We are still living in Moynihan’s moment.

January 19, 2016 10:06 AM

Coates sees the mass incarceration of African Americans as the “national action” that America chose to undertake to address the problems Moynihan described. Moynihan’s framing of poverty as a problem of black families—of black people—has enabled political leaders for half a century to look away from restitution and towards punishment as a way to address social problems. We are still living in Moynihan’s moment.

The Moynihan Report Resurrected, by Sam Klug

The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration by Ta-Nehesi Coates
Race Is Always the Issue by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Moynihan's Anti-Feminism by Daniel Geary

Previously.

posted by graymouser (13 comments total)

Thanks for reminding me why I always despised Moynihan.
posted by Splunge at 10:23 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

> By arguing that “the main problem was not African American inequality, but intemperate discussions of race,” Moynihan left little room for his earlier call to “national action.”

"The problem is that our policies are all talk and no action. The solution is clear; stop talking."
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:33 AM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

The original report can be read online (without graphics) here.
posted by thetortoise at 10:38 AM on January 19, 2016

The lens of race has blinded people of all races and political persuasion to the problems of poverty. Most poor people in the US are white and the problems of poverty largely overlap with the problems of structural racism. I don't believe we can solve one without solving the other.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:51 AM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

> The lens of race has blinded people of all races and political persuasion to the problems of poverty. Most poor people in the US are white and the problems of poverty largely overlap with the problems of structural racism. I don't believe we can solve one without solving the other.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:51 AM on January 19 [+] [!]

Alternately, under white supremacist patriarchal capitalism race and gender are used as markers that indicate that the people with the wrong race and/or the wrong gender are available for hyperexploitation beyond the ordinary forms of capitalist exploitation.

People with analyses that tend to focus on class-based oppression as the sole form of oppression, or as the form of oppression that subtends all other forms of oppression, would do well to look into David Harvey's work on what Marx calls "primitive accumulation." Harvey takes up this Marxian concept, but renames it "accumulation by dispossession." He does this to highlight how there is nothing primitive about primitive accumulation; it happens side-by-side with the types of exploitation that Marx spends the bulk of Capital Volume 1 discussing, and is as crucial to the operation of capitalist wealth concentration and poverty manufacture as those other conventional types of exploitation are.

I believe Harvey derives the idea that primitive accumulation isn't "primitive" but instead an ongoing crucial part of capitalist processes from Rosa Luxemburg, but I haven't read Luxemburg in years and years and was too young to get much out of her writing when I read it.

I agree with you when you say that we can't solve one without solving the other. Because capitalism depends on white supremacist and patriarchal hyperexploitation, ending white supremacy (and patriarchy) are likely necessary for the dismantlement of capitalism. I would, though, disagree with the claim that the "lens of race" blinds people. Understanding white supremacist practices is necessary to avoid being blinded; this is because understanding capitalism requires understanding white supremacy.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:08 AM on January 19, 2016 [20 favorites]

Here's how this is playing out in NY now.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:09 AM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would, though, disagree with the claim that the "lens of race" blinds people.

I meant it in the sense that poverty and racial problems get conflated ("poverty is a black issue" and "black people's main problem is poverty") and so neither are accurately understood nor can be addressed properly.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:27 AM on January 19, 2016

I'm seeing quite a shift in reliance on Moynihan in conservative intellectual circles. Or, rather, it's not a shift away from Moynihan so much as a broadening of his thesis (see here and here for examples). There is a recognition that these same problems that plagued the black family in the 1960s are now problems for just "the family" in general. So the racial element is absent, and the focus is more on social/class, economic, and cultural trends.
posted by resurrexit at 12:58 PM on January 19, 2016

Those are dogwhistles.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:50 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Dogwhistles and #AllLivesMatter obfuscation.
posted by Etrigan at 4:06 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ta-Nehisi Coates: "The spectacle of a socialist opposing reparations as 'divisive' is only rivaled by Sanders posing as a pragmatist"

Killer Mike: "I love the writings of @tanehisicoates. I am very curious why every one thinks his critique of Sanders of some kind of death nail."
posted by kliuless at 9:54 AM on January 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

All of TNC's critiques of Sanders go equally towards Hilary and the Democratic party at large. Doubly, triply, and exponentially moreso the further right one goes.

I saw TNC's critiques as a necessary focus on how even the furthest left our nation is willing to go, white supremacy is still very much the water.
posted by avalonian at 2:45 PM on January 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ta-Nehisi Coates - My hope was to talk to Sanders directly, before writing this article. I reached out repeatedly to his campaign over the past three days. The Sanders campaign did not respond.

I think it boils down to incrementalism v. radicalism and how there's a duty to push the boundaries to keep things fresh. I would love to see them talk this out.
posted by mikelieman at 3:31 AM on January 23, 2016