Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Time 0:34:11
Racial Politics of Back to the Future
- The movie ‘Back to the Future’ portrays the 1980s Hill Valley as degraded compared to the pristine 1950s.
- This aligns with the real-world wave of black mayors in the 1970s during urban fiscal crises, where black leadership was wrongly blamed for pre-existing economic decline due to factors like deindustrialization and wealth migration to the suburbs.
- In the film, the clock tower, a symbol of justice in the 1950s, is depicted as the Department of Social Services in the 1980s under black mayor Goldie Wilson, implying a shift towards welfare politics blamed on black political rule.
- Wilson’s platform mirrors the white mayor’s from the 1950s, emphasizing ‘progress’, but is presented negatively in the 1980s context. Transcript: Jon Shelton I just wanted to give this kind of shout out. Frank Capello We’ll link to it in the description of the podcast. Jon Shelton Yeah, awesome. Awesome. One of the things that he noticed, and I don’t know if y’all noticed this, but this is amazing. In the 1950s, the clock tower is connected. It’s the courthouse, right? Which is this symbol of, this video I was watching pointing this out, that it’s the symbol of justice and everything. It’s the Department of Social Services in the 1980s, right? And so there’s this sense that black political power led by this mayor, Goldie Wilson, who, by the way, if you notice, he trumpets the exact same policy platform as the white mayor in The 1950s. Progress is his middle name, right? That it’s become this degraded place where welfare politics are siphoning off the resources of the citizens of Hill Valley because of black political rule. And now this is stuff I’m adding to this kind of conversation from my own research on the 1970s from my first book, actually. There’s a wave of black mayors in the 1970s in a lot of American cities, right? People like Kenneth Gibson in Newark, Coleman Young in Detroit, Maynard Jackson in Atlanta. And they become mayors in these cities right when these cities start to undergo fiscal crises because all the wealth is being taken out of the cities and taken to the suburbs. And you’ve got deindustrialization happening where corporations are saying like, we can get cheaper labor elsewhere. And these cities all have fiscal crises.
Time 0:35:12
Black Mayors and Fiscal Crises
- In the 1970s, many American cities elected Black mayors for the first time.
- This coincided with fiscal crises as wealth moved to suburbs and corporations sought cheaper labor elsewhere, leading to deindustrialization.
- These two events are often equated, contributing to the negative perception of cities under Black leadership.
- This dynamic is reflected in the portrayal of Hill Valley in “Back to the Future.”
- This highlights the historical context of economic decline and the challenges faced by Black mayors in that era.
- The economic stagnation and inflation of the time exacerbated these problems as tax receipts went down and municipal budgets faced cuts. Transcript: Jon Shelton There’s a wave of black mayors in the 1970s in a lot of American cities, right? People like Kenneth Gibson in Newark, Coleman Young in Detroit, Maynard Jackson in Atlanta. And they become mayors in these cities right when these cities start to undergo fiscal crises because all the wealth is being taken out of the cities and taken to the suburbs. And you’ve got deindustrialization happening where corporations are saying like, we can get cheaper labor elsewhere. And these cities all have fiscal crises. And it’s the exact moment that black mayors take control that all of a sudden they start facing all of these like, you know, these sort of significant problems that are that are seen as Degrading the cities. And those two things are equated with each other. That is a huge part of the portrait of this version of the 1980s with this black mayor. And it is so important for us to recognize that. Frank Capello That is such a good point. And can I ask you, in your research, did the did the rise of like black elected officials in the 70s? Did that coincide with sort of the white flight that had happened in the preceding decades? Was it just more? Was it like the demographics of these cities were changing and politics like the politics of the 60s were getting more progressive? So it created more space for black elected officials? Like what would you attribute that specific dynamic change to? Jon Shelton Yeah, it’s both things. So yes, it’s in the 60s. It’s the growth of Black political power. So like in Newark, for example, and I write about this in my first book, that Kenneth Gibson is elected by, you know, this group of civil rights activists that’s led by, I don’t know if Y’all know this person, but this poet named Amiri Baraka, who has had some movie roles, most famously in Bulworth, actually. But they’re elected by civil rights activists. And so it’s this great moment, but it corresponds with these political economic changes that are happening in the country, right? Where really starting in the 60s, you’ve got greater demands for social services, in part led by welfare rights activists. But again, you also have corporations moving from cities like New York City. The garment industry practically goes under in the 1960s and 70s in New York because they’re like, our labor costs are too high. We’ve got to find cheaper costs of labor. And then you add to that the inflation that happens in the decade and economic stagnation. Economists literally thought those two things couldn’t happen at the same time, right? Economic decline and inflation.