More recently, the Congressional Black Caucus and other civil rights groups have received strong financial backing from telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Comcast. These firms support regulations that would be barriers to the goal of universal Internet access, stifling economic opportunity for black communities. We can’t expect our civil rights organizations and political leaders to help blacks rage against the corporate machine when they are part of it.
And what about Jay-Z and other hip-hop leaders? For all their influence on American culture, they haven’t tackled big challenges such as poverty, police brutality, voting disenfranchisement and the racist prison complex. Jay-Z, who hasn’t shown up at any Occupy gatherings, has tried to capitalize on the protest wave by peddling “Occupy All Streets” T-shirts for $22 a pop — with no plans to donate profits to the movement.
Beyond a lack of leaders to inspire them to join the Occupy fold, blacks are not seeing anything new for themselves in the movement. Why should they ally with whites who are just now experiencing the hardships that blacks have known for generations? Perhaps white Americans are now paying the psychic price for not answering the basic questions that blacks have long raised about income inequality.
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