Taken? 2000), (Walters 2005), (Guiner 1994), (Engstrom 2000), (Mansbridge 1999). While these tools have been helpful in substantially increasing the degree of descriptive representation of African Americans, the continuing socio-economic disparities with respect to education, wealth, and employment point to their inability of completely negating these remaining vestiges of both slavery and institutional racism in America and ultimately severe obstacles to complete African American political incorporation. Thus, at the dawn of the 21st Century, a new paradigm must be embraced to achieve African American political incorporation that encompasses both the DuBoisian argument for social advancement and the Washingtonian advocacy of economic independence to eliminate the holistic problem of socio-economic disparities within the African American community.

 

This paper will examine the degree to which three crucial features of political incorporation; voter turnout, external political efficacy, and campaign contributions are more closely related to the current socio-economic characteristics of African American than to their ethnic identity alone.  More specifically, it will argue that the post-Civil Rights era emphasis on African American political incorporation solely by expanding their electoral participation through an increase in the number of Black voters and elected officials is ineffective.  This misguided emphasis fails to address the relationship between remaining socio-economic disparities within the African American community and their full political incorporation into the American political system as evidenced by substantive representation in public policy priorities.  Therefore, given the strong correlation between one’s socio-economic status and their degree of political efficacy, political participation, and resultant substantive representation, eliminating socio-economic disparities between African Americans and Whites in relative income, wealth, and education would be a substantially more effective public policy tool for increasing their political incorporation than simply attempting to increase African American voters and elected public officials.

 

Political Incorporation

 

In order to understand the relationship between the socio-economic status of African Americans and their political incorporation, it is first necessary to define the general term ‘political incorporation’ and the essential elements that are crucial to both its achievement. It is also essential to indicate the extent of one’s incorporation into the social and political power structure of American society. Political incorporation is, “…the extent to which self-identified group interests are articulated, represented, and met in public policy making” (Fraga and Ramírez 2003, 304).  This definition extends incorporation passed the level of mere ‘descriptive’ representation, defined as having those elected officials and political agents that have the attributes and are members of the group being represented, to the preferred condition of having public policies that reflect the priorities of a certain group or having members, and rather seeks to have their interests addressed through influence on the very public policy of a society or ‘substantive’ representation (Mansbridge 1999, 630-632), (Pitkin [l967] 1972, 60-89).  The dearth of African American public policy influence can be most starkly illustrated by research that shows a distinct schism between the public policy opinions and ideologies of African Americans citizens and interests groups and the actual corresponding policies.   For example, despite the overwhelming support by African American citizens for national health care,  strict gun control laws, and an end to the War in Iraq, none of these public policies have been close to being realized (Walters 2005, 77-80), (Smith 1980, 302-303), (Jackson 2003), (Taylor-Clark, Blendon and Benson 2003).  Additionally, African American interests groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), TransAfrica, and the Congressional Black Caucus have advocated extensive economic investment and military intervention in the continent of Africa, expansion of low-income housing, and aggressive affirmative action programs have likewise met with no concrete public policy shifts (Dickson 1996, 143-144), (Boddie 2006) (Congressional Black Caucus 2005).  These unsuccessful efforts illustrate that the lack of African-American political incorporation rests not in their ability to articulate their interests, but rather on the ability of those public policy interests to be met.

 

In a democratic republic such as the U.S., public policy is written not only by popularly elected officials but also within a labyrinth of administrative and regulatory agencies all of which are heavily influenced by moneyed special interests.  As such, the substantive representation, an essential aspect in achieving political incorporation, can be achieved by African Americans possessing external political efficacy towards one’s government, maintaining strong voter turnout in all electoral contests, and creating substantial campaign contributions to candidates and causes that advocate favorable public policy stances. Through meeting these three goals African Americans can effectively direct and influence public policy and therefore achieve political incorporation. This paper will illustrate the extent to which each one of these goals for African American political incorporation is tied to a specific socio-economic indicator.  One should not assume that the linear connection presented between one socioeconomic indicator, such as education, and a corresponding goal for political incorporation, such as external political efficacy, excludes other nonlinear relationship.  The linear nature of this presentation exists only to show clearly the effect of various socio-economic conditions on crucial aspects of political incorporation.

 

Education & Political Efficacy

 

One of the most psychologically essential aspects of political incorporation is a sense of political efficacy.  Political efficacy is the degree to which an individual or group feels it can influence governmental politics.  It is further subdivided into ‘internal’ and ‘external’ components.  The former involves the extent to which one feels aptly suited to understand and participate in political decisions and actions, while the latter refers to one’s sense that the government itself both cares and is responsive to an individual or groups political needs (Magum 2003, 42-43), (Pollock III 1983, 403), (Pierce and Carey Jr. 1971, 202).  Most research suggests that political efficacy has a positive impact on voter turnout in particular and political participation in general (Conway 1985), (Leighley and Vedlitz, Race, Ethnicity, and Political Participation: Competing models and Contrasting Explanations 1999), (Pierce and Carey Jr. 1971, 201) (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980, 13-36).  Therefore, an essential building block to political incorporation is a strong sense of political efficacy.

 

African Americans possess a strong sense of group internal political efficacy but a significantly lower external political efficacy than White Americans (Magum 2003, 46-47).  More simply put, African Americans feel they are equipped to participate in politics but that their government does not value or heed their politics wishes.  This agrees with Pollock’s assertion that, “…individuals who harbor feelings of … (high internal political efficacy) and… (low external political efficacy) and more prone toward unconventional, nonconformist participation”. (Pollock III 1983, 401) Given the connection between political efficacy and participation, this mistrust in government essentially retards the potential political incorporation of African Americans.

In order to increase the level of African American external political efficacy, one must first discover the root of its current state.  Current research suggests that political efficacy is not an unchangeable result of an ascribed ethnicity, but rather more a component of achieved social markers such as education (Pierce and Carey Jr. 1971, 203-204), (Tate, Black Political Participation in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Elections 1991, 1161).  “Higher education, perhaps because it also leads to greater familiarity with the political process, also contributes to feelings of political effectiveness”. (Pierce and Carey Jr. 1971, 203)  As such, (Finifter 1970, 399) states, “…given similar educational achievement, Negroes feel hardly any more powerless concerning the political process than do whites.”  Therefore, we can see the low political efficacy which retards African American political incorporation not as failing of Black self-esteem, but rather as another causality of the stark educational disparity that persists between African Americans and Whites.An in-depth examination of the state of African American education shows, despite substantial gains, a large disparity vis-à-vis Whites.  African American education, both at the secondary and post-secondary level continues to lag behind Whites with dire implications for their political efficacy.  “College graduates also exhibit higher levels of civic participa­tion and lower incarceration rates.” (NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 2005)

 

African American secondary education as a measure by aptitude tests and graduation rates after years of improvement remains considerably lower than Whites. The African American urban poor underclass has remained a substantial problem in American despite both the large social programs of the liberal political left and the welfare reform and punitive policies of the conservative political right.  Since education and academic achievement has been the vehicle by which other immigrants and minority groups have moved out of poverty, the African American academic achievement gap in relation to Anglo-Americans can be seen as a major obstacle toward eliminating the social and economic disparities that continue to exist and achieving political incorporation (Freyer 2002, Ogbu 2002).  Even desegregation, the War on Poverty, and the expansion of the Black middle class in the 1970’s and ‘80’s through affirmative action has failed to abate the problem.  Instead, these newly successful and mobile African Americans moved out of the urban core which not only left blighted urban communities of concentrated poverty and crime but also often results in their children facing social isolation in suburban schools with substantially lower education scores their White classmates.

 

From 1975 to 2003 the high school completion rate for African Americans improved from 64.8% to 85%, yet remains 10% lower than Whites at 95% (Garibaldi, Four Decades of Progress...and Decline: 1997, 105-107), (National Center for Educational Statistics 2003).  This disparity has only decreased by 4% over the same period of time.  Another study which uses the number of children enrolled in school to find high school completion rates rather than the overall population presents even more dire disparities.  It argues the White graduation rate is 78% compared to an anemic African American rate of 56% (Greene 2002).  Regardless of the methodology, both numbers document a high secondary educational achievement gap for African Americans.

A similarly dismal circumstance is illustrated by secondary education assessment tests which show long-term improvement for African Americans but a sizable gap between themselves and White students.  This achievement gap, which is essential in the development of political efficacy, is clearly illustrated in a reading assessment test given to students at ages 9, 13, and 17.  Between 1971 and 2004 the achievement gap for 9-year-olds went from 44 to 26 percentage points, for 13-year-olds from 22 to 39, and for 17-year-olds from 53 to 29. (Williams 2005)  Additionally, in California as early as 4th grade, African-American students are reading and doing math two years behind their White peers. By middle school, they are three years behind. And by the time they reach the end of high school, California’s young adult African Americans read and do math at the same levels as White middle-schoolers, they are now four years behind their peers.  This disparity becomes more pronounced as the years of public schooling continue, often resulting in 4 out of every 10 African American students that enter 9th grade drop out before 12th grade. (Villarreal 2006) This disparity manifests itself in a disproportionate percentage of those students that test below their grade level and failing to achieve a high school diploma in twelve years being African American.  This gap, although larger among low-income African American students in the state’s 10 largest urban school districts, exists significantly throughout income levels and geographic locales. (Villarreal 2006) (NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 2005)

Due to the predominant importance of education in creating feelings of political efficacy, this African American educational gap both in graduation rates and assessment scores creates structural impediments greater than African American political incorporation.  Successful eliminating this educational impediment to African-Americans would not have the obvious effect of increasing their economic viability, but would also more effectively incorporate them into the American power structure.

 

African American Relative Income & Effects on Voter Turnout

 

Another essential component in complete political incorporation is voter turnout.  In order for African Americans to have an impact on both the kinds of candidates that win elections and, more importantly, the policies that candidates advocate they have to achieve high turnout at the polls in high.  Much of the research on political participation shows that with higher rates of employment and income vote at a significantly higher rate than those with low income (Plutzer and Wiefek 2006). Unfortunately, the employment disparity between African Americans and Whites creates lower income levels that have a negative effect on Black voter turnout.

              Many studies have written on the correlation between income levels and voter turnout for all groups with some noted scholars focusing on African Americans and the extent to which their level of voter turnout it tied to their income (Leighley and Vedlitz, Race, Ethnicity, and Political Participation: Competing models and Contrasting Explanations 1999, 1094), (Teixeira 1987), (Verba and Nie 1972), (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980).  The findings have shown that income is a predominant factor in voter turnout with only education having a larger influence (Tate, Black Political Participation in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Elections 1991, 1162).  This, of course, highlights the connection between one's education and lifetime income. (Leighley and Nagler, Individual and Systemic Influences on Turnout: Who Votes? 1984 1992, 724) Though there has been an overall decline in voter turnout and an increase in the per capita gross national product (GNP), the correlation with voter turnout is correlated with one’s position on the income distribution (relative income) rather than absolute income. (Filer, Kenny and Morton 1993, 63-70) 

 

Those voters’ with low relative incomes have perceived lower financial stakes in the election because their financial world is not affected by who wins the election and what policies they advocate.  They view their position as static, ignored and unchanged by the government.  As their income position on the distribution bell curve heads more towards the mean, there is an increased sense that their financial stakes are pegged to the outcome of the election.  This rise correlates with a rise in voter turnout.  These voters feel more a sense that government policies that might be affected by an election like public safety and education have an increasingly direct impact on their lives which inspires them to vote in larger numbers (Filer, Kenny and Morton 1993, 65-70).

African Americans, having a disproportionately large share of its population living with low relative income and in relative poverty, perceive lower levels of financial stake in election outcomes which negatively affects their voter turnout (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor and Lee 2006, 12-16).  Additionally, despite growth in absolute levels of personal income and family income for African Americans, the disparity between them and White Americans remains extremely pronounced.  Substantially increased from 21% in 1971, African American personal income remains anemically 56% that of White Americans.  The African American family income disparity actually increased from 55% of White family income in 1954 to 62% in 2002 (Staples 1999, 293) (Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity 2004). This low-income level relative to White Americans negatively impacts African American voter turnout and consequently increased political incorporation.

 

African-American voter turnout has increased beginning with the period that began with the dismantling of structural impediments to Black voting like poll taxes and grandfather clauses that existed during Jim Crow de jure segregation.  These policies effectively disenfranchised the African American vote and artificially lowered African American turnout (Kernell and Jacobson 2003, 113-114).  With the enacting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other similar civil rights legislation across the nation, Black voter turnout from 1964 to 2004, specifically in presidential races where turnout is the highest, has remained between 54% and 58%.  Even the precipitous decline in non-Hispanic White voter turnout during the same time from 70% to 61%, has not eliminated the almost 10% voter turnout between Whites and African Americans (U.S. Census Bureau 2007).  This disparity, given the essential importance of voter turnout to group political incorporation, acts as an impediment to full political integration and substantive representation of African Americans. After controlling for socioeconomic factors like relative income, however, this voter turnout disparity is almost nonexistent.  Thus, resolving the remaining income disparities between African Americans and Whites would positively affect turnout.

 

African American Wealth Effects on Campaign Contributions

 

A third, and often overlooked, component to political incorporation is the degree to which groups can contribute to political campaigns.  The lack public financing in the U.S. political system, increasing the expense of political television and radio advertisements, and Buckley v. Valeo ruling all conspire to individual and special interest campaign contributions essential to the viability of a political candidate (Kernell and Jacobson 2003, 411-421).  Campaign contributions not only determine which candidates have conceivable chance to run an electable campaign, they also shape the policies that candidates fight for during and after the campaign.  “Campaign money -- not votes -- is now the currency of our democracy, determining who runs for office, who wins, and who has the ear of elected officials.” (Public Campaign 2004).  This ability for wealthy individuals and interest to shape the kinds of candidates even before they are picked by the political parties is come to be known as the ‘wealth primary’ (National Voting Rights Institute 2006). “Those who do not raise enough money -- that is, who lose the wealth primary -- almost always do not win office.” (National Voting Rights Institute 1995)  As it has previously been stated, an essential aspect of political incorporation is a group’s interests were both represented and met by the political structure.  Thus, the socio-economic impediment of limited and stunted personal wealth in the African American community retards their ability to contribute to political campaigns and interests groups in order to be fully political incorporated.

In an examination of African American wealth disparity, it is necessary to differentiate between personal wealth, the net difference between total assets like income, houses and investments and total liabilities like debt and bills, and personal income which is an individual’s total income. (Keister and Moller 2000, 64) While the continuing disparity in wealth is in part a natural consequence of the aforementioned income disparity, even after controlling for income differences two-thirds of the wealth difference between Whites and African Americans remains. (Blau and Graham 1990, 321) “… [B]lack families at any observed income level have substantially less wealth than white families.” (Terrell 1971, 365) 

 

Wealth is accumulated through inherited wealth from a relative in the form of property or income passed after a death or ‘inter-generational transfers’, rates of return on previously owned investment, and personal savings. Research has shown that the wealth disparity is not due to a lower savings rate for African Americans or a result of their lower incomes or higher rate of single-parent households and poor housing location, but rather a result of lower rates of inter-generation transfers for wealth buildings assets like college tuition, down payment on a home, or starting a business. (Blau and Graham 1990, 331-334), (Terrell 1971, 377) “…little of that disparity can be explained by differences in income or demographic characteristics. In fact, the wealth gap far exceeds the income gap.” (Choudhury 2001)

 

The median wealth of White households in 2002 was $88,651 while the net worth of African American households was only $5,988 or 14.8%.  In addition, the average young African American family wealth is 18% of the average young White family (Blau and Graham 1990, 331).  Given that the value of a house accounts for the vast majority of their overall worth the fact that the percentage of White households who owned homes in 2002 was 74.3 % and the homeownership rate for African American households was 47.7% further illuminates the foundation of the large wealth disparity. More than 25% of African American households own no assets other than a vehicle or unsecured liabilities while only 6% of White households can same the same (Kochhar 2004, 3-4).  Finally, this percentage of each group with no assets at all shows how an accumulation of African American households at the lower end of the wealth distribution curve. 

       

This stark picture of the state of African American wealth should not serve only to pull at the collective heartstrings of the nation and engender sympathy but to clearly illustrate the extent to which the large wealth disparity negatively impacts African American’s ability to effectively impact the political process through the campaign and special interest contributions.  Their lack of wealth means they have less ability to make their assets liquid to support a candidate or a cause in which they believe, effectively leaving much of the shaping of the public policy agenda to the those that can participate in the ‘wealth primary’. (Theilmann and Wilhite 1991, 101-130,186-191) This does not just limit the numbers of African American candidates that can be elected and silence an agenda that would seek to end such a shameful disparity, but more importantly, it stymies African American substantive representation and retards their political incorporation into the American power structure.

 

Conclusion

 

The socio-economic improvement and political incorporation of African Americans over the years have not improved greatly since White supremacy and institutional racism saw to it that they possessed no economic wherewithal, no sense of social safety net, and no avenues to become incorporated into American political society.  At the dawn of a new century, those that desire African American political incorporation must shed the dualistic paradigm that pits Booker T. Washington’s call for economic independence against W.E.B. Dubois’ insistence on educational and social advancement. In its place a holistic understanding that will embrace the notion that complete political incorporation of African Americans is impeded not by some innate cultural characteristic, but rather solvable socio-economic factors like disproportionately low rates of educational attainment, income, and wealth.

 

Thus, it is neither the social nor the economic but rather the socio-economic approach that will succeed.  Therefore, both Washington and Dubois were partially correct in their strategy. In addition to this new approach, there must be an understanding that the descriptive representation of African American candidates in public office, while an improvement over pre-Civil Rights complete political disenfranchisement, should not be the sole focus of academic and public policy discussion of political incorporation of African Americans.  The descriptive representation that increased Black electoral participation through greater voter turnout, inter-ethnic and White liberal political coalitions, and alternative electoral systems brings must be but the precursor to the difficult work of addressing the gross socio-economic disparities that still plague the African American community. The low education, wealth, and income of African Americans vis-à-vis White Americans points not to their inferiority or flawed culture, but rather to America’s inability to erase these remaining stains of slavery and institutional racism.

There is a divide that needs bridging in America.  It is a divide that still separates African Americans from Whites socio-economically, separates African Americans from the effective political incorporation they deserve, and more importantly separates America from its potential. This paper has illustrated the degree to which three crucial features of political incorporation; voter turnout, external political efficacy, and campaign contributions are tied more directly to the socio-economic characteristics of African Americans than to their ethnic identity.  It has shown the strong correlation between one’s socio-economic status and their degree of political efficacy, political participation, and resultant substantive representation. By moving public policy to focus on eliminating socio-economic disparities between African Americans and Whites in relative income, wealth, and education African Americans can become political incorporated into the American political structure and the divide can be bridged forever.

 

Michael Jackson is a political analyst/researcher and freelance writer/editor living in New York City. He holds a B.A. in political science with a concentration in American Politics & Urban Studies from California State University, East Bay and was formerly graduate fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences' Ph.D. program

 

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[1] King Jr., Martin Luther.  1967, April 30. Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam. Speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga.