Use of Race in School Placement Curbed
A Links entry from Thursday, June 28, 2007Use of Race in School Placement Curbed
Well, it’s all over the news. It seems that support for affirmative action is now on the decline (have we reached the 25-year-bridge O’Connor spoke of?) This was a rather tragic quote I found in the New York Times:
“While I join Justice Breyer’s eloquent and unanswerable dissent in its entirety, it is appropriate to add these words,” Justice Stevens wrote. “There is a cruel irony in the chief justice’s reliance on our decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.”
It’s tempting to side with the dissenters as someone who labels their self a Leftist, but I feel as though the two opinions are presenting a false choice. I would choose the third choice, which is that, instead of perceiving inequality through the prism of race (almost strictly reserved to African-Americans), we should instead opt to perceive it through socioeconomic inequality (which is the power structure through which racism structurally manifests itself, and the real threat of racism is almost always the structural one), something that Americans find much more difficult to do. Thus, affirmative action seems like a copout and a distracting nostalgia of the Old left, given that zeitgeist racism is against Mexican-Americans (or Mexicans and Latin Americans in general).
We should also keep in mind that it is not just minorities who suffer from socioeconomic discrimination and thus the true enemy is not a race (though, as a caveat I should say that white racism still, obviously, exists), but a class enemy, or rather, “the” class enemy (the bourgeois aristocracy). Affirmative action and race-based policies, instead of elucidating, obfuscate this fact.
Mark Cullen
Commie.
Alex Taylor
Affirmative action by socioeconomic status isn’t just another way of attacking racism, its also tackling an entirely different issue. Although this is a statement that nobody can make definitively, I think its likely that income inequality causes more suffering in America than racism does. I also think that poor white trailer trash definitely have a shittier situation than rich black kids (who admittedly constitute a very small group), and so socioeconomic affirmative action more accurately targets real victims of discrimination. The surest indicator of how well somebody is going to be treated in America is the size of their wallet.
Bryan Klausmeyer
So we’re in agreement then.
JudasConstant
Ah, but why should race not be considered as a factor simply because socioeconomic differences may have a bigger impact? We know racism in hiring practices and income differences still exists, so why should we not consider that as a factor?
Bryan Klausmeyer
While it’s certainly fair to assert that racism still exists, at the same time, practicing racism in the work place or in education (or whatever institution) is now seen as so morally reprehensible that the would-be racist is no longer able to exercise total freedom within a power structure. This is in large part thanks to the efforts of the Civil Rights movement, which dramatically changed public perception, but not of itself, but instead public perception precisely of public perception. Thus, (as previously stated), if I were a racist and wished to discriminate against a black person, the benefit of doing such a thing is outweighed by what I expect a possible public outcry to be (say, a boycott or something).
The more pressing issue is the growing inequality between social classes, and this has real, rather than ontological, consequences. As Alex mentioned, I would agree that the poor white person is in a much worse position than the rich black person. Take for example the difference between Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Andrew. The biggest sufferers were the poor, though, racially speaking, the demographics were much different. Take a look at this quote:
“Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one? They keep saying we’re going to get supplies. For God’s sake, where are they?”
This wasn’t from Hurricane Katrina—this came during Hurricane Andrew. The poor equally suffered, the uninsured mobile home resident turned homeless, yet why should we draw a racial line between the two? Of course, Hurricane Katrina’s racial implications were obvious (the accusations of mass-rape and murder and riots, which never actually existed and were completely made up), but what REAL implications did these have? None except to reveal that racism still manifests itself in subtle (and not so subtle) ways. However, I would contend that the financial/economic hardships suffered by both transcend this revelation.
Thus, I think structural socioeconomic inequality is a far more pressing issue. The “war against racism” has already been won, even if it was won only nominally, because imagined victories are still real victories when they positively affect real behavior.
JudasConstant
This might be a good time to expand on the example that’s been repeated numerous times. Even thought we established that a rich black child is better off than a poor white child, that assumption doesn’t mean we can assume that a poor white child and a poor black child have equal opportunities. I agree that blatant racism is now much harder to pull off, but you also have to consider (1) racism that is hidden behind another front and, more importantly, (2) racism that exists on a subconscious level. Take a look at this article: http://vedantam.com/bias01-2005.html
Bryan Klausmeyer
Interestingly, I’ve actually taken that test.
But anyway, even if racism does manifest itself on a subconscious level, even if a trace of that subconscious racism finds its way into a power structure and goes unnoticed (and, in this day and age, I would argue that that is still difficult (if not impossible)—someone, somewhere, is bound to point it out), the more pressing issue is still the real and obvious matter of socioeconomic difference.
Take for example someone who lives and goes to high school in, say, Watts. What are the chances that their high school is going to adequately provide them with the materials necessary to get a good education? It seems frighteningly low to me, especially under No Child Left Behind. To go back to the somewhat ridiculous rhetorical device of the “rich black person,” let’s say he’s of high school age, too, and goes to a wealthy private school in Connecticut or something. Despite the “subconscious racism” that lurks within, it’s undeniable that he has the upper hand in society. Even if someone, somewhere, refuses to sell him a newspaper, or gets passed up by a taxi driver. He still has money and power. The poor person, whatever their race, still has nothing.
Mark Cullen
I think this is probably my fault for not being clear enough, but I wasn’t arguing that the wealthy black kid was more hindered than the poor white kid. I was arguing that while the socioeconomic factor is probably the most important, there is no reason to dismiss race as a factor. I’m arguing that a poor black kid and a poor white kid would face the same socioeconomic struggles, but the black kid would have the added struggle of a subconsciously racist society. The severity of the disadvantage of class or race can be argued, but there is no reason to outright dismiss race as a factor simply because class is a more prominent. The counter-argument to what I’m saying is that racial discrimination is negligible in our society, which I believe is a problematic argument because of studies like this:
http://www.diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_6144.shtml http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:llo27iMwq3oJ:gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/102226045.html+%22adjusted+for+income%22+race&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
But the problem that race-based affirmative action seeks to address is not that of class difference in the fist place. Economic divides predate the study of economics, and while a “Swedish model” welfare state in which the government seeks to bridge the gap of class inequality is not a bad idea, it does nothing to address the problems of racial inequity.
The point of race-based affirmative action is to remove the statistical difference between black poverty and white poverty. Wikipedia says that in 1998, 17.6% of the white population made less than $15,000 a year, while 40.9% of the black population made less than $15,000 a year. That’s the kind of discrepancy affirmative action aims to solve, and until the proportion of whites and blacks below the poverty line is roughly equal, race should still be considered an important factor in affirmative action policies.
Bryan Klausmeyer
I think that your statistics help serve my point, as well as the focus on African-Americans. African-Americans are probably the least overtly discriminated group in the U.S. Mexican-Americans are in a far worse predicament. The problem that we keep going back to is that race is simply no longer an adequate factor in creating demographic equality (or relative equality), precisely because, though many minorities do live in poverty, many others are also relatively affluent (though, statistically, FAR LESS than whites). With those statistics, you’ve basically showed how huge of an overlap exists between economic inequality and racial inequality. If social engineers target the socioeconomic gap, rather than the racial one, how is it that both are not fixed? If subconscious racism still exists, but is rarely allowed to manifest itself, then what’s the likelihood that only poor whites will receive benefits, rather than poor minorities who make up the more statistically significant portion of the lower class?
Ultimately, however, we’re both offering solutions on how to fix a system that has unfairness inscribed within itself. Fixing these problems, if it’s even possible, gives rise to new problems of inequality. There are more radical solutions, but as long as democracy and capitalism coexist as today’s paradigm, I’m not really sure either of our stances will prove to be at all effective, sadly.
Mark Cullen
Agreed, but as for this question…
“If social engineers target the socioeconomic gap, rather than the racial one, how is it that both are not fixed?”
Let’s say for example there was some sort of reform where members of the lowest income bracket who were living in poverty are now living in an “improved poverty.”
I would say that since the proportion of blacks living in “imporved povery” would still be higher than the proportion of whites living in “improved poverty”, racial inequality would still exist and remain unsolved, even though poverty problems potentially would be solved.
Bryan Klausmeyer
bryklaus@umich.edu
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