I would like to look at and compare income rates between African Americans and white Americans. At the beginning of 2018, Business Insider made charts showing the per capita income of African and white Americans. From the chart on the left, white Americans made at least $15K more than African Americans. With white Americans making more money on average compared to African Americans, it comes with no surprise that more African Americans live in poverty. In the chart on the right from Business Insider, they compared median income to poverty rates. African Americans do not make as much as white Americans, and that is why more African Americans live in poverty. This has been a topic of discussion for quite some time, white and African Americans can have similar jobs, but they are not paid the same based on the color of their skin. There has been a lot of social change over the years, however, African Americans have never received equal pay for the jobs that they have. On the chart on the left, the trend shows a consistent difference in pay. This could relate to the master-slave dialect topic that was discussed earlier this semester. White Americans being the master, and African Americans being the slaves of the relationship. This means that white employees make more money because they are valued more by companies than African Americans. One book that could relate to this type of injustice would be Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. In Persepolis, we are introduced to Mehri who was Marji family’s maid (Satrapi, 43). In the story, we see that Mehri becomes infatuated with the neighbor boy (Satrapi, 45). Marji then tells her uncle about this and then word spreads to her father who went to talk to the neighbor boy. Marji’s father tells him “I know that Mehri pretends she is my daughter, in reality she is my maid” (Satrapi, 45). Marji’s father tells her that “in this country you must stay within your own social class” (Satrapi, 46). This part of the story relates to the financial income and poverty rates that happen in America. Using the two charts, from the past to present we can see that the social class that you were born in is likely to be the social class you will stay in because of the unfair difference in income between white and African Americans.
Marjane Satrapi. “The Complete Persepolis.”
I think African Americans can also be viewed as subalterns because of this wage gap. It seems that African Americans have few platforms within the top tiers of a company; this discrimination can lead to bosses not valuing African American work as much and can cause limitation to their pay. The charts were a great representation of this injustice. They illustrate the drastic difference in the socioeconomic status of Whites and Blacks. For this injustice to be righted we need to look into companies that discriminate employees’ pay and give African Americans the equal pay they deserve.
Hi, I also think your topic relates well to the word “subaltern” we learned in class. I think this should be identified as a systemic injustice since people are paid differently not because of the efforts they paid, but their color which they cannot control. This difference in payment may also lead to other problems. For example, people who earn less cannot afford expensive educaiton and if their children are less educated, they cannot find high paid jobs and the powerty gap will further increases.