Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mortality-black-belt/

by iamthirsty • 9 years ago

92 109 9 years ago

Almost the only people doing well in rural America are those with generational wealth. I know plenty of people from my small hometown that have been doing okay with their farms. One of them has a gravel business. Those without such luck are either moving to a bigger city or experiencing a declining quality of life, and they're coping with drugs, meth mostly. I can't imagine what that would be like in areas that haven't been able to build that generational wealth.

The question is, how do we get rural economic development going again?

latencyloser• 9 years ago

Would remote work help? I would think encouraging or allowing more 'white-collar' workers to be more spread out throughout the country would help increase demand in places other than large cities and tech hubs.

I, for one, miss rural life (wide open space, less traffic, mom and pop stores, etc.) but unfortunately my career as a programmer doesn't cater to that lifestyle all that well.

TheAdamAndChe6• 9 years ago

Well, yes and no. It would help unless those jobs were shipped overseas. Many jobs that can be done remotely end up outsourced eventually. My father, who is a software developer, works remotely and makes an obscene amount of money for his area, but his position is not normal.

QAPereo3• 9 years ago

A few generations of really focused, quality education would help a lot more. Until then, I'm afraid it's a bit of a mess.

rm_-rf_slash5• 9 years ago

Let's say you have a reasonably well-paying remote job and you could live anywhere. Let's also say you're married and have children. Do you want them to go to good schools? Do you want them to receive quality healthcare that does not break the bank? Do you want to use convenient services like Uber/Lyft when the need arises? Do you want access to a network of professionals that can help you grow your career?

If you answered yes to these questions, you're not going to find many places rural America that satisfy your needs. At best you'll end up in an outer-exurbia like greater Atlanta.

I don't think remote work of a few well-paid professionals is a viable and sustainable solution for rural America.

kylehotchkiss• 9 years ago

I spent 4 years at my tech job in rural Virginia. Internet there was faster, cheaper, and more reliable than it has been in San Diego, where I am now. I had lots of friends there, it was always fun to enjoy the outdoors with them.

So it can help, but you eventually feel like a fish out of water when nearly nobody you know understands what it is you do. I feel like we'll get there one day in the USA, paying under $1000 for rent for a comfortable home is a lifestyle I wish i could see more technical people adopt.

rm_-rf_slash5• 9 years ago

This is true and is hardly limited to the Old South. Rural Upstate New York is effectively in the same boat.

Frankly I think trying to develop rural America to be economically competitive to urban America is a bad idea wrapped in the cloak of a well-meaning idea. Infrastructure and services and much (like 2-5x) more expensive over a wide area. And you need a LOT of infrastrucute to reasonably support a professional class economy (just think how many specialist lawyers and doctors you would need before you could justify leaving a metro area).

Instead, we should focus our attention on lowering the cost of living in cities and enact policies that make it easy for people in rural, poorer areas to move to cities, such as a government-paid waiver on the first few months of rent, or a state-subsidized relocation package. There are a lot of people who would like to move but cannot save up enough to pay for relocation, security deposit, and things like that while they look for metro work.

Last time we seriously developed rural America it was in the 1930s, when the needs of an industrial economy were different and primarily the benefit was cheap rural manufacturing labor over costly metro manufacturing labor. But now far cheaper labor and supply chains are in China, so the New Deal framework is moot in this circumstance.

Make it easier for rural folks to come to cities, instead of trying to smear cities across the countryside. I can't see any other sustainable solution.

That being said, it doesn't mean everybody has to pack up for the coasts. A lot could be done to make inland cities like Indianapolis or Chattanooga or St. Louis more attractive to rural residents of their respective states.

ashark7• 9 years ago

Can confirm that from the perspective of a Midwesterner who grew up largely in smaller towns, one grows up feeling that moving to a major coastal city is nearly impossible. Even as a software developer I have to remind myself that no, really, I could move to one of those places. It's a hard mindset to get out of, and for most, it's also kind of true.

Smaller non-coastal cities retain, in the mind of the typical rural midwesterner, a reputation for high crime and violent racial unrest (among those old enough to remember the 60s and 70s, anyway). The former especially isn't entirely undeserved. And anyway, even those are shockingly expensive by rural standards, unless you want to live in the very worst parts of the city where the concerns of high crime and terrible, dangerous schools are especially valid.

To say that moving to the city, for most values of "the city", isn't broadly appealing to the rural set, is accurate.

pm90• 9 years ago

I don't know if there's much you can do to induce rural folks to move to urban areas. The brightest kids from rural areas go to colleges, get job offers in the Metro, and move. The ones left behind are either those who couldn't get a job offer, go to college or are too old. What would you tell these people to do?

There just isn't an easy solution other than an intensive retraining in relevant skills. Or aggressively searching for jobs tailored to the skills they possess. (e.g. I remember reading about JetBlue using suburban stay at home women for handling customer support or something).

Also people who are used to their slow-paced, conservative and rural way of life will probably be more than a little shocked by city culture.

wolco• 9 years ago

The one thing America has is a high rural population compared to say Canada. Moving more people into cities is a bad approach we need to spread people around the country and raise up small towns instead leaving them.

ajross2• 9 years ago

The question is, how do we get rural economic development going again?

That's like asking how to revive the blacksmith industry in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. These regions aren't declining because of inattention, they're declining because their native industries are shrinking.

Surely there are regulatory treatments that can be applied here to relieve some of the suffering, but "return to the good old days" isn't an option.

tomjen32• 9 years ago

I might agree with you if gp had said how to get the coal industries going again - but is there really _nothing_ which can usefully be made in community with lots of space and (compared to the bay area) insanely cheap housing?

cletus2• 9 years ago

Personally I think the current socioeconomic trends are firmly against small towns and they're all dying and this will continue until something drastic changes.

For one, family farms have largely been replaced by agribusiness, which tends to be far more economical.

For another, employment and home ownership trends are bad for small towns. Employment is now more short-term. There are hardly any "jobs for life" now. This makes those with limited employment prospects (in that there are few employers in their area) particularly vulnerable to change. Home ownership makes the labour market as a whole less flexible/mobile.

The solution to these problems is urbanization.

What's more, the suburbs formed in WW2 with the explosion in private vehicle ownership and, for some reason, governments actively subsidized it. People will often declare (here and elsewhere) that they like to live in the suburbs. It's cheaper, the lots and houses are larger and so on. Thing is, no one is paying the true cost of this in terms of all the infrastructure to support it, be it roads, railways, utilities, schools, hospitals and so on.

If you look at the major urban centers, they tend to generate a surplus and that surplus is used to subsidize those that live outside that city. It's true in NYC. It's true in London.

At some point I expect this to end, which will strengthen the trend towards urbanization.

One problem is that construction pretty much everywhere is becoming unaffordable. This applies to housing and infrastructure. Homeowners get excited about their rising property values but that's pretty short term thinking. There was an article posted here last week about how all the cheap eats are disappearing from SF. Well, real estate costs (land + construction) are an input into literally everything. You simply can't have cheap services in an area with expensive real estate in the long term.

Construction costs are a real problem eg [1]. Australia, which once had a great standard of living, is now ridiculously expensive in local times. Honestly, it's like the whole country is Vancouver. IIRC the median house price in Sydney is now A$1.1m (up from ~$650k ~7 years ago).

[1] https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/04/why-is-affordable-hou...

Recurecur• 9 years ago

It rather amazes me how intelligent people who've lived through some of the most rapidly changing times ever seem sure they know the future.

Imagine a glut of cheap energy, rapidly improving materials science, pervasive robotics, and large-scale 3D printing. I think it's almost inevitable that construction costs would come way down. Between telepresence and cheap transportation, the need to aggregate people into urban environments would cease.

I think it's highly likely things will go in this direction at some point.

mod3• 9 years ago

I wonder, how "well" did previous generations do?

The bar has been moved so far, so quickly, that it's hard (for me) to say. I would venture that folks in rural America are living better than they ever have. I see truly destitute people, too...I live in one of the poorer counties of one of the poorer states in the USA. But people aren't starving, and depending how far back you go, that was a reality people would have to face.

Point is, we're now comparing rural incomes to city incomes, and thinking "well the farmer is busting his ass with a lot of risk to make 45k, and the baby-faced web dev in the city can make 90k twiddling his fingers." Sure, but they're both...okay. I'm not sure we have to make them equal. I'm not sure we can.

PatientTrades2• 9 years ago

I grew up in Newport News, Virginia. Its one of the towns on the map that is nearly black. I can tell you first hand that many in that city still feel the aftermath of slavery. The poor illiteracy, cognition skills, financial mobility, health, etc, within the black community is truly staggering. I now live in California, but for anybody that claims slavery had no long term effect, go to some of those towns you will be shocked.

occultist_throw5• 9 years ago

Ive always taken an unpopular view about slavery.

"We never quit doing slavery."

It is true the Constitution was amended after the Civil war to include banning of slavery in most circumstances. However, slavery is explicitly still allowed as a "punishment for a crime". Instead of "Black = Slave", it's "Black = criminal , criminal = slave". After all, it only takes only 6-12 angry white men to find you guilty.

I would think one of the major points BLM should be making, is removal of slavery as a punishment. It has too many very degenerate ways it can fail - and in some ways I think were very intended. But I doubt in this political climate of this happening.

EDIT: Boy, I said it was an unpopular view. Wasn't expecting this much hatred and contention, along with this much -1's. I mean, it's not like the 13th amendment explicitly says.

cletus2• 9 years ago

Not sure why you're being downvoted (+1 from me) but this is essentially the basis of the Netflix documentary 13th [1]. The thesis is that slavery was replaced by excessive incarceration of African Americans, which were then used as cheap or free labour... much like slaves were.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)

macrael2• 9 years ago

And before that it was the thesis of the book The New Jim Crow. Arguing that the modern incarceration system came into being as a system of control to replace the Jim Crow laws that arose as a system of control to replace slavery.

The most 'aha' connection there was that a shocking percentage of black men have felony convictions of some sort or another, and we deny felons the right to vote in most states. Jim Crow indeed.

TheAdamAndChe6• 9 years ago

It's being downvoted because it's pushing a false narrative that it's only black people that are being incarcerated, and they're being incarcerated explicitly for cheap labor. There are major issues with regards to race in America, but real life is more nuanced than "it's happening because racism."

aaron-lebo3• 9 years ago

There's some truth to it but the original post is way too simplistic.

They are suggesting that prison, even today, is equivalent to slavery. There is injustice within the modern prison system, but prison is not slavery, at least in the right context it is a place for punishment and rehabilitation.

Sure prisons make a profit off their prisoners, but those profits are nothing like those obtained by slavery, it's an extreme exaggeration and the problem with the justice system isn't just race, if someone wants to suggest that.

removal of slavery as a punishment

What is actually being proposed here?

To say we "never quit doing slavery" is to ignore the massive improvements and lives dedicated to get rid of actual, you know, slavery.

dominotw3• 9 years ago

which were then used as cheap or free labour... much like slaves were.

Are prisons really profitable though? Do they produce anything of real value from this free labor ?

slamdance2• 9 years ago

so we end the war on drugs and outlaw private prisons. Do you really believe this will satisfy BLM? Do you really believe this will solve the problems in the inner cities? Chicago? Baltimore? St. Louis? There are a LOT of fingers pointing for political reasons, yet some topics and ideas are deemed "off-limits".

lfam• 9 years ago

Please, feel free to share your "off-limits" ideas, so that we can judge them in the light of day.

Avshalom• 9 years ago

I mean, it'd be a good start.

RingwormOne7• 9 years ago

Slavery has had significant long term effects on the black community. That can't be denied. Disproportionate poverty in the black community is directly tied to slavery.

However I disagree that slavery - as the term is usually meant to mean - still exists in the form of incarceration.

We as a society have decided that certain things are illegal. The black community, because of poverty (so because of slavery), disproportionately breaks those laws and so there is disproportionate incarceration.

Slavery is the root cause of this disproportionate incarceration, but we should not blame the fact that we have a system which punishes criminals, or equate the enforcement of laws with slavery.

Instead we should be trying to eliminate outdated laws - the illegality of marijuana for instance - and also reducing crime in the black community.

bjl2• 9 years ago

The 13th Amendment explicitly legalises slavery as the punishment for a crime, and its used all the time.

ffxtian• 9 years ago

However I disagree that slavery still exists in the form of incarceration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...

goliatone• 9 years ago

I agree with the sentiment behind your comment, however I would also consider how the legal system seems to work. If you can’t afford a lawyer then the likelihood of “breaking the law” seems to be higher than otherwise. Also, slavery had plenty of detractors and apologists had arguments in favor of slavery. Some of those arguments were pretty rational sounding (pretty wrong to)

omegaworks• 9 years ago

The black community, because of poverty (so because of slavery), disproportionately breaks those laws

This is so simplistic that it borders on a racist falsehood. Increased police presence, inadequate legal representation, racially motivated jury-selection and expansions of prosecutorial power are huge factors.

Educate yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V66F3WU2CKk

http://newjimcrow.com/

PatientTrades2• 9 years ago

because of poverty (so because of slavery), disproportionately breaks those laws.

Not correct. Blacks don't disproportionally break laws. The problem is that non-violent crimes in America are disproportionally enforced. Several Thousand, probably close to a million cases of illegal white collar crime go unenforced every year. Stuff like insider trading, corruption, fraud, laundering, etc. Crimes that white people are more likely to break simply are not regularly enforced. Non-violent crimes like drug possession in Black urban areas are highly enforced, while whites in suburb areas use drugs at the same rate, are not enforced. There is a bias in the enforcement laws

bottles11• 9 years ago

Video of a Louisiana sheriff complaining that releasing prisoners means he loses free labor. It's from this month, and Louisiana has some of the highest incarceration rates in the country

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pupvjr3dQmI

gumby3• 9 years ago

I was really surprised to see you start with this being an "unpopular view about slavery" but the voting has shown that I was naive. It's pretty uncontroversial to the majority of historians and sociologists that post-reconstruction institutions like sharecropping, Jim Crow, chain gangs, "farms" such as Angola and Parchman, and of course the widespread lynching, were all structural continuations in fact of the previous de jure social system.

I guess this topic is like climate change.

I have noticed a gross difference in how US history is taught today (to my son and my gf's sons) vs how it was when I attended a US high school. Much less depth, much more boosterism, no discussions of "how would you act if this old institution were still in place today".

aaron-lebo3• 9 years ago

I don't think it's really that controversial to suggest that Jim Crow, sharecropping, etc, were massive injustices that intentionally limited progress for decades. In the South in public schools (in some places), they do teach us about this. We got to read The Invisible Man in high school, which was incredibly subversive when it was written.

I only say this because your post implies that the only reason someone would disagree with them is ignorance or racism, but some of us just have an appreciation for honest views about history, as I'm sure you do.

occultist_throw5• 9 years ago

Thank you for acknowledging that. I tend to dig in to certain topics that I feel strongly in. I've had similar response before, on reddit and in real life. Both cases have been, what I could call, nasty responses to matter of factly stating what the 13'th amendment actually says.

Or one can look at plenty of longform articles about this very topic. Or countless books in this realm. Or if one doesn't believe the evidence, look no further than that 1 dot per person map, and finding prisons. They stick out.

But yeah, "climate change" rage inducing indeed. I mean, we have people denying simple (easily verifiable) claims with feelings and "simplistic" retorts.

BearGoesChirp2• 9 years ago

Instead of "Black = Slave", it's "Black = criminal , criminal = slave".

Except data shows this isn't the case. A closer match is male = criminal, criminal = slave. The legal system is far harsher on a white male than a black female. And even closer is poor = criminal, criminal = slave.

The legal system discriminates first on SES, then on gender, and finally on race. So what reasoning is behind there being a disproportionate focus on race over SES and gender?

dang2• 9 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15542507 and marked it off-topic.

Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines by posting generic commentary about the voting on your posts, how unpopular your opinions are, and whatnot? It's pontificatory, tedious, and off topic.

Also, if you're going to post on an ideologically inflammatory topic like slavery or race, make sure your comment is substantive enough not to be flamebait. An example of how to do this is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15543652. Your comment fell on the flamebait side. We don't need yet another flamewar! We need thoughtful discussion.

Worse, when you start posting comments that go Atwater, Erlichman, and Flint (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15543975), you're just going full generic, which is what makes flamewars burn hottest and be most tedious. Please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

thriftwy• 9 years ago

It's interesting to consider how having fertile soil reliably gets you.

You would imagine it is a good thing until you realize it's a guaranteed case of Dutch disease, one that is reliant on having a lot of indentured labour around.

And then it will stop being profitable and demand subsidies.

fmitchell0• 9 years ago

As an engineer, I always get frustrated when it seems like a lot of our customers are more concerned with the perception of the existence of something, rather than its actual existence. I'm continuing to learn (UX not withstanding) that just because you solve a problem, it doesn't mean the user believes the problem is solved.

As a black engineer, I've often thought that if there were data, science, math, and straight forward research on the more than $300B+ the slavery system provided for the U.S. in free labor (think of the biggest costs to business) and it's effects, that maybe we could have a conversation about data-driven solutions. Think of how we've added data to sports and created a new economy on improving outcomes because the definitions of success are clear with many pathways.

Looking at this thread, which I assume to be mostly engineers, slightly disabuses me of this notion. The longest threads are about the use of the word slavery (perception) and rural, (mostly white) america (not even sure why this is relevant).

swasheck2• 9 years ago

Think of how we've added data to sports and created a new economy on improving outcomes because the definitions of success are clear with many pathways.

I've thought about this, too - using data to work toward solutions to problems that plague our society. I'm constantly haunted by the belief that there is a set of solutions "out there" but am bedeviled by my own inability to accumulate, homogenize, and aggregate that data that I _can_ find. Even still, sites like 1degree.org do give me hope that the data is available and that there are folks who are willing to do the work of using it (though that's an admittedly different application).

At any rate, thank you for your post. It's stirred that thought within me again.

lostlogin• 9 years ago

An observation on how data gets used: someone decides what they want to do then dig out or fund getting the data that supports the plan. How do you avoid that?

Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

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