the Left flank

When African Americans entered the industrial economy, it was temporarily as strike breakers or to fill a shortage in labor supply during the first and second world wars. Once a strike ended or peacetime conversion generated less demand for labor, African Americans were fired. Systematic exclusion from the industrial economy remained the norm for African Americans well into the 1950, by which time the cities had already begun to shed manufacturing jobs to the suburbs, the Sunbelt and finally overseas have become increasingly obvious in inner-city communities where the illegal economy offers the most reliable employment opportunities – and in high rates of homicides.

…A long history of exclusion from the discipline of industrial labor reinforced the effects of segregation and racial oppression, producing extremely high levels of homicidal welfare.

- Sneider, Eric. The New American City Homicide in the Hood A long View: Dissent Magazine, Summer Issue 2009 (p.37)