Whatever You Say I Am_ The Life and Times of Eminem - Anthony Bozza [99]
Eminem as a teen in the car his mother gave him (1992). Proof called it “the stinkin’ Lincoln,” and it was depicted as less-than-reliable in 8 Mile
In the twenties, the largest wave of Italian and Eastern European immigrants came to America, but very few moved to Detroit. Immigration laws kept most of them out of the auto industry, leaving Southern workers to man the lines. In these years, the black majority moved into Detroit—and remained: African-Americans account for 23 percent of the city’s population today, almost double the national average.
In the 1930s Detroit redefined the life of the American worker. The establishment of auto unions to defend workers’ rights laid the groundwork for what we now call the middle class. The auto unions were well organized and became, at the time, the country’s most powerful, able to halt production at a factory successfully enough to send profits into the basement if their demands were not met. The unions broke down barriers for black workers, more out of necessity than due to any moral stance: Union leaders realized that if the black labor majority was left out of the unions, they would be called upon to replace the white workers if a strike were declared. The auto unions ensured equal pay and equal rights for black members, an unprecedented move at the time, securing Detroit the most integrated industrial workforce in the country.
During World War II, Detroit was dubbed the “Arsenal of Democracy”—its factories provided the Allies with a massive supply advantage. The war necessitated high-volume production and forced industry into the suburbs in order to churn out planes, tanks, and trucks at larger, newer factory sites. After the war, returning soldiers moved to Detroit in search of a fair, blue-collar slice of the American dream. The modern plants located in the suburbs eclipsed the older ones in the city when production reverted back to automobiles, and gradually the nexus of the industry moved out of the urban hub. The older factories, like the neighborhoods around them, began to decay.
White workers followed the newer facilities and management positions in a flight out of the city and into the outlying townships, closer to the new factories. For a while, the unions kept wage rates high and the quality of life stable for their members, but when the market began to slow with the onset of the Vietnam War in the sixties, many auto manufacturers cut costs by subcontracting work to factories in other states or overseas, out of union jurisdiction. In the 1970s, the industry took a major downturn, crushed by efficient, well-made imports from Germany and Japan, and due to an oil and gas crunch that did not bode well for gas-guzzling American luxury cars. The auto manufacturers further trimmed operating costs by automating production and eliminating employees. Automated assembly lines translated into more management positions, however, to oversee operations, while unskilled laborers, a major percentage of urban Detroit’s workforce, became unemployed. The move to automation favored white workers, who, on average, had attained a higher degree of education, and management-level jobs were more accessible to them.
These changes in the auto industry deepened the existing racial divide and doubled it along economic lines. Blacks who moved up the economic ladder encountered prejudiced opposition when they tried to move into the better, predominantly white neighborhoods. Open conflicts were common in the fifties, as black and white city neighborhoods began to overlap. Whites yielded, moving out of the city to take advantage of federal development grants, while the black