Attaboy

I laugh aloud heartily when I read the controversies manufactured by the most recent commentary from Fatimah Ali, a columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News or the Philadelphia Inquirer or whatever rag publishes her rants (they’re both at the same web site, so I can’t tell which is which). Ms. Ali has written some mildly incendiary columns in the past, but she really outdid herself with this offering on September 16.

In this column, she wrings her hands in despair over the reaction she received from this column, published earlier this month. The headline is innocuous enough. She’s a Black woman in an urban community, she dislikes the President and wants Obama to be elected. Big deal, right? Heh. No so fast…

The earlier column received extra attention when Matt Drudge posted a link to it at his site with the headline Philadelphia columnist warns if McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race war. Drudge will never be accused of holding back the hyperbole, but Ms. Ali welcomed it with this comment:

If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness – and hopelessness!

Wow. Depressed, deflated, soaring, homelessness, hopelessness! All in one sentence! Visitors from another galaxy might think the country was still under the wrath of the Great Depression, reading this tripe. Maybe that was Drudge’s point: hit back with the same hyperbole used in Ms. Ali’s limited-view claims that the country’s end is near. Or that we’re all pushing the iron balls down the muskets and getting ready to have it out.

In the follow-up column, Ms. Ali frets about the responses she received from some of the glittering minds who viewed her comments. After the Drudge link, some of the more excitable web sites probably picked up the story and spread it around. Now, this is a big country — far bigger than Ms. Ali’s narrow view of life in Philly — and within the borders of this big nation are all kinds of people, including those who consider the expression “race war” from the computer of a liberal, urban Black woman to be fighting words. I’m of the opinion that she has no grounds to complain about some of the responses she received, since she, as they say, opened the door. Did she really believe that she would be able to publish a comment like this and not get all kinds of crackpot responses from the out-from-under-the-rocks crowd?

In fairness, she does include one comment from a white reader who claims to be inspired by Obama. I would love to have been able to see all the responses she received, because I’ll bet there were far more moderate ones that she’s willing to admit. I’m talking about those who disagree with her points (as I do), but were able to critically comment without acting in a barbaric manner. As I’m attempting to do here.

One other irritating comment in the second column sharply defines Ms. Ali’s limited world view. She writes this:

Barack Obama’s candidacy has simply been the latest stage on which some of this antagonism plays out. I wonder about people like Larry Coltslinger, who said: “Our unemployment rate is as good, or better than it was after all eight years of Bill Clinton.”

Yet, like so many others, my family has to tough it out daily to get by. But we’re hardly alone. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 592,000 Americans lost their jobs last month. Many share a similar plight – middle-class families who’ve lost financial footing because of corporate greed.

Well, Ms. Ali, you should dig little deeper at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website, because even you would have seen that Larry is…well, he’s pretty much right on target. Here’s a nice handy chart of the annual unemployment rate going back about 60 years. This is the actual percentage of unemployed people 16 and over, with no seasonal adjustments. In other words, it’s a raw number. The numbers don’t take into account those who dropped out of the workforce because of school. The numbers aren’t tweaked by holiday or summer jobs. And they’re likely not taking into account the many “occupations” that the BLS doesn’t count as “employment,” such as running on Ebay business or software developers doing short-term freelance programming jobs.

Based on this chart, the numbers were higher at the end of the first two Clinton years, then began to drop significantly in 1995…the year after the “Contract With America” Congress was elected. That was when Bill Clinton caved and signed welfare reform, which enabled (or forced, based on your perspective) lots of people living on the dole to go out and get work. There was a bounce back up after 2001 and 2002, probably from the aftermath of 9/11 and its effect on the overall economy. But, our resilient country returned to its feet as the numbers fell again to historically low levels. I expect those numbers to bounce up again by the end of this year, but in the big picture, our nation’s unemployment rate is still at all-time lows.

Even if the annual rate rises to 5% this year, that’s still below the top of any year during the Clinton administration.

I would also like to challenge Ms. Ali to closely examine our unemployment rate with that of other industrialized nations. The Germans (8.4%) and the French (8.3%) would kill to have rates this low, and according to some, they’re superior to us in every way. You know that Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest nations in the world based on oil reserves, right? Did you know that the estimated unemployment rate among Saudi men is 13%, and could be as high as 25%?

Let’s also look at that 592,000 people Americans you referenced, along with the big picture, again. Based on Bureau of the Census calculations, there are currently about 305 million people in the United States. Back to the BLS, we find that the current employment situation stands at 145.5 million people employed (out of a workforce of nearly 155 million). That means that approximately 48% of the total population of this country is currently employed in some fashion.

592,000 people is 0.0040687285223367697594501718213058 of the working population. Let’s round that: that’s .0041 of the working population or four-tenths of one percent. Now, while those 592,000 lost jobs is certainly no cause for celebration, this number is no more stunning than any other periodic rise or fall in the unemployment figures. Some of these people will likely find new jobs; some will find different jobs in a new field; some may even go back to school to train for a new job. I’ll bet that some will retire early, and some will just take a little time off to regroup.

My question for Ms. Ali: how do you know that these are all “middle-class” people? Some of them could be upper-class, maybe even the so-called “super rich.” And how is this related to “corporate greed”? What corporate leadership is rubbing its hands with glee over the prospect of getting rid of its employees or putting people out of work? Who are all these evil people you liberal commentators keep talking about? I know a few people who own businesses, both large and small. Those folks believe it’s in the best interest of their success to keep their employees employed. As big and greedy as you might think these “corporations” are, they still need people to do their work for them. So, tell me, who are they? Where are they? Should we make all “corporations” go away? (You do know that a one-person business can be a corporation, right?) Who would everyone work for then?

The really sad thing isn’t that Ms. Ali is trying to convince people to vote for Obama, or that she’s angry at the narrow-minded bigots who sent her nasty mails. Voting for our choice is the right of all Americans, and no person should be the target of vitriol for expressing an opinion (no matter how wrong it is).

What’s sad is that Ms. Ali and people like her, of all races and religions beliefs and cultures, continue to look at this nation as, in her words, “a deflated and depressed country,” with “soaring crime, homelessness – and hopelessness!” I’m the last to deny that we have problems, but “deflated and depressed”? Consider for a moment that people in America officially classified as living in “poverty” (via a number set by the government) live better, more complete lives than people in most of the rest of the world who live in truly desperate poverty. On the continent Ms. Ali and other Black Americans consider their heritage, Africa, a significant percentage of the population literally have nothing, and literally no place to turn for anything. Their countries have been ravaged by disease, drought and the oppression of totalitarian dictators who prevent real aid and progress from reaching their people. These dictators either steal what’s meant for their people, or just eliminate the problem via civil conflicts and genocide. I’m not witnessing any theft of food products or ethnic cleansing by the Bush Administration, despite what you might think of those people.

Tell me the last time anyone in America literally starved to death because they couldn’t get food? Can you truly imagine a society in this country that would allow that to happen? Or the last time people were intentionally left to die because they were unable to get some kind of medical care?

Perhaps people don’t live as well as they believe they could; most people probably don’t make the kinds of incomes they desire, or have all the trappings of life they would enjoy. Maybe people wish they lived in a nicer place or drove a better car, or had a job that was both generous in compensation and satisfying in its work.

But the big difference between the United States of America and every place else in the world is that those people who really want those things can have them if they’re willing to work hard and make some sacrifices along the way. The fact that we live in this nation, with its opportunities, choices and resources, should be the primary source of our happiness and gratitude, something we should be celebrating, not the source of deflation and depression.

I’m sorry, I’m not willing to accept the notion that this is such a sad, terrible country. I’ve seen too many examples of people who have worked hard to succeed, who solve problems and who reach out to others. Tell me a story about a man who comes here from some war-ravaged nation to start a new life for his family, by working multiple and jobs while attending school — you know, the new American trying to find the American dream, and succeeding. Too many of those stories go untold, because the Fatimah Alis of the world are too busy pointing out what’s wrong with everything.

Sorry, I can’t be that depressed. I have too much life left to live. Life is too precious, too valuable and too joyful to view it through such a negative world view. Even when things are bad, I can’t help think of how good I have it.

Even if her guy loses, I’ll bet there are lots of positive ways she can contribute to her community in some manner, if for nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing she did something positive. Maybe instead of predicting race and culture wars, Ms. Ali could look to the future with some hope.

You know, hope. Barak Obama talks about it all the time. Sounds to me like the message isn’t getting through.