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THE STATE OF BLACK AMERICA 1982

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INTRODUCTION
By
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. and John E. Jacob

At no point in recent memory had the distance between the national government and Black America been greater than it was in 1981, nor had the relationship between the two been more strained. Throughout Black America in 1981 there was a broad feeling of isolation, of a turning back of the clock, of a retreat from civil rights policies and soical [[social]] service programs that were established only after years of struggle and were believed, at least by some, to be inviolate. Little wonder then that a New York Times/CBS poll taken in the fall showed that only 14% of blacks approved of the President's handling of his office, while 74% responded "not much" when asked whether they thought he cared about the needs and problems of the poor.

An earlier Washington Post/ABC poll reported that only 4% of blacks felt that President Reagan would do more for black progress than President Carter, 51% thought he would do less, and 31% saw no difference. The remainder had no opinion.

Granted that in the 1980 Presidential election only 7% of black voters cast their ballots for Mr. Reagan indicating a basic distrust of the candidate, the continuing alienation of the mass of black people from President Reagan and his Administration, after almost a year in office, clearly is an unhealthy situation that also tells much of the mood inside Balck [[Black]] America in 1981. And this discontent is very real, contrary to the illusion the Administration has tried to foster that it is only black leadership and not the black masses from which the discontent emanates.

It is difficult to believe that any Administration would deliberately set out to isolate itself from any sector of the American people, and yet this present Administration, both by what it has done and what it has not done, has succeeded, to an alarming degree, in doing just that.

If there was any doubt in Black America over whether a Reagan Administration would keep its campaign promises to drastically reduce human services programs and buy more guns, it quickly vanished after Inaugural Day. Programs were slashed or terminated left and right, sometimes it seemed with almost indecent relish. The victims of the slashing were the poor, the disadvantaged and minorities, and their cries of anguish never penetrated into the rooms where the decisions were being made. The few allies who came to their defense were buried under an avalanche of votes from a compliant Congress, a number of whose members did not really have faith in the sweeping changes being proposed, but who were loath to make a fight of it lest they be term obstructionists.

On the surface, the President's program was appealing: cut taxes, reduce inflation, achieve a balanced budget, create millions of new jobs, get rid of waste and fraud and strengthen the military.

The Poor Suffered Most

Instead of spreading the sacrifices equitably, however, the program for economic recovery took more from the poor and gave more to the rich. In the rush to get the program off the groud [[ground]], compassion went out the window. No more telling comments on the process have been forthcoming than those made by David Stockman, Director of the office of Management and Budget, and reported by William Greider in Atlantic Magazine. 

"The thing was put together so fast that it probably should have been put together differently...The defense numbers got out of control and we were doing the whole budget-cutting exercise so frenetically. In other words, you were juggling details, pushing people, and going from one session to another, trying to cut housing programs here and rural electric there, and we were doing it so fast, we didn't know where we were ending up for sure."

The impact on the poor, a disproportionate number of whom are black, has been devastating. Unemployment and poverty have increased. Programs that helped the poor climb out of poverty have been ended. The economy is in a recession, and this strikes especially hard at the poor.

One of the tragic things about the Administration's frenzied rush to end programs that benefitted [[benefited]] the poor is that very little effort was expended to determine if the programs had worked or if they were needed. The battle cry of the day was to get government out of the business of helping poor people, but at the same time there was no answer to the question as to what these poor people were to do while waiting for the private sector to produce the promised millions of jobs that would make government assistance unnecessary.

A case in point is the wrongly maligned Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) which underwent severe cutbacks in 1981 that included the abolition of over 350,000 public service jobs. At the end of the year, less than one-fourth of those who were let go had found new employment. What has happened to the other 75%, how are they surviving, and when will the private sector be prepared to offer them employment?

There is no question that jobs in the private sector are much more desirable than a CETA job, but in the absence of the latter, some alternative should be provided, and this the Reagan Administration has failed to do. Many other examples could be cited of programs that were ended or curtailed, but the point has been made that the poor have lost quite a bit of the precious little they had.

The Approach to Civil Rights

Another major factor in Black America's feeling toward the Administration is its (the Administration's) perceived attitude on civil rights. A perceptive view of this attitude appeared in a September, 1981, issue of the Economist of London.

"A counter-revolution in civil rights is underway in America. During the Reagan years federal government support for efforts to end racial segregation and to promote opportunities for disadvantaged minorities cannot be taken for granted. The new, harsher climate represents a victory for some of the nastier forcs [[forces?]] on the American

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