Eugene Robinson - Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America

Also by Eugene Robinson

Coal to Cream
Last Dance in Havana

DOUBLEDAY

Copyright 2010 by Eugene Robinson

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robinson, Eugene, 1954
Disintegration : the splintering of Black America / Eugene Robinson.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. African AmericansSocial conditions21st century. 2. African AmericansEconomic conditions21st century. 3. African AmericansRace identity. 4. Group identityUnited States. 5. Social classesUnited States. 6. Social mobilityUnited States. 7. United StatesSocial conditions21st century. 8. United StatesRace relations. I. Title.
E185.86.R618 2010
305.896073dc22 2010020405

eISBN: 978-0-385-53370-6

First Edition

v3.1

To Mrs. Louisa S. Robinson
from her loving son

Disintegration could not have been written without the incisive, timely, good-natured, and sometimes positively uncanny contributions of Kris Puopolo, my editor at Doubleday, who often knew precisely what I was trying to say before I did. I also owe a tremendous debt to my literary agent, Rafe Sagalyn, who believed in this project from the beginning and was utterly committed to making it a reality.

A book-in-progress is like a new member of the authors householda fussy, demanding weekend guest who never leftand my wonderful wife, Avis Collins Robinson, welcomed this interloper with unfailing patience and grace; she even came up with the title, among many other substantive contributions.

My editors at The Washington Post, Fred Hiatt and Autumn Brewington, and at the Washington Post Writers Group, Alan Shearer and Jim Hill, gave me the time and space I needed to write the book; I am in their debt. And I owe special thanks to the many distinguished scholars whose research I cite in these pages. Any errors of analysis or interpretation are mine, not theirs.

I t was one of those only-in-Washington affairs, a glittering A-list dinner in a stately mansion near Embassy Row. The hosts were one of the capitals leading power couplesthe husband a wealthy attorney who famously served as consigliere and golfing partner to presidents, the wife a social doyenne who sat on all the right committees and boards. The guest list included enough bold-faced names to fill the Washington Posts Reliable Source gossip column for a solid week. Most of the furniture had been cleared away to let people circulate, but the elegant rooms were so thick with status, ego, and ambition that it was hard to move.

Officially the dinner was to honor an aging lion of American business: the retired chief executive of the worlds biggest media and entertainment company. Owing to recent events, however, the distinguished mogul was eclipsed at his own party. An elegant businesswoman from Chicagoa stranger to most of the other guestssuddenly had become one of the capitals most important power brokers, and this exclusive soiree was serving as her unofficial debut in Washington society. The bold-faced names feigned nonchalance but were desperate to meet her. Eyes followed the womans every move; ears strained to catch her every word. She pretended not to mind being stalked from room to room by eager supplicants and would-be best friends. As the evening went on, it became apparent that while the other guests were taking her measure, she was systematically taking theirs. To every beaming, glad-handing, air-kissing approach she responded with the Mona Lisa smile of a woman not to be taken lightly.

Others there that night included a well-connected lawyer who would soon be nominated to fill a key cabinet post; the chief executive of one of the nations leading cable-television networks; the former chief executive of the mortgage industrys biggest firm; a gaggle of high-powered lawyers; a pride of investment bankers; a flight of social butterflies; and a chattering of well-known cable-television pundits, slightly hoarse and completely exhausted after spending a full year in more or less continuous yakety-yak about the presidential race. By any measure, it was a top-shelf crowd.

On any given night, of course, some gathering of the great and the good in Washington ranks above all others by virtue of exclusivity, glamour, or the number of Secret Service SUVs parked outside. What makes this one worth noting is that all the luminaries I have described are black.

The affair was held at the home of Vernon Jordan, the smooth, handsome, charismatic confidant of Democratic presidents, and his wife, Ann, an emeritus trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and a reliable presence at every significant social event in town. Known for his impeccable political instincts, Jordan had made the rare mistake of backing the wrong candidate in the 2008 primarieshis friend Hillary Clinton. There are no grudges in Vernons world, however; barely a week after the election, he was already skillfully renewing his ties with the Obama crowd.

The nominal guest of honor was Richard Parsons, the former CEO of Time Warner Inc. Months earlier, he had relinquished his corner office on Columbus Circle to tend the Tuscan vineyard that friends said was the favorite of his residences.

The woman who stole the show was Valerie Jarrett, one of Obamas best friends and most trusted advisers. A powerful figure in the Chicago business community, Jarrett was unknown in Washington until Obama made his out-of-nowhere run to capture the Democratic nomination and then the presidency. Suddenly she was the most talked-about and sought-after woman in town. Everyone understood that she would be sitting on the mother lode of the capitals rarest and most precious asset: access to the president of the United States.

Others sidling up to the buffet included Eric Holder, soon to be nominated as the nations first black attorney general, and his wife, Sharon Malone, a prominent obstetrician; Debra Lee, the longtime chief of Black Entertainment Television and one of the most powerful women in the entertainment industry; Franklin Raines, the former CEO of Fannie Mae, a central and controversial figure in the financial crisis that had begun to roil markets around the globe; and cable-news regulars Donna Brazile and Soledad OBrien from CNN, Juan Williams from Fox News Channel, and, well, me from MSNBCall of us having talked so much during the long campaign that we were sick of hearing our own voices.

The glittering scene wasnt at all what most people have in mind when they talk about black Americawhich is one reason why so much of what people say about black America makes so little sense. The fact is that asking what something called black America thinks, feels, or wants makes as much sense as commissioning a new Gallup poll of the Ottoman Empire. Black America, as we knew it, is history.

* * *

There was a time when there were agreed-upon black leaders, when there was a clear black agenda, when we could talk confidently about the state of black Americabut not anymore. Not after decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and urban decay; not after globalization decimated the working class and trickle-down economics sorted the nation into winners and losers; not after the biggest wave of black immigration from Africa and the Caribbean since slavery; not after most people ceased to noticemuch less carewhen a black man and a white woman walked down the street hand in hand. These are among the forces and trends that have had the unintended consequence of tearing black America to pieces.