Essay 857

From The New York Daily News…

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Time to kill ‘ghetto tax’

By Stanley Crouch

The black American keeps reminding us of the best and the worst and the most backward things that we can do as a nation. There are so many problems that seem to drop like butterfly nets of barbed wire on the lives of black Americans — especially those in the lower and underclass — that we find it hard to pretend that things are exactly the same for any and everybody in the good old U.S.A.

That does not mean that we should fall easily into untenable grousing, or lean on the bent adage that nothing has changed. It is true that much has changed, and for the better. Still, we do have problems that we cannot ignore because of the demagogues and hustlers who forever take advantage of the naive among us, manipulating and taking money.

We have found over the past couple of decades that insurance companies have gouged black communities across this nation, that certain police departments have planted drugs and sent intimidating numbers of black men to prison, and now, according to research by the venerable Brookings Institution, we learn of what is being called “the ghetto tax.”

There is a significant difference in what white middle-class people and black lower-class people pay for many of the same things, such as car insurance. It has been reported that in New York, Hartford and Baltimore, the difference can average out to $400 more for the black as opposed to the white.

Brookings calls this sort of thing a “ghetto tax.” This also applies to other merchandise, produce and services like check-cashing outlets.

This is a broad extension of the fact that was discovered about a decade ago — that young black people might be denied employment on the basis of where they live, the assumption being that some communities produce good, disciplined and trustworthy workers and others do not.

In this era, when there is such a hatred of publicly declared taxes, I wonder how many of this nation’s elephants will lift their trunks to trumpet the need to remove the “ghetto tax” from business practices, which, the elephants say, would reduce the cost of living for lower-income families.

As we have seen in Harlem, where the real estate frenzy has become as loud as a sonic boom, businesses can be encouraged to open in areas that are thought fertile once the police drastically reduce crime.

This complex of law enforcement, quality education and fair business practices must be effectively orchestrated to move us closer to our national goal of virtual equality. But unless all of this is taken into consideration and woven together like a strong quilt against the chill of discrimination and deprivation, we can stop pretending that all complaints are no more than the annoying sounds of demagogues and hustlers.

We also can stop pretending that we have any serious interest in the betterment of our society.