The Journal's Color-Blindness on Poverty
Today, the Wall Street Journal ran the tenth article in its series on “Poverty: The Search for New Solutions” – this one focusing on what appear to be significant gains in the United Kingdom in reducing poverty. In reading the piece, which attributes the improvements to adoption of a minimum wage and tax credits for the working poor similar to those in the U.S., I expected to find some analysis of the racial composition of poverty in Great Britain along with a discussion of the degree to which minority groups are residentially isolated from whites there compared to here. But race isn’t mentioned at all (though there is an on-line graph showing that the percentage of whites who are in the lowest income quintile is substantially below the level for various other ethnic groups).
Then I went back and looked at the other nine articles in the series to find that only two of them even mention race. One focuses on Wade Horn’s marriage-promotion charade. The other, titled “In Poverty, An Old Debate: Who is At Fault?,” includes only a single reference to race: “If liberal Michael Harrington's ‘The Other America’ had been the defining text for the 1960s, then Mr. Murray's 1984 ‘Losing Ground’ sought to play that role in the 1980s. Assailing the programs of the 1960s as failures, he argued that welfare gave poor people, particularly inner-city blacks, incentives to shun work and marriage.” But that’s it.
And that’s nuts, because “searching for solutions” is sure to be a futile exercise if racial differences are presumed to be unconnected to the persistence of poverty here and in other countries. The vast majority of residential neighborhoods and public schools are enormously homogeneous by race, and those that are predominantly black and Hispanic have much higher poverty levels than those that are mainly white. Ignoring that central fact is like trying to eliminate skin cancer while pretending the sun doesn’t exist.
Maybe the Journal decided against raising the subject because it seems hopeless to try to do anything about racial isolation and wide economic disparities tied to ethnicity. I personally think that’s wrong, though fully recognize the political obstacles to policies like mixed-income housing and public school choice aimed at promoting socio-economic diversity (particularly if the Supreme Court rules out race in the pending Seattle and Louisville cases). But if you’re going to publish a 10-part series on poverty, whether in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world, every single article should confront the impact of race.
I disagree. Mentioned, yes. But in every single article? This is giving race too big of a role in poverty.
Of course I'm not denying that skin color is corallated with poverty.
This does not, however, prove causation. Other factors- social isolation and recent immigration, for example, are much more powerful indicators. This is why you're likely to find similiar problems in, for example, the Chicago African-American inner-city, Texan Hispanic conclaves, and remote Applachian hollows- all of whom have very different cultural traditions and physical appearances.
Some of the 'cures' you've mentioned, like mixed-income housing, combat the problem no matter which way you approach it. But to find really effective solutions, we need to be clear about the problem, which is much deeper then race.
December 22, 2006 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
"And that’s nuts, because “searching for solutions” is sure to be a futile exercise if racial differences are presumed to be unconnected to the persistence of poverty here and in other countries. The vast majority of residential neighborhoods and public schools are enormously homogeneous by race, and those that are predominantly black and Hispanic have much higher poverty levels than those that are mainly white. Ignoring that central fact is like trying to eliminate skin cancer while pretending the sun doesn’t exist."
Yes. The depth of this type of denial is incredible.
"Maybe the Journal decided against raising the subject because it seems hopeless to try to do anything about racial isolation and wide economic disparities tied to ethnicity."
I think it is more likely that they skewed the article based on the demographics of their readership.
December 22, 2006 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"This does not, however, prove causation. Other factors- social isolation and recent immigration, for example, are much more powerful indicators."
Blacks did not immigrate to America and they are the largest racial group disproportionately impoverished in America for over a half century. Immigrants do well in America as they displace blacks when it comes to employment and they also are able to take advantage of affirmative action laws, as if they were the citizens the laws were written to apply to. Immigration is not a powerful indicator of poverty. It tends to be a transient variable. If race was not the primary factor, black Americas should have been able to move up out of poverty just as all other immigrates did in America and not remain persistently impoverished.
December 22, 2006 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may be overlooking a very important reason why race should not be a part of any American poverty abatement policies. Racially based affirmative action is widely believed to be unconstitutional, because it is race based. If instead affirmative action programs based solely upon economic class are instituted, the argument is mooted.
It is a much fairer means of providing government aid, and persons who vocally oppose it, basing their opposition on equal protection/application, run a great risk of being skewered as an aristocratic elitist.
December 22, 2006 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glissade, I think another factor is that it simply makes people, including liberals, incredibly uncomfortable to talk about race. The editors of the Journal -- and this is their highly respectable news side, not their nutty editorialists --probably at some level were fearful of opening the can of worms involved in looking at why race and poverty are intertwined. The whole subject is difficult to broach because it elicits strong emotional responses in people. So they, and really much of the country, try as best we can to ignore it. But it's the heart of the matter, no way around it. --Greg
December 23, 2006 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a not-impoverished African-American, I reflect on two recent incidents. In Hilton Head, by brother in-law and I walked into a watch shop looking for a Christmas gift for my sister. The Swedish (according to publications profiling his expertise)proprietor completely ignored us. We left monetary funds intact. Travelling through the airport in Little Rock with 4 large bags, I noticed that the group in front of me had a large package on a luggage cart. I saw a row of empty luggage carts, grabbed one and proceeded to place my bags on them. Several minutes later, a stocky Caucasian TSA agent stands in front of the cart and forcefully states. "You have to take those bags off the cart. That's my cart. It'a federal cart!". I told him about my observation that the group in front of me had placed items on a luggae cart. He said, he didn't care. That cart wasn't his cart. The Caucasian woman in the group with the cart helpfully added with a smile, "This is a 100 pound box". Assessing the IQ of the TSA agent, I removed the bags. The gentleman behind me and I shared a laugh: "He didn't even say Please or Merry Christmas."
I relate these two stories because I don't think the watch store proprietor would have ignored us if we were not Black. The TSA agent may have taken a different approach if I had been White.
The new status quo appears to be that we can't talk about race. Caucasians seem to argue that we have had all the racial discussions that we need to have. They want to move to something else. Blacks must have a problem if they want to continue to discuss race. Blacks shouldn't dwell on race.
I sensed something just not quite right about the above situations. I can feel good about realizing that I hadn't spent a ton of money with a horses behind and that the TSA agent/glorified bag loader had reached his full potential in life. I have to believe that impoverished African-Americans feel pressures and obstacles, that I cannot fully appreciate. Factors such as approaches to law enforcement, who goes to jail for a given crime, which child is a problem child requiring medication, what medical procedures are offered are all affected by race/ethnicity. But let's not talk about this type of influence.
Remember the prolonged discussions and TV programming about the White missing teen in Aruba or Laci Peterson. Does anybody remember the name of the bridegroom to be shot by undercover officers in NYC. How long did the discussion continue about his case?
Affirmative action is considered to be an American abomination that has to be destroyed. At the same time, the country is being led by a Caucasian legacy student who is the personification of the Peter Principle. No great outcry to end legacy programs because they are taking college places away from more deserving students. I wonder why?
If Whites feel tire of hearing about race, I am sure there are many Blacks tired of being told that they are experiencing a hallucination.
December 23, 2006 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure if you understand what I was proposing; a strategy to alleviate poverty through implementation of affirmative action programs without exposing them to the criticisms and constitutional challenges that they facially violate the equal-protection clause because they are race based. I am well aware of the different standards humans often use in their interpersonal relationships, which are race-based. It is often a source of sadness and disillusionment, as I was once a young fool who believed that distinctions based upon colour of skin was a societal evil soon to end. One positive from this is that as I've aged, I've learned that my upbringing was unusual, and because of that, am more appreciative of my parents.
Still, if the stated problem is poverty, it is best that policies instituted to rectify it are based solely upon the criterion of financial status. The population of persons within its scope would still largely be the same. Although within the concept of property rights, there exists a large degree of constitutional protection for personal wealth, it is not protected constitutionally under the due process clause, and anyone who would try to expand the constitution's protections by advancing the argument, would rightfully be exposed to derisive commentary that their aristocratical inbreeding had evolved to the point of it being self-evident, because double recessive genes were physically expressed in their slack jaws, dim eyes, and blue flowing blood.
December 23, 2006 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jonathan Kozol, the integrationist education writer, says that what he oftens hears from liberals regarding integrated education is something to the effect of "we've tried that and it didn't work". It would follow, then, that liberals are uncomfortable talking about race in most situations.
This country had race based concepts written into the Constitution in addition to many other race laws of various kinds over three centuries. But let someone try use the law to correct some of these bedrock injustices and the idea's scorned for being "based on race".
Many Americans don't want to know or admit that it was our scientists, writing to justify Jim Crow, that provided the Nazis with the basic ideas to formulate their racist ideology.
Before anyone looks down on the Germans for the Holocaust, one should look to his own house.
It's unfortunate for all Americans that most whites prefer to continue past traditions of segregation rather than confront the problem. Many people strain themselves and their resources beyound what should be necessary in order to live in the right neighborhoods and/or school districts. Think what flexibility people would have if they didn't have those concerns about where to live and where their children go to school.
One more point: Brown vs Board of Ed stated that the reason segregation was wrong, was not that the separate facilities were unequal, but because blacks were denied a place in the dominant culture.
December 23, 2006 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
This sounds so nice and logical but the reality varies significantly and the impact of that variance is such that those who need the program most benefit least, when non-specific criterion are used, such as financial status.
Take affirmative action, for example. That program was defined upon the criterion of 'minority'. Now who are the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action policies? White women, Asian women, any immigrant off the boat from Korean, Pakistan, India, Somalia, Nigeria are all included under the term minority and are the primary beneficiaries of the policy? Not black Americans who fought and died for the right to gain a foothold in the capitalistic society of American and spent decades working to have such a bill.
Moreover , whenever, the word affirmative action is brought up white Americans, think it is a program to give blacks some type of unmerited 'advantage' over them. They never ever seem to recall all the white females, koreans, native americans, somalians, asians, pakistanians, india folks they have allowed to benefit from affirmative action.
Worst of all, is the fact that blacks are continually referred to as being a 'disadvantaged' group even though whites deny disparity based on race, just like this WSJ article on poverty. Yet, they never stop to ask , if blacks are the disadvantaged group...then who are the 'advantaged'...because there HAS to be an advantaged group. Hell-o!..
Whites are advantaged and enjoy the privilege to such an extent that it's never ever acknowledge as 'white privilege' while continually denouncing clear disparity on the basis of race, such as poverty.
December 23, 2006 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some feel that using race places a stigma on minority group members. Others feel, as I do, that it is precisely because race is not discussed that a feeling of racial superiority exists. In a post related to another topic I posited that there is an active affirmative action plan for White conservatives. How else can one explain GW Bush? A legacy student with poor verbal skills has become the President of the United States. Would Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice have been allowed to achieve their positions if they possessed the same verbal skills? Would an intellectual idiot like Glenn Beck be allowed on CNN-HNN if he were Black?
Would a Black owned business in charge of a multi-million dollar ripofff, like Haliburton, not have been investigated in detail regardless of party affiliation?
It is precisely because the presumed superiority myth is allowed to persist in multiple subtle ways that minorities are stigmatized. Not talking about race allows those who will always make a racial differentiation to succeed.
We see a repeat cycle of White MSM reporters who have gotten multiple facts and prognostications concerning Iraq, the election and a variety of other topics wrong to continue to be viewed as experts. This occurs despite the fact that multiple minority columnists expressed concern about a war in Iraq, predicted a change was coming at election time, etc. This pattern of racial preference must stop.
We hear from Whites who feel slighted by racial preferences. We never here from the many minorities who can tell stories of less intellectually gifted Whites who they trained for a position, passing them by on the promotion list. The NFL had a long history of not interviewing minority coaches when coaching jobs opened up. When NFL teams were directed to interview minority coaches to provide a more level playing field for coaching prospects, lo and behold, qualified candidates were found. The conservative view will always be
that the proper business response is to wait and eventually the market will correct for this coaching imbalance. Conservatives will also argue that the "forced minority interview" approach unfairly takes jobs from deserving Whites. Are these minority coaches stigmatized?
All the way to the bank.
The stigma is allowed to continue precisely because there is no strong pushback to the charge.
December 24, 2006 5:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Glissade, I think another factor is that it simply makes people, including liberals, incredibly uncomfortable to talk about race. "
OK,this may be. Then, what happens to this incredible uncomfortability when it comes to punitive acts driven by racial bias? You know like the mandatory sentencing laws for crack or the huge racial disparity in penal instiutions, the police firing 50 bullets into black suspects or life sentences for teen age boys with no prior arrests? These type of punitive policies encompass 4-5 pages or month long series where the discussion focuses in with laser like precise referencing every single racial disparity stat available to emphasize that these are issues of race.
It appears that dialogue is only limited when the nature of the discussion is to resolve issues or to engage in in-depth analysis and acknowledge that race is the over riding factor that should be the focus for new policies to rectify the issue. No such uncomfortability limits vituperative statements on race, though whether it is housing, education, sexual mores or even crime statistics.
"The editors of the Journal -- and this is their highly respectable news side, not their nutty editorialists --probably at some level were fearful of opening the can of worms involved in looking at why race and poverty are intertwined"
Ok. Where is that fear when it comes to racial profiling or sentencing guidelines or even employment practices? Where is that fear when it comes to building tenement slums or public transportation? Freeways are built around urban areas, the poor are housed in ghettos and the penal instituiton is an industrial complex filled with primarily black males that are 'unemployable'. The fear, you refer to, does not exist or is 'manageable' when it comes to enhancing the capitalistic greed of the newside of WSJ and the readership it serves. That fear only seems to blind them to racial based policies to solve problems not profiteering based on race.
"The whole subject is difficult to broach because it elicits strong emotional responses in people."
Revenue and profits are often emotional subjects when it comes to exclusionary practices to enhance the wealth of certain groups by discriminating and limiting the opportunity for economic access for others on the basis of race. Quite difficult to broach. The more you keep certain groups unemployed the more likely they are to enlist in the armed services and give their lives for the capitalistic greed of corporate global resource raiders...like blood diamonds, and drug cartels and the oil cabal along with the defense contractors like Haliburton. Certain racial groups are needed as a 'surplus' employment pool for further the wealth of those who are already rich.
I very much agree that race is the heart of the matter,no two ways about it.
December 24, 2006 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
During the season when good will to all is being expressed. I hope my comments were taken in the manner they were being expressed. Suppression of discussions of race does not lead to eradication of problems within a racial group. Cleansing race from consideration is a conservative ploy that we cannot allow. If most people on welfare in the US are White and a program (educational or employment)is found to be beneficial to a significant number of welfare recipients, it does not follow that minority poor benefitted. That is the core problem with the absence of race specific data.
Secondly, most racial discussions here have led to mostly silence. If there is a problem discussing race on a site that is anonymous, what is going on in the day to day lives of US citizens. I suspect that there is a great deal of anger and misunderstanding on all sides. Talking about race, as painful as it may be is the only solution. I tried to be as provocative as I could to draw people out by providing a different point of view on observations I see in daily life.
None of the points I made such as why conservatives aren't stigmatized bcause of their totally irrational beliefs regarding stem cells, global warming, Michael J Fox's jerking motions as an "act" and not a known response to Parkinson's therapy, not knowing when a brain image reveals massve loss of brain tissue and clinical testing indicates brain death has occurred, and a whole host of other topics will ever see light of day in MSM.
Until it becomes commonplace for people to feel: "You can't expect that much from him, he's a White conservative", and legacy programs undergo Constitutional review, I won't feel that the required degree of racial balance has come into place.
Have a happy holiday (aww....the heck with it. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year :)
December 24, 2006 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Merry Christmas to you too, rmrd000. Personally, I find the silence you speak of disconcerting. But if I look back to my own civil rights movement activism, I must say that there was amazing progress made between 1960, when I was canvassing neighborhood in Compton trying to help whites to understand the dynamics of "blockbusting" and prevent it, and today. Nevertheless, there is a long road ahead to reach the plateau of equality for all in the US. This means that the national dialog on race must continue. I'm very happy to see you raise this point about silence.
Neoboho
December 24, 2006 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your comments, neoboho. Talk to you in the new year.
December 24, 2006 11:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry you had those experiences and that you felt they related to race. I'm not sure they did. I am white and 58 years old; I have a non-flashy, non-demanding appearance, I am sure and I have had experiences being ignored in jewelry stores. If someone came in dressed like Paris Hilton and had more credit card debt than she could ever pay off, the store clerk would pay attention to her whereas I have a nice financial position and would not even go into that store if I didn't intend to buy something. Go figure.
The guy at the airport was just a rude jerk. If those were his carts and he makes his living off the tips or whatever, he could have told you in a nice way and gotten a tip.
I don't think the Laci Peterson family or the Natalee Holloway family were better off for all that publicity; I think they were used. A better contrast is the death of Rachel Corrie by Israeli bulldozer. I don't think I ever heard that mentioned on TV except on C-SPAN. The only time one of her family got on TV that I know of is when her aunt got through on a C-SPAN call-in.
December 25, 2006 6:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
"If there is a problem discussing race on a site that is anonymous, what is going on in the day to day lives of US citizens. I suspect that there is a great deal of anger and misunderstanding on all sides. Talking about race, as painful as it may be is the only solution. I tried to be as provocative as I could to draw people out by providing a different point of view on observations I see in daily life."
I really like that you said that. Over a week ago I posted that Barack Obama would be a terrible nominee for the Democrats because all the hype surrounding him is because he is black. Boy, did I get landed on like a ton of bricks, and that word "racist" got thrown into the mix plenty. I stand by it: Barack Obama has yet to say or do anything that would make him a credible presidential candidate equal to, say, that Senator in the hospital with the brain surgery, who no one ever thought of as presidential material. Or Schumer, Leahy, Reed (RI), Levin, Durbin, etc. etc. that no one is saying should run for president.
Some people think Obama is a "magic bullet:" elect him president and it will mean there is no more racism in the US. Its not going to be like that but the slow process of education and integration and family wealth accumulation will happen.
The topic on this post is poverty and I've been watching John Edwards campaign on poverty for 4 years now. I've never seen a poll where voters say "poverty" is a top issue. I live in the Northeast where we have high state and local taxes and taxes are the dominant political issue in state and local races. A message of "I want to raise your taxes and send the money to areas of rural poverty (mainly in the South)" would cost Democrats Northeastern states, IMO.
December 25, 2006 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Karen444
Why are you assuming that I wasn't well dressed in Hilton Head?
Whatever rationale you use, Holloway, Peterson, the runaway bride, The congressional intern, etc all received extensive coverage. You may not feel they benefitted, but they do return to Larry King and others to inform us of how their respective families are coping.
You cite one woman killed in Israel who didn't get media attention to explain why there should be no concern about an unarmed person shot at 50 times or absence of Black figures from detailed news analysis of the type mentioned above. I do return to the ongoing affirmative action pass given to a mainly White MSM. Do you have this same non-questioning approach to most MSM items that you come across? Or do you believe, for example, that MSM fell down on the job in analyzing GW's administration? Does that represent a double standard?
What allowed you to form an opinion thatI must not have been dressed improperly or that the TSA guy (Who doesn't get tips by the way. He just scans and hauls luggage. He is a government employee), was just being a jerk? Can you name any in-depth news story involving a minority that apprached that of the cases above? Are you at all concerned by the complete absence of stories of missing minority women and lack of in-depth analysis of the shooting of an unarmed man? Do those fact not register any alarms?
It does become frustrating when you are repeatedly told that what you know is happening really isn't.
Tommy Bahama, Jos A Banks and Ferragamo may object to your classification of my clothing and shoes as not being up to par for a watch shop.
This is not an attack. I'm trying to understand how you could so quickly pass off my observations.
December 25, 2006 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Karen444
See my response to your initial post above
I will be away for the holidys but will hopefully view your reply on my return
December 25, 2006 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa! Where did I say you were ill-dressed? I described how I MYSELF looked and behaved in the jewelry store: non-flashy and non-demanding. I have no idea how you dressed. (I don't think Paris Hilton is well-dressed.)
Lots of people must have experiences in jewelry stores that are not very pleasant or QVC and Home Shopping Network wouldn't feature jewelry as probably the biggest part of their business. Lots of people must have had that less-than-warm reception you got and feel hurt by it so they prefer to buy through the mail. I just saw a movie called "Unconditional Love" with Kathy Bates and she is a nice late middle-aged housewife with a daughter-in-law who is a brash, demanding girl and also a dwarf. The dwarf gets served because she's demanding. Maybe if you or I had behaved like that in the jewelry story, we might have gotten served, too. (But I'm not going to do that. I have no shortage of places to buy stuff.)
God forbid something happened to someone in my family but I truly, truly doubt that I would become a regular on Larry King and Greta van Susteren. And what good did it do any of them anyway? They got book deals. In their place I'd rather have privacy. The death of Rachel Corrie was deliberately deep-sixed; her family tried to get members of Congress to speak out and no one would. An American girl killed by a bulldozer. If that had gotten the kind of attention it deserved, the American public would have called for a cut-off in all aid to Israel. If you are referring to the Sean Bell case, I have read quite a bit about it. I don't think the case has the element of mystery like Levy, Peterson, Holloway so they're not comparable. Do you think a black woman dating a Congressman and going missing wouldn't get a big play in the media? The Laci Peterson case is sui generis, IMO.
I think Bush has gotten more than a pass from the MSM; I think they've built him up and pampered him and lied for him. Why? I think historians will have a lot to write about the way Bush was treated by the media and allowed to take this nation into an invasion of Iraq.
Of course, I take your comment as an attack, though it doesn't hurt me, only puzzle me. You dismiss my own experiences going through life as though they can't be anything like your own. Do you really believe that all white people get the red carpet rolled out for them all the time? I've had PLENTY of experiences with people being strangely rude to me, for no reason, including black people. I was with my daughter at a MAC cosmetic counter in Macy's and the salesclerk was black and she ignored us for 10 minutes until we moved on. I don't hold it against all black people that one person was in a bad mood, had some grievance - maybe theres supposed to be 2 people on the counter - and took it out on us. Whatever. When I was young, I worked as a flight attendant for 6 years and one thing I learned about dealing with the public is that you have to smile at people or they take it personally; they think you don't like them. I learned that because that was how I felt when I flew as a passenger and the flight attendants didn't smile. So I worked on smiling. Another day, that MAC salesperson would be working hard to sell us those cosmetics and make my daughter feel great about how those colors looked on her; it wasn't personal.
December 25, 2006 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Condoleeza Rice, for all of the hype that surrounds her, has shown me little in her official duties as an appointee of Mr. Bush's. I am sure she possesses a very high IQ, know she was also a rising star who got picked-up as protégé by Joe Allbright, and earned her fast track to becoming a recycling corporate/bureaucrat beltway crony. Her record as a high placed wonk appointee, and schoolmarm to the intelligence brief beyond belief, has not shown me any great degree of capability though. Then again, it is impossible to transmute Crawford Cowchips into gold...
I have often commented regarding the brutal irony inherent within Bush's opposition to race-based affirmative action programs , when he was himself a recipient of affirmative action. How else does a C average HS student gain admittance into Yale. How else can one describe his post-grad admittance into Harvard's School of Business after a mediocre student history at Yale? Still your analysis is a bit skewed regarding legacy admittance programs at Ivy League Schools. Colin Powell could not take advantage of legacy preferences, because he did not have predecessors who had blazed the trail before him, and were alumni financial benefactors. Legacy Admissions at universities are no longer barred by race. At the every least, the fact that wealthy minority alumni who are generous to their former Universities can now get their dim-witted offspring into undeserved enrollment at those schools, is a very tiny shuffle forward.
There is no question the numbers of minorities able to do this presently are significantly skewed downward from what should exist. There is no question that this imbalance is resultant from previous racially prejudiced admission policies. This alone justifies race-based affirmative admissions policies by these Universities in my mind, but it is not justified in the country's collective expression. There is also a somewhat reasonable counter-argument to your claim that present day affirmative actions is a whites only fortune-fountain: Michael Powell, who Clinton appointed to the FCC Board, and Bush subsequently appointed him to be Chairman of the FCC. Powell's qualifications to be an FCC bureaucrat were not strong. His stated libertarian perspective for non-governmental interference in the business of media producers and broadcasters was exposed as a sham, suborned by political influences, in the manner he responded to Bono, Jackson and Stern.The right has been kicking the snot out of the left with their semantical dialectics for many years now, winning round after round due to the live and let live attitude of American liberals, and their incredibly naive aversion to engage in combat, even against evil descending down into their very midsts. Affirmative Action deployed as a "racial quota system" is wrong, but when Affirmative Action is a "compensatory remedy to present day injuries caused by predjudicial practises which occurred in the past, and have been substantiated factually", it is a legitimate action, well grounded in civil law's precedent. Everybody is adverse to the government "taxing death", yet almost nobody is opposed to "restricting hereditorialy based transfers of monolithic wealth", because, as Americans, we perceive aristocratical habits to be antithetical to a just society based upon the equality of all.
Racism needs to be confronted, effectively, whenever its ugly head is manifested. It is a personal target of opportunity, and I'll come slinging hard and fast, low off of my hip when this target presents itself. When the target is also a cowardly whispering racist, who carefully assures his hate is only spread behind the backs and beyond the earshots of his objects of derision, he slurs me racially as well, with the implicit assumption we share world views, only because my skin pigmentation is within the range he defines as sameness. I am not coming off half-cocked, have not filed the firing mechanism into a hair-trigger, nor do I keep a live round in the hot cylinder with the hammer locked in position. I have instead hot wired reflexes with practise, and am confident in the propriety of action by contemplation of the evil. I won't engage in looping meditative iterations of limp-wristed hand-wringing self-doubt, frozen on the tracks, as the runaway train to the Bush ancestral home in Kennwefukdapoor, Maine bears down upon me.
I am not in disagreement with much of what you say. Our disagreement stems from differences in our perceptions of effective poverty remediation policies. If poverty is the problem which needs to be addressed, then poverty should be the target, even given the direct correlation to race and poverty. Implementing policies that give preferential racial treatment, even justified as a remedy to pervasive injuries from past and present prejudices will not be accepted any time soon in America. You are right, it is the good fight to challenge the distortions of affirmative action's legitimacy, but that is a long-term goal, requiring the reversal of an almost 3 decades long right-sided tide, and I fear that poverty is on the rise in America. Methods to address your concerns regarding the lowest common denominator programs that will not help to bootstrap minorities out of poverty is to take program control away from the federal bureaucrats, and political appointees, but do not give it up to the local small-time political thugs either. Instead offer compensation at high enough levels to attract front-line employees who are both highly motivated and competent. Place control in their hands. Put achievable and generous ends-based bonuses as carrots tied to sticks in front of them, and then leave them mostly to their own ingenuity.
You seem to be aware of the racial barriers still prevalent in America, and are rationally realistic when forced to personally experience it. You surely are aware that a primary cause for the persistence of this in our society is governmental sanctioning and/or politicians emulating the three monkey ideals; by being deaf dumb and blind. Why do you believe that more government control and coercion could ever result in anything but incompetence, graft and ineptitude?
I question the validity of your portrayal of this as a [conservative{OR}liberal] position. Damn fools come in all colours, from all political parties, from all religions, from all classes, and from both genders. Still, damn fools do not come close to being a significant portion of humanity, so it is better not to prejudge.
Merry Christmas to you, and to you a good night,
as it's time to get ready for my last scheduled
Christmas commitment; dinner with close friends. (PSTime)
December 25, 2006 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al Gore's SATs were 1355; Bush's were 1206 and Bill Bradley only got a 485 on the verbal section. They went to Harvard, Yale and Princeton respectively. Would anyone who didn't have an in (even if he played basketball) get into those schools, even back in the 60's, with those scores?
December 25, 2006 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
To say that race is overplayed as a factor in poverty, in this case, is not to say that racism doesn't exist. Of course it does. And of course it's wrong. I think that all of us, at least in this virtual room, can agree on those two basic points.
I just think there becomes a time when, as a well-meaning liberal, you start to make such a strong connection between poverty and race- and let's call a spade a spade and say with blackness-that you almost validate the points of those on the other side that say that the reason more African-Americans are poor is because they're inherently inferior.
This is not only counterproductive, it's simply not true. As another commentator pointed out, many people have benefited from affirmative action. It's lifted their families out of poverty. Why do we not want to focus on that?
This is hurridely written right before quitting time, so I'll get straight to the point: Race is something to deal with- not only in economics, but politics, education, etc. It's a big factor, but it's not the only factor. And we don't do ourselves (we meaning people who want to eradicate both poverty and racism) any favors by focusing on it to such an extent that we lose sight of other factors.
December 27, 2006 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink