Obama, Race and Our Segregated Power Structure
People are talking about Barack Obama making history tonight.
Yet in America's long struggle for racial equality, 2007 was a paradoxical year. Just as our political system seriously contemplated a black President for the very first time, the Supreme Court declared the end of racial integration policy, halting voluntary local remedies to desegregate public schools under Brown vs. Board of Education. Presented with the rise of Barack Obama and the fall of Brown, most people have focused on the good news.
Many Americans were captivated by the self-proclaimed "audacity" of Obama's January announcement that he was running for President. Obama made it clear he was not running to send a message or to register voters but literally to get elected. His campaign initially worked because the political elites accepted this unprecedented proposition. Reporters took Obama's candidacy seriously from its inception, and the donors did, too. Obama has already secured more than a footnote in history, shattering records for individual contributors to his campaign. Win or lose, he is arguably the first black American to be treated by the political and media establishment as a fully viable presidential contender. It is an achievement that cannot be claimed by any other racial minorities. (Jesse Jackson's campaigns did not attain such standing with the political establishment, despite their significance for many voters.) We should not gloss over this development. It is a meaningful step towards addressing a resilient, uncomfortable American fact: our national power structure has always been, and stubbornly remains, overwhelmingly white, from all forty-three Presidents across history to ninety-five of the one hundred senators serving today.
That segregated power structure was reinforced by the Supreme Court's sharply divided June decision to ban integration programs in public schools. Most educational policies that consider a student's race for the purposes of integration are now illegal. Like the original Brown opinion, this year's decision is not neatly confined to K-12 schools, either. Brown consecrated a new national ambition for racial equality in the public sphere, delegitimizing both explicit and implicit racism in government, and laying a foundation for remedial measures to equalize many other facets of our society. Many critics contend that this case, Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, augurs a disturbing slide backwards. It bans integration programs, sharply restricts race-based government remedies and sets the stage for future bans on other remedial programs, such as affirmative action, as Justice Stephen Breyer warned.
But will the public really stand for this sweeping attack on Brown's legacy?
Yes. In most of the country, public opposition towards measures to remedy America's history of racial discrimination, from academic recruitment to professional affirmative action, has actually outpaced the conservative court. Even putting aside the South, generally liberal electorates--including California, Washington and Michigan--have passed state referenda completely banning affirmative action. Hostility towards affirmative action runs so deep, in fact, it is a staple of attacks against black political candidates. Senator Jesse Helms perfected coded campaign racism in 1990, with an infamous attack ad darkly juxtaposing his black opponent's face with the text "For RACIAL QUOTAS." Which brings us back to Barack Obama.
Some commentators have latched onto Obama's success as proof for the flawed claim that the United States has completely achieved equal opportunity for all, obviating remedial programs like affirmative action. "Obama embodies and preaches the true and vital message that in today's America, the opportunities available to black people are unlimited if they work hard, play by the rules, and get a good education," writes Stuart Taylor Jr., a columnist for The National Journal (emphasis added). Taylor presents one man's unusual political arc as a universal lesson for all "black children": "Obama's soaring success should tell black children everywhere that they, too, can succeed, and they do not need handouts or reparations." Obama's success is definitely inspirational, but is that because it is an average example or a remarkable exception?
As a politician, Obama is an accomplished black man who knows that some voters still see him, before all else, as "the black candidate." It seems as if commentators either fixate on how his blackness makes his candidacy historic--as I just did--or debate whether he is "black enough." Obama dutifully protests these lines of inquiry, assuring audiences that his qualifications, vision and personal experiences transcend race. This is not only true, it is a political necessity. Obama knows that he is unlikely to win as the "black candidate," let alone the "affirmative-action candidate."
Few other campaigns in recent memory have pressed meritocratic credentials as forcefully as Obama's aides. Today's candidates tend to downplay their Ivy League educations in favor of more humble qualifications. Yet it is rare to hear Obama's history discussed without a reference to Harvard, or his prestigious stint as editor-in-chief of its Law Review. Even when his campaign is not emphasizing it, reporters highlight Obama's education far more than any other candidate's. Take, for example, articles from the major newspapers about the leading Democratic candidates in the first ten months of this year's campaign. Obama's Harvard Law credentials turn up a whopping 178 times--six times the thirty Yale references for Hillary Clinton. John Edwards's law school was only mentioned once, in an article about how he met his wife.
This emphasis is vital to Obama's candidacy. He earned his past success and current prominence, in this narrative, as evidenced by his academic achievement and intelligence. The story line aims to banish the racist thought, lurking beneath our public discourse, that perhaps this candidate succeeded only because of his race. Sometimes it seeps out anyway. During a January appearance on Fox News, columnist John McWhorter offered the baseless claim that "the reason that [Obama is] considered such a big deal is simply because he's black." McWhorter implausibly continued, "If you took away the color of his skin, nobody right now would be paying him any attention."
Such baseless attacks obviously predate Barack Obama. Even the most extraordinarily successful minorities are either attacked for their achievements, or the meaning of their educational and professional advancement is contested. Like other talented, smart and successful black Americans who have broken barriers (including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice), Obama excelled in an institution that used affirmative action to propel qualified minority applicants. Having proven their mettle as leaders, it is clear each of these figures would excel without affirmative action. And no one knows how their careers would have developed in a society without remedial measures for discrimination. Yet their paths show how the United States has benefited from applying affirmative action in public institutions.
Rice has emphasized how affirmative action gave her an opportunity to prove herself in academia. "I myself am the beneficiary of a Stanford strategy that took affirmative action seriously," she told a Stanford faculty meeting in 1997, and her rise through academia and government embodies the policy's four original rationales: minority students can overcome adversity, excel academically, share their perspectives to enrich a diverse student body and benefit from the requisite training for leadership positions in society, eventually helping to redress the effects of hundreds of years of discrimination. In other words, by pursuing the values of adversity, diversity and redress on campus, universities can both improve their educational offering and advance equality across American society. Americans are decidedly mixed on "affirmative action"--both as a literal program and as a vessel for complex emotions about race--but few would openly challenge those values. Yet those values have not driven the debate for a long time.
I try to analyze why in the rest of this essay for The Nation. (This post is an excerpt of Part I.)
"the Supreme Court declared the end of racial integration policy, halting voluntary local remedies to desegregate public schools under Brown vs. Board of Education."
I find the bias of this writer, as demonstrated in the above quote, to be rather shocking.
1) "Voluntary" racial integration policy would, obviously, have left the plaintiffs without a cause of action. There was nothing voluntary about the racial discrimination implemented by the subject school districts, thus the lawsuit going all the way to the US Supreme Court.
2) The voters of California, Washington, and Michigan did NOT completely ban Affirmative Action - they banned race-based Affirmative Action. Programs based upon economic need are perfectly acceptable. A better argument is that these votes were against discrimination - and are the first significant grass-roots votes against discrimination the nation has experienced.
3) The writer is correct in that the courts trail the will of the people as well as the cultural change within our society. People of all political persuations are opposed to the unethical use of taxpayer funds to continue unacceptable discrimination.
4) The Supreme Court decision reflects an effort of the court to finally admit the ethical challenges of government sponsored discrimination and to advocate for truly voluntary efforts advancing within our society.
January 3, 2008 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
This may be cruel of me, but:
Shorter RS: "We don't hate black people, we just don't want them in our swimming pools."
January 3, 2008 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
True that the public is losing patience with remedies. But the simple statement ignores the propaganda that was employed to accelerate that trend ("welfare queens", etc.). Turning things upside down in the same way that religionists bemoan the ludicrous "War on Christmas", Americans have been bamboozled into thinking affirmative action was bad.
Sure will be fun to vote for a black American, against a wacko like Huckabee. (Hickabee? Wackabee? Hucksterbee?)
January 3, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is primarily due to the false premise that affirmative action was for blacks. Anything 'pro-black' in America has long been denigrated as bad for society. However, affirmative action was for minorities and females. Not blacks. Blacks have been the least beneficiaries of affirmative action and if this truth was as well known as the false premise that welfare is" for blacks", there would be far more support for affirmative action. Particularly, if it was widely known that those who have benefitted the most from affirmative action are white females. HRClinton, as a Presidential candidate, is an prime hallmark example of what affirmative action truly has been about in America. Blacks are not.
January 6, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
RS, you need to go back and take a refresher course in the legislative history of Affirmative Action, as it was established in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which came into full force in 1966 for all sized employers and institutions.
Congress was addressing the need for a remedy for a situation where for generations nearly all forms of racial segregation were legal, and protected -- and it was the intent of congress to reverse this -- make discrimination by race illegal and unprotected.
Congress called on the Civil Rights Community -- specifically the Leadership Conference, to submit plans and recommendations, and during the summer of 1963 it held hearings over a week or so on the alternatives offered. Thurgood Marshall, for the NAACP, offered a plan to do it through the courts -- create new Federal Judges, allow for injunctive relief, fines and even imprisonment. The Urban League came forward with extensive training programs to be funded over several generations by the Department of Labor and others. Affirmative Action was the product of the Labor Movement, and was testified to by Walter Reuther and George Meany, and was based in the legal theory behind the various Veterans Preference Laws that had been part of American Law since the Revolutionary era, when conscripted war vets were paid for value taken from them without proper compensation by the issue of land warrants. There are a number of Court Decisions affirming the right of congress to so compensate, including the compensation of generations not yet born. Legal Segregation was a form of taking something of value without normative compensation.
In the end, Congress, given these choices, selected Affirmative Action. It is compensation to Children and young adults for what was denied under Slavery, Sharecropping, and legal discrimination to their parents, grand parents, and other ancestors on the basis of race.
You should study up on the legal theory and the reasoning of Congress.
January 4, 2008 3:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have three adopted children, all of hispanic descent. I am a nurse, and my former husband is a physician and a department chairman at a very good University. My daughter is about to graduate from an excellent private college, and my two sons are seniors in high school.
My one son told me he was having a problem coming up with an essay assigned by one of the colleges he is applying to. "Explain a hardship or difficulty you have had to overcome that you would like the Admissions Committee to know about."
"I think I may have to play the Hispanic Card," he told me. While in my mind I could see myself throttling him, I knew I had to give him an answer he could wrap his brain around.
"First, it is dishonest -- you have never once had to deal with any negative stereotypes about your being hispanic."
[An aside: actually, it isn't entirely true. We were travelling together and he and his brother were asking me for things on the plane and the stewardess told them not to bother the lady -->me! That scared them; they were only 3, but we got things straightened out in seconds. Just a hiccup though; certainly not a hardship!]
"Second of all, they will know you're BS'ing them because on page 2 of your application you put in all that info about your dad and me."
"Last of all, you really should have too much pride to do that!"
He soon tired of our discussion, but assured me he would "think of something."
Of course when an application asks for ethnic background they should all put "hispanic" because that is who they are, but I always wonder if the place they are applying to is getting "diversity points" when they bring these bright, privileged kids on who happen to have latino genes.
I believe that Affirmative Action should be for those who truly need it regardless of race; I also think that Condi Rice could have competed on her own without benefit of Affirmative Action. I only wish that Clarence Thomas had not managed to squeeze out other deserving blacks who might this day appreciate their good fortune, rather than bitterly despising the world as he says he does. He is certainly no asset to the Supreme Court, which he also says he doesn't like, and that it doesn't pay enough!!!!
Jan
January 4, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jan,
Help me out here. If your children are adopted how have they NOT experienced the problems of being hispanic in a predominately white culture i.e. why are they not being raised by hispanic parents?. In other words, how many white children do you know who are 'adopted and raised by people of color'? Do you think that would pose unique challenges for those children culturally? How can you say in one breadth that these children have not had to dealwith any negative stereotypes of being hispanic and yet acknowledge in the next breath that " We were travelling together and he and his brother were asking me for things on the plane and the stewardess told them not to bother the lady -->me! That scared them; they were only"? Obviously they do not look caucasian enough to not have to deal with the negative stereotypes that accompany 'people of color' in american society.
Is it possibly that perhaps you have overlooked or discounted the very real differences 'people of color' experience in Ameica simply because they do not look white and all of the attendate challenges that come with it?
January 6, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
WRB, You make interesting points; I'll think about them. What I was talking about, though were the kinds of problems that my son did NOT have to deal with relative to Affirmative Action.
From a personal point of view, yes they have gained some things and missed out on others. I can tell you, however that we all feel that we are one lucky family to have each other. I know that no one else can understand what I mean by this, but we were truly meant to be together!
Jan
January 7, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, that is what I was also trying to get at. Perhaps, you see those problems as different from me when you refer to 'relative to affirmative action'. I was looking at those problems being encountered on the basis of skin color independent of socio-economics. What are you thinking it means?
Without a doubt. I was just curious why you believe they have not encountered the issues that would make them individuals that affirmative action was targeted to.
January 8, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
My understanding is that Affirmative Action is there to give people who didn't have those opportunities because of family circumstances or race (particularly those whose parents can't get ahead because of stereotypical discrimination) get a leg up.
My kids have not had any deprivations in their education and nurturing; I stayed home with them for 17 years so I could help with homework and go on field trips; I knew all their teachers; when I couldn't help them they had tutors. My one son was captain of the football team this year; his twin brother was chosen to attend the Govenor's School above everyone else in his high school; he was chosen out of 20 others to train as an adaptive ski instructor.
They are confident and accomplished and I really can't imagine that they are people in need of Affirmative Action support.
(I said the same about Condi Rice. Her family was very well educated and she had plenty of help along the way from her parents. I've heard she benefitted from Affirmative Action. If that means she was evaluated on her merits, without noticing her race, then fine. If she was put ahead of someone with better qualifications because of her race, I disagree with that, as I do for my own children.)
Jan
January 8, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
White females are the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action and they do not fit with your understanding. How did you come about this viewpoint?
That's great. I hope you did not think I was inferring they had any educational or nurturing deprivations. I am curious as to how you are connecting these variables with affirmative action policies.
Well it sounds like you have a wholly different conception of what affirmative action policies and objectives are. Again white females being the primary beneficiaries do not fit with your ideas of what affirmative action is, which is primarily the access of opportunity for groups which traditional in the history of our nation had no access. Which means your sons fit the profile as they are a minority under affirmative action laws just as much as white females are.
Jan, your perspective of what affirmative action is does not square with the goals and intent. Many articles fail to acknowledge the multifaceted dynamics of affirmative action which incorporate Latinos, Chicanos, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and women. In fact, studies show that white women tend to be the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action. Hopefully you will reconsider your understanding with respect to the opportunities and access it can provide your sons. Given the plane incident there is a very real possibility they may not have access just as they were presumed not to be with you on the plane. IOWs there lives/experiences are different when not with you. The challenges they encounter will be different from yours just as Condi Rice's were and that is why she along with Linda Chavez, Diane Sawyer, Hector Motroni, Carly Fiorina Alberto Gonzalez and Hillary Clinton all benefitted from affirmative action. It is not an economic or parenting background issue.
Affirmative action is not about leapfrogging over others based on race, that is a common misconception. It certainly does not account for white women being the primary beneficiaries, does it? Are you aware that Hispanic men earn 81 percent of the wages earned by white men at the same education level?. I hope that you will give more thought to how you have misunderstood what affirmative action is, who it benefits and why it is important in our color biased society. Your sons should access all opportunities available to them as they will certainly experience the obstacles and challenges America imposes on the basis of their physically apparent ethnicity independent of your economic means and parental nurturing.
An easy way possibly for you to see it from their vantage point that incorporates your socio-economic status is to consider the challenges you experience as a female in our male dominant society despite your economic means. Afterall, women are the largest beneficiary group of affirmative action policies.
January 10, 2008 7:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the jury is still out on the Supreme Court ruling. The swing vote in that case, I think it was Powell, made it clear that schools could deliberatly adopt policies to integrate schools just as long as they didn't deny an individual a choice.
He specifically gave the example of drawing school district lines so as to encourage integration.
Still, I think the points about racism as a problem in general are very true, and I think we're going to see a lot of that bubble up to the surface in this campaign if Obama becomes the candidate because it's going to freak a lot of redneck whites out.
I think in that sense an Obama candidacy is very important because it's going to bring a lot of this stuff that festers under the surface of our society to the forefront where we'll have to confront it.
January 3, 2008 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget the power of the anti-bush. Bush has presented himself as the antithesis of credentials and he is rather loathed by indies and dems.
The emphasis on actual credentials could also be a reaction of that, fortunately for Obama.
January 4, 2008 2:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
This seems nonsensical. W. attended both Yale AND Harvard.
CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com
January 4, 2008 7:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your response seems a bit nonsensical. Did you read what I wrote? PRESENTS. We all know that W got a Mass. lib. education to shorthand it.
But he presents himself as a simple, down-home cowboy who cuts brush(bush) and leads from his "gut." That's fairly anti-intellectual and the opposite of credentialism in terms of academics and I propose that some of the Obama's support is in reaction to that.
January 4, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
AriM pointed out:
During a January appearance on Fox News, columnist John McWhorter offered the baseless claim that "the reason that [Obama is] considered such a big deal is simply because he's black." McWhorter implausibly continued, "If you took away the color of his skin, nobody right now would be paying him any attention."
The truth that McWhorter won't face is that if he, Star Parker, Armstrong Williams, etc weren't Black, they would be of no use to Fox News and the GOP. If Al Sharpton is a "race pimp", then McWhorter falls into the same category.
McWhorter even aroused the ire of fellow Black Conservative, Glenn Loury, by studying the causes Black unemployment without mentioning the impact of outsourcing of factory jobs. mcWhorter felt that since outsourcing was an obvious fact, it did not have to be considered in his analysis.
One reason that Black Conservatives get grief from most African-Americans is that there is a memory that during the Civil Rights movement there were Blacks who felt that too much "aggitation" was happening. Blacks should just relax, and eventually Whites would "grant" them their rights. By seeming to want to go along to get along, Black Conservatives are deemed effeminate and cowardly by most Blacks.
January 4, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good post, and sure racial divisions aren't over. On the other hand, another conclusion to draw from Ari's opening contrast between Obama's success and setbacks in the court is that the current makeup of the Supreme Court is unfortunately at odds with democracy. As in November 2000, although that was before we got two Bush appointees. The legacy of the Bush years is indeed going to take a lifetime to overcome, if America ever can.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
January 4, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sara,
Thank you for the detailed history on the early years of Affirmative Action. I do not argue with it nor would I presume to understand the details of the times as I was a young child at the time. I wrote my post prior to the results in Iowa and those results confirm my post - at least as to the modern attitude of voters. I watched the results and Obama's speech afterwards - he is a very impressive candidate with incredible political instinct - much better than even Bill Clinton. He also is someone would not qualify for affirmative action under the guidlelines and justifications for the effort as you relate them. I am convinced the people of California, Washington, and Michigan were not voting "conservative" (especially since they are not conservatives) as the original author claims, but were voting to advance civil rights in full recognition the remedy for the deep south of the early 1960's cannot be applied into the 21st century in areas far removed from the former slave/Jim Crow regions of the country. Affirmative action as an imposed requirement from the judicial system has run it's course and lost it's moral authority. Trying to apply a legal concept designed for the deep south of the 1960's to a Seattle, Washinton school district in the 21st century is a perfect example of why the approach is being rejected by modern citizens. Refusing to keep the politics of ancient history alive is the very reason for Obama's success and it shows a wisdom that sometimes must come from the younger leaders among us.
January 4, 2008 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Has America moved past the point where a person can be blackballed from professional or well-paying employment because if identity issues? Race has been the most pernicious identity issue in America.
Racism is still a problem at times, but today what I think I see as the major systemic prejudice keeping individuals from achieving personally is credentialism. Acceptance to the American middle class today is dependent on education, and people get accepted into good schools based on the wealth of their families. As long as your family has enough money you can move to the districts where the property taxes are greatest because that's where the good schools are.
The kids who go to the good schools do well on the tests to get into college, and the financial aid has been skewed so that families with over $100,000 per year income now get four times the financial aid compared to 1970, while financial aid to families with under $30,000 per years has decreased. From graduation on, the bias is towards credentials. The strongest single predictor of who will get into a good college is family wealth. Not race, family wealth.
The remaining elements of racial bias include housing policies that send Blacks to areas with low income and poor schools, and as Bill Cosby points out, this has social effects on teenagers in which they feel like they cannot succeed because of racism (of which there is enough to justify their feelings.) A major predictor of an increase in gang activity is where funds for after school activities are reduced. So you get a mixture of poor families living in areas with poor health care and poor schools, which also suffer cuts in after school activities.
There is a racial component in this, but is it causal or id it left over from the period only a generation ago when it was against the law for a Black person to be hired into civil service positions like police, fire department and city services?
Minorities are not the only people who suffer from the bias of credentialism. Whites with low incomes do too, and the destruction of unions has created a lot more of those, while the way local governments give up tax revenue to attract a big box store that puts the local taxpaying small businesses out of business is funneling money away from the working classes and handing it to the Sam Walton brood. Then the profit margin of the big box stores is rarely more than the amount of the tax giveaway, so they aren't winning market share by competing. They are winning market share because local governments are bidding taxpayer money to give it to them.
The days when corporations could defeat unions by dealing with a Black Union and a White union and using the White racism to play them off against each other ended in the 70's. It was replaced by the Reagan Revolution which made it nearly impossible to create and maintain a union. We are all aware that our economy has become more productive over the last decade, and that all of the resulting profit has gone to investors and CEO's, none to the workers who are the people who create the goods and services. [Savid Cay Johnston's new book Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) explains how this is being done.]
The rapid rise of Barak Obama suggests that America's central problem may no longer be Racism. Johnston's book suggests that the really central problem today is the development of a two class society, the extremely wealthy and the poor.
To connect up with the discussion of the Supreme Court's decision, perhaps if we move to rebuild the middle class and make the wealthy pay their share, while making sure that schools are not locally financed by the wealth of the family home-owners so that every kid gets equal treatment regardless of their family's wealth, couldn't this be the solution to America's greatest current problem?
Perhaps trying to keep the fight against systemic Racism is the wrong central focus for America's problems today. Besides, this damned 19th Century Supreme Court we are currently saddled with is not going away for a while. What do we do while we are waiting for the troglodytes to die so that they can be replaced by human beings?
Just some thoughts I have been playing with. I graduated from an all-White segregated High School in Texas, which was too centrally located to suit the School Board when they were forced to integrate. So they closed it down and placed one High School in the predominately Black areas and moved the main High School to the all-White West side of town. The changes in America since the 60's and 70's are nothing short of amazing, both in eliminating systematic Racism and in eliminating the Middle Class.
Socially we fix what we focus on. Perhaps we can resurrect the Middle Class in ways that don't allow a resurgence of systemic Racism?
January 5, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a racial component in this, but is it causal or id it left over from the period only a generation ago when it was against the law for a Black person to be hired into civil service positions like police, fire department and city services?
I think this kind of misunderestimates the racial dimension. A good part of the racial component is historical: federal policies encouraging homeownership, stemming from the New Deal, tended to benefit whites and encourage segregation. School financing ties school income to the local tax base. This has a causal relationship to the relatively limited educational opportunities available for too many African Americans.
Possibly none of this is due to any overt racial animus, and to the degree that racism in that sense is the cause, maybe it's all a couple of generations in the past. But it still sets a radically distorted playing field, with disparate outcomes that are predictable by race.
You make a very good point about credentialism, and indeed, we need to make sure that educational attainment for all Americans continues to rise, if we are to have a society that does not divide into more or less immutable classes. But I think that we will never be able to do that if we don't acknowledge the ways in which our system of educating the young does not distribute opportunity even remotely evenly.
January 8, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
But if the problem of Racism in America has become more one of the inability of lower income families and individuals to better themselves economically, and the problem of Racial animus has been sharply reduced (as I think it has in my lifetime) then the solution is to correct the historical injustices left over from the past.
But that cannot be done using Race itself as the prime marker that guides policies. Using racial identity simply splits the groups of low income people who want to better themselves and are frustrated by the system back into two groups, White and Black, allowing politicians to play those two groups off each other. The result is that nothing happens for either group. (Traditional Southern labor relations, in other words.)
So it seems to me that if the economic problems for African Americans are currently greater than the problems still caused by Racial animus, then the solution it to recognize that the economic problems are much broader than just African American. The economic and educational problems need to be focused on fairly, without either especially benefiting or damaging any cultural or racial group.
I can see all kinds of risk in that. The biggest risk would be that programs that were designed to improve things economically for low income people would be implemented with hidden racial biases, probably pro-White, built in. But the opposite side of the coin is that such assistance programs to low-income people would not be totally prevented because "they helped Blacks." Economic studies show that a major reason why America failed to adopt broad social safety nets and universal health care like other industrial nations has been the refusal to help Black people.
So that's the positive approach that seems reasonable to me. There are a lot more poor White areas than there are poor Black areas in cities, and if the program can be administered fairly without racial bias towards Whites they all need to be improved.
Of course, I'm not sure how to ensure that such programs can be administered fairly if the Supreme Court decision that Race cannot even be measured is taken seriously. But I have faith in American lawyers to justify anything using the appropriate weasel words. Someone probably already has the briefs prepared. The cases merely have to go before one of the remaining 40% of the federal judges who are still practicing Constitutional law and not conservative Federalist society ideology.
January 10, 2008 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
But that cannot be done using Race itself as the prime marker that guides policies. Using racial identity simply splits the groups of low income people who want to better themselves and are frustrated by the system back into two groups, White and Black, allowing politicians to play those two groups off each other.
That all depends. For one thing, in the not too distant future, people of color collectively will be the majority in the US. To the extent that there are strong enough political interests in common, and efforts to forge alliances across racial boundaries, it might be that alienating whites won't matter that much.
On the other hand, because that's not likely, race can be used as a marker in a non-divisive way to the degree that it can be shown that what disadvantages non-whites harms us all. For example, if the proportional growth of non-white segments of the population is consistent with historical trends, it is likely to mean that more of the population exists in low-tax base communities where educational opportunities are more limited. That in turn is a threat to our economic vitality - revamping the education finance system to benefit more communities of color might thus be shown to be in everyone's interest.
The cases merely have to go before one of the remaining 40% of the federal judges who are still practicing Constitutional law and not conservative Federalist society ideology.
Is it really 40% that we're looking at? Maybe never mind then....
January 10, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, there are. However, the problem is far more pernicious and racially endemic than simply providing benefits to greater numbers of whites than blacks.
We already have programs like that, an excellent example is public welfare. The fact that more whites are recipients was lost on white people when they targetted 'black welfare queens' that racial slant on the program helped Reagan and Bill Clinton abolish many parts of the program. So having a large number of white beneficiaries is not the answer. That is what Dean was talking about when he told the confederate flag in the back of the truck whites they were voting against their own economic interests by thinking they were hurting blacks by voting against these programs. But racism runs deep in this country and they would not even listen to those nothern liberal yankees.
The exact same thing has happened with affirmative action programs where the primary beneficiaries are white females. Nevertheless, polticians and the GOP along with numerous Regan Democrats seek to this day to dismantle the programs as they have succeeded in giving affirmative action a 'blackface' in the publics mind just as they did with welfare.
You can get rid of any program in America that benefits the disadvantaged or poor as long as you can show it benefits blacks no matter how many more whites recieve the 'handout' as well.
January 10, 2008 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can get rid of any program in America that benefits the disadvantaged or poor as long as you can show it benefits blacks no matter how many more whites recieve the 'handout' as well.
This is true, and it seriously undercuts my comments above. There is some evidence that when you make this clear, in a positive way, whites view the issues differently. In a study currently underway, whites have responded positively to race-conscious policies when there is a clear sense of shared fate, where letting racial inequities continue disadvantages us all. I don't know if the same would be true if you simply pointed out that whites are the primary beneficiaries of social welfare policies. I suspect not.
In any case, the success of this approach to dismantling the social safety net is powerful, and very hard to overcome.
January 11, 2008 6:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rather pleasant to have concerned citizens share their feelings without the usual hate messages but I wonder how many have considered that describing people as belonging to a white or black race is racist itself?
There are no such races. It is as if people were separated from each other with a designation of big noses and small noses, flat noses and prominent noses. Nose jobs BTW are common in certain segments of the population to disguise ancestry - please note segments is plural.
One might as well describe women as belonging to a race of large-breasted or small-breasted women. Anybody care to deny discrimination?
Why are Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson blacks? Both had a white parent. People from South Asia are quite dark and are most certainly not of the same ancestry as Africans. Berbers from an ancient tribe in Africa often have blue eyes and are quite light-skinned but are somehow blacks in our screwed-up culture.
A proper understanding of what race is might help alleviate much of the racism that permeates our culture and makes people see things in black and white.
BTW the poorest segment of the population are the First Americans. Hispanics of any race have a significant Native American ancestry but are somehow - different.
Best, Terry
January 12, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course you are right, and there is something quite wrong about the whole thing, given both the lack of significant genetic differences tied to race, and the sense that thinking of bi-racial candidates as black resurrects the one drop rule.
At the same time, while race may be in most deeper respects a false category, there are clear disparities in opportunity that very closely track being sorted into one race or the other. The shallow reality of being a socially constructed idea is real enough if it determines access to resources like a good education or, quite often, adequate pain medication. I don't see how you can do away with talking about race and still have a fully accurate picture of inequities and injustices in our society.
January 12, 2008 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't say you should stop talking about race. Those who deny race exists are as bad as those who claim that one race is superior or inferior to another. We are all of mixed race.
The problem is knowing what race is and what it isn't.
Race is in your genes. It produces your appearance and physical characteristics. The genes do good things for you and very bad things to you. Your genes can produce robust health or disabling, even lethal, disease. That is what is important about race but it is helpful only if it is understood what race is.
Race is not in your character or upbringing, your soul or your will, the good in you or the bad. What it is not is just the color of one's skin or Chris Matthews idea of what white and black is.
If race was like gender, we would all be hermaphrodites.
Surely one doesn't need to falsify facts to note the absurdity of abusing people because they are "different" somehow or attempting to repair the damage.
Should Obama need to act a certain way and think a certain way because his skin is darker than others? Should he for some reason have to apologize or defend his appearance? Isn't it absurd to think so? Are we not all the same species with ultimately the same ancestry?
What happens with such mythology is that we produce victims and scapegoats based on false ideology. Do we need to blame anyone except those who are to blame for injustice or deny remedy to those harmed?
I really didn't think Obama would have as much of a burden placed on him by Clinton as he has. Doesn't speak well for America that Clinton is able so easily to draw venom from the wells of ignorance and superstition.
I am now much more inclined than I was to think that the election of Obama would be very good for America no matter what kind of president he would turn out to be.
Best, Terry
January 13, 2008 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kumbaya and all that, but the reality is that race is both real and illusory in American society.
Genetically, its all twaddle. Humans show less genetic diversity than any other animal except the Cheetah, we all seem to be descended from a single small band about 40,000 years ago. Skin colour is an absolutely meaningless signifier and even within clearly genetically differentiated ethnic groups, the ranges of difference within those groups are greater than the differences between groups.
But having said that, race exists in very real terms in America.
Race in the pre-colonial days defined property. There were three 'races'. There were the Indians, who occupied property including land, and who had to be displaced from that property by any means necessary, think of them as a weed on the land that had to be removed before you could farm. There were the slaves who *were* property, think of them as a sort of domesticated or cultivated plant on the land, something you'd use the land to grow as part of your wealth. And there were the white settlers, who owned property, and who controlled and expropriated land.
That's it in a nutshell. The Indians were always a very strictly defined race. Even today in federal law, the Indians are the only legally defined race in America... because of their inherent pre-existing title to land from which they are dispossessed.
Blacks were up to the civil war legally defined as slaves, and vice versa. Sure, you could have legal freaks like free blacks. And in the earliest days, you could have white slaves, or whites in slavelike conditions. But as the institution of slavery developed, slavery came to be synonymous with blacks, in both a legal and a cultural sense.
Indeed, the tail started to wag the dog. In order to enforce slavery, people were being legally defined or redefined as black, based on blood quantum. In some districts 1/32nd black blood made you black, and therefore made you a slave. 1/32nd means that you had a black ancestor five generations ago.
Things started to get interesting. Different states had different laws with respect to black quantum and ethnicity. Thus, legally, you could be one race in one state, and another, in another state. You might be legally a free white person in Virginia, but a negro slave in Alabama. You could cross a border into chains. Your very identity, your race, was dependent upon the patch of land you happened to be standing on.
This certainly made things interesting leading up to the civil war, particularly in light of fugitive slave laws. White citizens in the north would occasionally be shocked to discover that they were negroes, being retrieved south.
It also created another, now mostly obsolete, phenomenon: "Passing." That is, pale skinned, straight haired, thin lipped, blond haired, blue eyed negroes would walk around pretending to be white... on the flimsy basis that one parent, three of their grandparents, seven of their great grandparents, and fifteen of their great grandparents had been white.
There's an entire fascinating literature of passing, written by white, black and passing writers. These were people who took race seriously in a manner that we can scarcely imagine. These were people for whom races was a life and death issue that had nothing to do with external appearance, and only the merest relationship to ancestry.
After the civil war, the status of the negro as a formal slave was erased, but there was still a massive legal framework built to ensure that blacks were not fully human.
We're talking dedicated social engineering here. Did you think that railway companies wanted segregated passenger cars? Nope. It cost them money. Do you think that businesses wanted to go through the extra expense of segregated washrooms and drinking fountains... plumbers and plumbing cost money. Segregation was imposed by law.
Race remained a legal construct, and it was intended to be a legal construct with consequences. Under segregation, under Jim Crow, a legal regime was created which denied blacks education, health care, access to courts and access to resources such as public works funds and infrastructure that the government provided.
It's very simple. Provide resources to whites in the form of education and health care, electricification, roads, public works buildings, scholarships, etc., deny these resources to blacks, and you materially and perpetually disadvantage blacks in the economic marketplace.
That allows you to create a pool of extremely cheap docile labour with no negotiating leverage.
And so race remains an important legal construct, which varies from state to state.
Hispanics were never as tightly legally defined as blacks, because their economic role shifted. At times, they were like the Indians... weeds to be dispossessed. At times they were like blacks, to be confined as cheap helpless labour, a socially engineered, defined underclass.
Interestingly, particularly in the south, a white 'pseudo-race' emerged - crackers. Poor white trash. Basically, the marginal whites who were but for their skin colour, in the same economic and social bracketts as blacks and whose well being was based on pushing blacks a little further down, so they could be a little further up.
In the north, there were white 'pseudo-races' - Irish and Italians. In the 19th century, the Irish were practically red haired negroes, and treated as such. However, as the Irish transcended economic barriers, the notion of them as a race disappeared.
But let's be very clear race is very real in America. Even now, you can walk around and get a good idea who works for who by looking at the colour of their skin.
January 15, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rick B, Bill Cosby and Dr Alvin Poussaint make valid and important points regarding poor Blacks and the impact of behavior patterns in "Come On People". Many Progressives and most Conservatives take great comfort in his statements and the documented progress in society to diminish the impact of race and just focus on class.
It must be noted that multiple studies demonstrate that even with equal incomes and insurance, African-Americans are less likely to receive state of the art interventions and medications for a variety of diseases including coronary artery disease and breast cancer.
Blacks also are more likely to be directed to less favorable loan plans when buying homes. African-Americans as a group pay more for automobiles than Whites, despite equal income levels.
Progress has been made but much more needs to be done to combat institutionalized racial bias that you do not see. Ellis Cose's "Rage Of The Privileged Class" details how upper middle class Blacks feel about the impact of race in their lives.
No one argues that 2008 is much different than 1958,but there is still race based bias that has a major negative economic and health impact.
Many upper class Blacks can detail being pulled over for driving while Black because they were piloting an expensive vehicle.
I take no comfort when someone focuses JUST on class when dealing with racial issues. Blacks at different income levels, face different types of societal stress. Poor Blacks will still face the systemic Racism you mention as the wrong focus in your post when their economic status improves. I shouldn't have to "wait my turn" for health care, housing purchase and personal transportation cost disparities,etc that the Black middle and upper class face to be addressed.
January 5, 2008 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno. It seems to me that racism will be over in America when I can read about some crime scandal in an American newspaper and be unable to accurately predict the race of the people involved.
Racism is over? Ask black people who have been victimized by 'felon voter' disenfranchisement schemes in Dixie states. Ask black people in the criminal justice system who get victimized all the way through. Ask about the 'crime' of 'driving while black.'
It seems its mighty easy for white people to celebrate the 'end of racism'. But the victims of such racism might have a different take on when it ended, or if it ever ended.
I don't see Obama's situation as having all that much to say about racism in America. There's a long, long, long tradition in history of the 'fluke underdog.' The minority or outlier person who winds up in power, notwithstanding the overall disenfranchisement of their sex, class, race etc. Consider Indira Ghandi, Benazir Bhutto and Golda Meir - all women who ruled in misogynist, male dominated societies.
January 6, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
ARI
Both, dependent upon socioeconomic status which is the variable that changes one from average to exception based on achievement often times when it comes to race. i.e. American is far more classist than it is racist.
It is a political necessity, yet Obama also knows that for members of his socio-economic class his achievements are not exceptional and therefore do not transcend race on that basis. Above all else America is a capitalistic society. The fact that it is a political necessity for Obama to downplay his being the 'black candidate' means his candidacy does NOT transcend race. Therein lies the true dichotomy of American life. We will accept you on the basis of class (as a capitalist society) but not on the basis of race (as a racist society) and that therefore necessitates the political necessity of touting his class status over and beyond his race to achieve political success. Race is indeed in and of itself the penultimate discrimination independent of one's wealth despite this being a capitalist society. Obama has to prove he is 'just like whites' based on his socioeconomic bkgrd which is the cornerstone of American ideals that you can achieve independent of the circumstances you were born into while at the same time challenging the belief that being black means you are incompetent and without a handout incapable of achieving the same measure of success based on individual merit. He has to prove this despite being black. The true irony of Barack's candidacy is that he exemplifies that you can have a white heirtage, his own mother, yet if you LOOK black, it is that blackness which will define and limit your opportunities in America. Barack therefore is the true measure of how racist indeed America is because they deny him on the basis of his skin color his entire heirtage and subject him to all the discrimination that lies within our society. Yet he is actually as white as them having been raised by whites!
Quite the opposite.
Obama has to tout these credentials to establish that despite being black he has the same classist background to ENABLE him to achieve all that white society holds to be exceptional excellence and essential for immeasurable success in our capitalist society. He has to tout them as a counterpoint to his race. His race automatically is presumed to discount his ability to do such. His "Ivy League" credentials assert that 'even I as a black man" can achieve what you do with them. That if these, white America, are your standards of excellence then behold how I despite my race can also achieve as much. i.e. I am as able as you, race is not the issue, if all things are equal. Barack's candidacy demands that we look beyond skin color to the content of character and the achievement of the individual. He is what America claims her ideals to be and that is the message he delivers as that has been his lifestory in a nutshell.
America behold what you have wrought and what you claim to be, can you accept me, can you rise up to embrace all the ideals and promises you hold dear? If so, then I can be your President.
THAT
is his message and what he embodies.
January 10, 2008 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink