Malveaux, Julianne 1953–

views updated Jun 27 2018

Julianne Malveaux 1953–

Economist, activist, author

Julianne Malveaux is a respected economist and writer who is known as an authority on politics, economics, gender, race, national affairs, and the workplace. As a scholar, Malveaux has researched and taught economics, public policy, and African-American studies at several of the premier universities in the United States, including University of California at Berkeley. She has appeared frequently on television, hosted her own radio show and her syndicated column has appeared in some 20 newspapers across the United States since 1990. A self-described “poet/writer/economist,” Malveaux’s academic training may be in economics, but she has explored some of contemporary American culture’s most complex issues in her writings.

Malveaux was born September 22, 1953 in San Francisco, California, the oldest of five children of Paul Warren Malveaux, a realtor, and Proteone Alexandria Malveaux, a social worker. Malveaux began writing poetry at age 16, and continues to keep a journal. She was first published in the late 1960s, in the Journal of Black Poetry. After studying economics and earning both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston College, Malveaux earned her doctorate in the field from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980. She has remained in academia, teaching economics, public policy, and African-American studies classes and doing research on the labor market and public policy at the New School for Social Research in New York City, San Francisco State University, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Malveaux began writing a weekly column for the San Francisco Sun Reporter in 1981. Her column has been syndicated by King Features, and she regularly contributed to USA Today, Ms., Essence, Emerge, Black Enterprise, Working Woman, and Black Scholar, as well as other newspapers and journals. She hosted a weekly New York City radio show, called Julianne Malveaux’s Capitol Report, and has been a commentator or guest expert on such television talk shows as ABC’s Politically Incorrect, PBS’s To the Contrary and Lehrer News Hour, and on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and CNBC. As president and CEO of Last Word Productions, a multi-media production company, Malveaux has produced public affairs radio and television programs both nationally and in Washington, D.C., where she has lived since 1994.

Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist, the first of Malveaux’s two “Mad Economist” books, was published in 1994. The writer collected her published columns to investigate relationships between sex and politics, economics and race. What set Malveaux’s writing apart, and “not the ramblings of an angry black woman,” according to a review of the book in Publisher’s Weekly, is her use of real people, real situations to illustrate her criticisms. To illustrate her point that the failure of inner-city schools is the fault of misappropriated fiscal priorities, Malveaux tells the story of her own friend, a teacher, who is burned out by a low salary, job instability, and disinterested students. Malveaux maintained the same illustrative quality throughout the work, while tackling the issues of homelessness, NAFTA, conservatism, welfare reform, Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, and multicultural programs. She approached the problems

At a Glance…

Born Julianne Marie Malveaux September 22, 1953 in San Francisco, CA; daughter of Paul Warren Malveaux (a realtor) and Proteone Alexandria Malveaux (a social worker). Education: Boston College, B.A., 1974, M.A., 1975; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D., 1980.

Career: WFAA-TV, Dallas, media intern, summer, 1975; White House Council of Economic Advisers, Washington, D.C., junior staff economist, 1977–78; Rockefeller Foundation, New York City, research fellow, 1978–80; New School for Social Research, assistant professor of economics, 1980–81; San Francisco Sun Reporter, weekly columnist, 1981–; San Francisco State University, assistant professor of economics, 1981–85; contributing editor, Essence, 1984–; University of California, Berkeley, research associate, 1985–, also visiting professor. Guest columnist for USA Today. Contributor of more than one hundred articles to magazines, including Essence, Black Enterprise, Working Woman, and Black Scholar.

Member: Board of directors of National Child Labor Committee; American Economic Association, National Economic Association, Bay Area Association of Black Journalists, Delta Sigma Theta.

Addresses: Office —Last Word Productions, Inc., 1422 K Street NW, Ste. 198, Washington, DC 20005.

of AIDS to recycling to racial solidarity from a primarily economic perspective. With Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes, wrote the Publisher’s Weekly critic, Malveaux makes “a strong argument” that the American struggles over race and gender are based in economics.

Critic Mary A. Kane noted in the Progressive that Malveaux can be absolutely unpredictable when she takes a stance on an issue. “Woe unto those who get their exercise leaping to conclusions about where Malveaux will come down on an issue,” the critic wrote. Many may determine that Malveaux’s voice is less feminist and more African-American, but Malveaux demonstrated in the book that she is equally critical of middle-class blacks as she is of middle-class whites. Malveaux criticized both conservatives and liberals for their lack of understanding that “the real issue is economics,” she wrote in Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes. “Too many analysts are caught in the sex, lies, and stereotypes of the media to make public policy.” Always backed by hard data, the highly informed Malveaux demonstrated that she is always prepared to take on any opponent who dares speak publicly without supporting facts. Malveaux also is co-author of Black Women in the Labor Force and co-editor of Slipping through the Cracks: The Status of Black Women.

In 1999 the stock market was high and unemployment was at an all-time low in the United States, but Malveaux was keenly aware that there were losers within the flush economy. In her second published collection of her columns, these from 1994 to 1998, titled Wall Street, Main Street, and the Side Street: a Mad Economist Takes a Stroll, Malveaux explored the status of women and people of color in foreign policy and in the workplace. In the book’s introduction, she wrote, “Some days I want to scream at… the way the rich get richer, the poor, poorer, and the rest of us more complacent.” According to Essence critic Martha Southgate, Malveaux “tells it like she see it” and encourages readers to “think hard about those who have and those who don’t.”

Malveaux also contributed her time and expertise to a number of civic, civil rights, political, and women’s organizations. She is a member of the board of directors of the National Child Labor Committee, American Economic Association, National Economic Association, Bay Area Association of Black Journalists, and Delta Sigma Theta.

While she is both an analyst and commentator on the issue of economics and how it plays into gender and race, Malveaux is also an impassioned activist who becomes infuriated by her need to see a change. “Not only is the pace of social change exceedingly slow, but the backlash in terms of the new racism, sexism, and classism are incredibly frustrating,” she told Contemporary Authors. While Malveaux often struggles to balance her own roles as economist, writer, and activist, she keeps an inspired role model in mind. When she gets overwhelmed, she thinks of the work of scholar, activist, and writer W.E.B. Du Bois. In 2001 Malveaux was working on a set of essays on progressive coalitions and a novel tentatively titled, Other People’s Things.

Selected works

(With Phyllis A. Wallace and Linda P. Datcher) Black Women in the Labor Force, MIT Press, 1980.

(Co-editor with Margaret Simms) Slipping through the Cracks: The Status of Black Women, Transaction Books, 1986.

Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist, Pines Ones, 1994.

Wall Street, Main Street, and the Side Street: a Mad Economist Takes a Stroll, Pines Ones, 1999.

No Images: Contemporary Black Women in the Workplace.

Sources

Books

Malveaux, Julianne, Wall Street, Main Street, and the Side Street: a Mad Economist Takes a Stroll, Pines Ones, 1999.

Smith, Jessie Carney, editor, Notable Black American Women, Gale Research, 1999.

Periodicals

Essence, August 1999, p. 66.

Publishers Weekly, August 8, 1994, p. 418.

Progressive, October 1994, p. 52.

Online

Contemporary Authors Online, The Gale Group, 2001. (November 7, 2001).

Campaign for America’s Future, http://www.ourfuture.org/speakers/speaker.asp?ID=132

Julianne Malveaux Homepage, http://www.juliannemalveaux.com (November 7, 2001).

—Brenna Sanchez

Contemporary Black Biography Sanchez, Brenna

Malveaux, Julianne

views updated May 21 2018

Julianne Malveaux

1953—

Economist, writer, activist

Julianne Malveaux is a highly respected economist whose works explore some of the most complex issues facing American culture. She has appeared often on radio and television to discuss public policy, labor issues, gender and race relations, and the economy. Known as something of a firebrand, Malveaux has on more than one occasion courted controversy while getting her point across. Following the events of September 11, 2001, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Malveaux began exploring more deeply the role of minorities in an imperial nation. In 2005 she took part in the Millions More Movement—along with other black American luminaries, including filmmaker Spike Lee, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and hip-hop music producer Russell Simmons—to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March and bring awareness to continuing high rates of poverty among African Americans. In 2007 her career took an unexpected turn when she was offered, and accepted, the position of president of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Malveaux was born September 22, 1953, in San Francisco, California, the oldest of five children of Paul Warren Malveaux, a real estate agent, and Proteone Alexandria Malveaux, a social worker. Malveaux began writing poetry at age sixteen, and her first works were published in the late 1960s in the Journal of Black Poetry. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Boston College, Malveaux earned a doctorate in the field from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980. She remained in academia, teaching economics, public policy, and African-American studies at the New School for Social Research in New York City, San Francisco State University, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Malveaux began writing a weekly column for the San Francisco Sun Reporter in 1981. The column was syndicated by King Features, and she regularly contributed to Essence, Ms. Magazine, and USA Today, as well as other newspapers and journals. She hosted Julianne Malveaux's Capitol Report, a weekly radio show in New York City, and has been a commentator on such television talk shows as PBS's To the Contrary and Lehrer News Hour, as well as on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Fox News, and CNBC. As president and chief executive officer of Last Word Productions, a multimedia production company, Malveaux produced public affairs radio and television programs both nationally and in Washington, DC.

Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist, the first of Malveaux's two "Mad Economist" books, was published in 1994. The volume presents a collection of Malveaux's columns investigating the relationships between sex, politics, economics, and race. What set Malveaux's writing apart was her use of real people and real situations to illustrate her criticisms. When she argued that the failure of innercity schools is the fault of misappropriated fiscal priorities, Malveaux told the story of her own friend, a teacher, who was burned out by a low salary, job instability, and disinterested students. Malveaux tackled such issues as homelessness, NAFTA, conservatism, welfare reform, and multicultural programs. Her ap- proach to social problems ranging from AIDS to recycling to racial solidarity was from a primarily economic perspective.

Reviewing Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes in the Progressive, Mary A. Kane noted that Malveaux can be absolutely unpredictable when she takes a stance on an issue. "Woe unto those who get their exercise leaping to conclusions about where Malveaux will come down on an issue," the critic wrote. Malveaux criticized both conservatives and liberals for their lack of understanding that "the real issue is economics": "Too many analysts are caught in the sex, lies, and stereotypes of the media to make public policy."

In 1999 the stock market was high and unemployment was at an all-time low in the United States, but Malveaux was keenly aware that there were still economic losers within the flush economy. In her second collection of columns, those published from 1994 to 1998, titled Wall Street, Main Street, and the Side Street: A Mad Economist Takes a Stroll, Malveaux explored the status of women and people of color in foreign policy and in the workplace. In the introduction to the book she wrote, "Some days I want to scream at … the way the rich get richer, the poor, poorer, and the rest of us more complacent." In Essence critic Martha Southgate commented that Malveaux "tells it like she sees it" and encourages readers to "think hard about those who have and those who don't."

On occasion Malveaux's views have elicited vehement reactions from political conservatives. When eventual Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, Malveaux outraged his supporters by calling him "an absolutely reprehensible person" on a PBS talk show in 1994 and maintaining that she hoped his wife's cooking would lead him to have a diet-induced heart attack. A decade later, in 2005, Malveaux again drew the scorn of the political right when she declared on a politically themed radio program that, regarding the U.S. war in Iraq and accusations of abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prisoner of war camp, the United States is a "terrorist nation" and said of President George W. Bush, "He is a terrorist. He is evil. He is arrogant. And he is out of control."

Some observers were surprised when, in 2007, Malveaux accepted an offer to serve as president of Bennett College for Women, taking over for the departing Dr. Johnnetta Cole, who is credited with bringing the college back into financial solvency after some precarious financial times. Malveaux's lack of administrative experience was considered by some to be a drawback despite her strong background in economics, but Howard University department of economics chair William Spriggs noted, "I think that because she comes from a different background she will approach [the presidency] with a ‘let's get it done’ attitude. She won't have the patience to do things at a slower pace, and I think this is a plus."

At a Glance …

Born Julianne Marie Malveaux on September 22, 1953, in San Francisco, CA; daughter of Paul Warren Malveaux (a real estate agent) and Proteone Alexandria Malveaux (a social worker). Education: Boston College, BA, 1974, MA, 1975; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD, 1980.

Career: WFAA-TV, media intern, summer, 1975; White House Council of Economic Advisers, junior staff economist, 1977-78; Rockefeller Foundation, research fellow, 1978-80; New School for Social Research, assistant professor of economics, 1980-81; San Francisco Sun Reporter, columnist, 1981-; San Francisco State University, assistant professor of economics, 1981-85; University of California, Berkeley, research associate, 1985-, also visiting professor; president and CEO, Last Word Productions; president, Bennett College for Women, 2007-. Contributor of articles to newspapers and magazines, including and Black Enterprise, Essence, Ms. Magazine, USA Today, and Working Woman.

Memberships: Board of directors of the Economic Policy Institute, the Recreation Wish List Committee, and the Liberian Education Trust.

Awards: Honorary degrees from Sojourner Douglas College, Baltimore, MD, and Benedict College, Columbia, SC.

Addresses: Office—President's Office, Bennett College for Women, 900 East Washington St., Greensboro, NC 27401.

While she is both an analyst and commentator on the issue of economics and how it is affected by gender and race, Malveaux is also an activist who passionately desires change. "Not only is the pace of social change exceedingly slow, but the backlash in terms of the new racism, sexism, and classism are incredibly frustrating," she told Contemporary Authors. Because of her impatience with the status quo, Malveaux has been involved with numerous social, civic, and economics groups as a board member and lecturer. As of mid-2008 she had given up the presidency of the multimedia company she founded, Last Word Productions, and was developing a public affairs program for PBS.