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When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century AmeriSubmitted by Prometheus 6 on August 28, 2005 - 8:58am.
on Economics | Race and Identity
Uncivil Rights After years of battling racial discrimination and braving state-sanctioned violence -- with hundreds of Southern black churches set fire to and scores of citizens beaten or murdered for daring to challenge American apartheid -- the civil rights movement achieved a climactic victory when President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965. It was the outcome of ''a shining moment in the conscience of man,'' declared the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In less than two years, the nation did more to advance equal rights for minorities than at any time since Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The 1964 Civil Rights Act struck down the South's segregation laws, outlawed employment discrimination and forbade discrimination in federal programs. For black Americans living in the South, the voting rights law finally secured the right to the ballot. And President Johnson initiated a sweeping new government policy called affirmative action. Its purpose was to overcome at least some of the accumulated human damage caused by 350 years of slavery and Jim Crow, and to ensure further progress toward equality. Benefiting from that ''shining moment'' in the 1960's, a black middle class has prospered and grown rapidly. Yet millions of African-Americans remain mired in poverty in a nation bitterly divided over whether special help to minorities should continue. Affirmative action programs have long been under siege, vigorously attacked in Congress and the federal courts and criticized for ''discriminating'' against the white majority. With conservatives dominating the federal government, civil rights groups and other liberal organizations have waged a mostly defensive battle to protect the gains of the 1960's. Fresh ideas and effective leadership to advance the American ideals of equality and social justice have been in short supply. Ira Katznelson, the Ruggles professor of political science and history at Columbia University, enters this fray with a provocative new book, ''When Affirmative Action Was White,'' which seeks to provide a broader historical justification for continuing affirmative action programs. Katznelson's principal focus is on the monumental social programs of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal in the 1930's and 1940's. He contends that those programs not only discriminated against blacks, but actually contributed to widening the gap between white and black Americans -- judged in terms of educational achievement, quality of jobs and housing, and attainment of higher income. Arguing for the necessity of affirmative action today, Katznelson contends that policy makers and the judiciary previously failed to consider just how unfairly blacks had been treated by the federal government in the 30 years before the civil rights revolution of the 1960's. This history has been told before, but Katznelson offers a penetrating new analysis, supported by vivid examples and statistics. He examines closely how the federal government discriminated against black citizens as it created and administered the sweeping social programs that provided the vital framework for a vibrant and secure American middle class. Considered revolutionary at the time, the new legislation included the Social Security system, unemployment compensation, the minimum wage, protection of the right of workers to join labor unions and the G.I. Bill of Rights. Even though blacks benefited to a degree from many of these programs, Katznelson shows how and why they received far less assistance than whites did. He documents the political process by which powerful Southern Congressional barons shaped the programs in discriminatory ways -- as their price for supporting them. (A black newspaper editorial criticized Roosevelt for excluding from the minimum wage law the black women who worked long hours for $4.50 a week at the resort the president frequented in Warm Springs, Ga.) Given the fact of Jim Crow, and the fact of increased government assistance during the mid 20th century, Katznelson derives "Affirmative Action". I'm sure this is a bit ragged in the details, for example, not all of those social programs had a positive effect on the recipients career, but let's not carp, and put this argument into a form we can examine:
Therefore:
That seems supported by the synopsis. Is that what he's really arguing? I'm not sure how the assistance programs clause factors into the conclusion however. Wouldn't we be able to derive AA during the '10s and '20s just as well, based on Jim Crow alone? If the white school is better than the black school, and blacks can't, by law, attend the white school, is that AA by the standard set by Katznelson?
absent race neutral administration of hypothetically race neutral programs, you get apartheid implementation of affirmative action for white folks, period.
be sure to factor state funded white school into your calculus of comparison..., "...the affect of Jim crow was to preclude proportional participation by blacks..." Not quite, Jim Crow practices excluded blacks who othewrwise were qualified to receive the benefits of the programs. This has nothing to do with the test of proportionality or disproporationality. If, for example, the federal government establishes a means test based on income as the basis for providing a benefit such as food stamps then all qualified applicants meeting the income qualification are to receive this benefit. The proportion of blacks (or Hispanics or Whites) in the general population or in the group of potential recipients is irrelevant. During the Gulf War waged by Bush the First, Jesse Jackson and others claimed, as part of their reasons for opposing the war, that a disproportionate number of the men and women serving in combat during that struggle were black. Their point was that if blacks only comprised 12 percent of the total U.S. population then it was unfair that, say, 25 percent or more of the soldiers in combat were black. This argument, no matter its rhetorical attractiveness, is not proof of disproportionality. If blacks comprised only 12 percent of the total armed forces but 25 percent of those serving in combat then a more plausible argument for disproportionality could be made if it appeared that blacks were being assigned to combat positions at a higher than expected or predicted frequency. A genuine race neutral program would have given out benefits on the basis solely of who was qualified to receive those benefits. If blacks had received more of the benefits than whites it would be because more blacks met the qualifications or standards required of recipients. Since blacks were specifically excluded on the basis of race, not objective qualifications, then whites received a disproportionate share of the benefits of the programs. That is, they received a share of benefits that exceeded what could have been expected or predicted if blacks had been allowed to participate.
from a great article by saul landau on how the most corrupt wasters of taxpayer money have turned the former beneficiaries of white affirmative action against the very policies that brought them back from the brink of economic disaster. When I see contortious takes on AA, I see the racialized spearpoint of this entire anti-Christian, right wing cultural victory. The point here is to understand just how pervasively corporatist interests have subverted the public view of government, excepting the most corrupt wasters of taxpayer money - prison, police, and military branches - of government, and how race has always proven a decisive lever in accomplishing this subversion. White racism really is after all the nuclear core of corporatist tyranny..., Agreed PT. "proportional" is the wrong term. "The effect of Jim Crow was to prevent some qualified blacks from participating".
Nope. The "affirmative action" tag is a rhetorical device. What he's arguing is that racial preferences for white Americans were so institutionalized, so wide spread and universal that it's the foundation of the socioeconomic disadvantages Black people struggle with. I intend to purchase a copy of this book before the week is out, but in reading Nick Kotz's brief synopsis and a few more at Amazon's website it appears that our black Republican brethren have scored a point or two, which I'm sure they will eventually fritter away by making too broad a claim. They argue, for example, that the New Deal programs actually harmed blacks, not helped them and they excoriate the role of the Democratic Party in creating these programs. The entire basis of their claims, however, are based on their belief that the New Deal was a form of socialism and their ideological opposition to government sponsored social service programs. None of them, so far as I am aware, have ever argued that these programs hurt blacks because the programs, due to racist-based implementation policies, accelerated the income, asset, employment and educational gaps between whites and blacks. Let's keep an eye out for the Republican spin machine priming these brothers and sisters to claim that Katznelson's book proves that they have been right all long. Part of their talking points delivery will preclude a discussion of racism.
be sure to factor state funded white school into your calculus of comparison..., Sure. Do we know of any private schools which were legally barred from admitting black students? I know of two conventional descriptions of AA:
Katznelson seems to be adding a third:
Given that Katznelson could have produced zillions of examples of category 1 and 2 to support the title of his book, why did he choose instead to produce a new definition of AA?
Substitute the word "most" for the term "some". Nope. The "affirmative action" tag is a rhetorical device. What he's arguing is that racial preferences for white Americans were so institutionalized, so wide spread and universal that it's the foundation of the socioeconomic disadvantages Black people struggle with. So does he have a new argument or an old one? That one we've met before. We all grant that the government rigged life in favor of white people until the '60s. We'll disagree on whether that explains black ghettos forty years later, and we'll disagree on whether the government rigging life in favor of black people today is a desirable remedy for past unfairness.
Is it your impression that they actually believe this contortiousness, or as you subsequently suggest;
do you consider them to be delivering lines scripted for them by the GOP/AEI coonshow? Substitute the word "most" for the term "some". Ok, although the point being claimed doesn't seem to require such a strong word.
any chance you could quantify, compare and contrast the $ value of the scarce resources allocated to blacks for the immediate past 40 years with the $ value of the sweeping allocations of all resources to whites for the prior 60 years and the immediate past 40? Reason I ask is because even during the immediate past 40 years, white females have been the hands-down primary beneficiaries of that past 40 years of AA preferences. So, it seems to me that as a practical matter, the process has been always and everywhere gerrymandered to the overwhelming benefit of white folks no matter what its regulatory and administrative particularities..., any chance you could quantify, compare and contrast the $ value of the scarce resources allocated to blacks for the immediate past 40 years with the $ value of the sweeping allocations of all resources to whites for the prior 60 years and the immediate past 40? Would it help if I agreed it's likely over 100:1 in favor of whites? If so, I so agree.
They actually believe that the New Deal was a socialist experiment. The remind me of wealthy WASP characters in John O'Hara's short stories that were written during the mid-and late 1930s. These characters thought that Franklin Roosevelt had betrayed his class. They didn't understand that his policies had saved them and their economic system. Look at the statements made about the New Deal by the black California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown. Justice Brown actually believes that the New Deal was inspired by the writings of Karl Marx and other advocates of what she refers to as "collectivism." It is quite obvious, at least to me, that she never read a book by Ayn Rand that she didn't like but Rogers accurately reflects the intellectual beliefs of many black conservatives and libertarians. Black conservative Republicans who make the talk show circuit or whose columns are carried by various news syndicates simply think they are engaging in a partisan political struggle with their counterparts on the Democratic side of the aisle. They actually believe what they are saying and, more importantly, as long as it trumps whatever black Democrats are saying they don't care.
What he has, is evidence.
Um...rhetorical device??? You People of the Word are so stubborn sometimes...
Piece of cake. There's no doubt the same concerns that inform socialism were to be addressed by the New Deal. Just be clear that it could not have hurt Black folks because we did not participate in it. What he has, is evidence. Evidence that Jim Crow suppressed black people in favor of white people? I'm not trying to minimize that, but it's not new. The existence of the rapidly expanding black middle class is directly tied to eliminating such crap. Evidence that Jim Crow is responsible for relatively high levels of failure among today's blacks? The synopsis didn't include any synopsys of such evidence; it's a tough case to make to a skeptic.
On what possible rational ground then do white folks - such as yourself - dare complain about AA as reverse racism? There's no doubt the same concerns that inform socialism were to be addressed by the New Deal. Just be clear that it could not have hurt Black folks because we did not participate in it. The New Deal wasn't in and of itself powerful enough to inflict much damage. The Great Society was.
On what possible rational ground then do white folks - such as yourself - dare complain about AA as reverse racism? Two wrongs don't make a right. You've heard it before. "We'll disagree on whether that explains black ghettos forty years later, and we'll disagree on whether the government rigging life in favor of black people today is a desirable remedy for past unfairness." Please explain to me how the government "...is rigging life in favor of black people today"? Where do you believe this is occuring? The government's efforts to rig life in favor of whites did not end in the 1960s. Why do you (and too many others) believe that whites stopped being beneficiaries of government programs in the 1960s? What do you think, for example, all the recent hullabaloo about the proposed military base closings has been about if not about whites wanting to continue receiving government supported benefits? White folks in North Dakota have had more than 40 years to come up with some alternative means of employing themselves rather than demand that an outdated, outmoded B-1 bomber base from the Cold War era should continue to serve as that state's largest employer. The Democratic governor of the state where I currently live actually sued the federal government claiming that only he, not the Pentagon, has the authority to close the Willow Grove air base. Generations of whites have benefited economically from keeping this redundant and unnecessary military site open. The Navy has a supply depot located in a rural area one hundred miles north of my home and there is not one water borne vehicle, including a rowboat, owned by the Navy that could get within rock throwing distance of this facility.
Which would make our exclusion from New Deal policies just about criminal, wouldn't it?
A double negative is an affirmation. You've heard that before too.
Seems to me the law of unintended consequences is a great unspoken liability of right wing propaganda such as that addressed in Reagan and Bottled Water. Invariably the authors of rightwing memesets fail to take into consideration the depth and breadth of mass stupidity. It's kind of like unleashing a computer virus that hits corporate networks and wreaks so much more damage than the virus author ever intended.
Do you believe that members of the LaShawn brigade employed in the AEI coonshow are sincerely embraced as partisan colleagues, or, do you believe they are derisively viewed as exploitable stooges? Please explain to me how the government "...is rigging life in favor of black people today"? Where do you believe this is occuring? I didn't so much claim that it is occuring as that some people would like for it to occur. Several large cities in California, for decades, set aside some percentage of contracts which were not available to whites, regardless of qualification or being the low bidder. No more, but the cities fought hard to maintain such preferences. I'm with you PT on closing military bases. Ellsworth is in South Dakota, one of my kids was stationed there for a while. We can however observe that they are being closed. What's driving that is a need to continue funding exceptionally generous military pensions.
How does the effort to deliver New Deal type largesse to folks previously denied participation in the same by apartheid adminstration of the New Deal constitute a wrong? A double negative is an affirmation. You've heard that before too. If I steal $100 from you and you steal $100 from me, we have a double negative. If I steal $100 from a random black guy and you steal $100 from a random white guy, we have two wrongs.
"The Great Society was." One of the many, many benefits made possible by the Great Society was its role in helping to create that broad black middle class that you and others love to extoll and sing the praises of today. The Great Society because of its myriad programs and services such as Model Cities etc. provided a means for college credentialed blacks to find suitable and gainful employment in the public sector that had been denied to them for generations in the private sector. Many of these people were later able to take the skills and experience they had acquired in their public sector positions and transfer into the private sector once these jobs, as a result of affirmative action laws, began being offered to blacks. It is the Great Society that laid the groundwork for the emergence of a new black middle class not the virtuous captains of American industry.
The claim that it is occurring is widespread, and is exactly the position this book argues against. How does the effort to deliver New Deal type largesse to folks previously denied participation in the same by apartheid adminstration of the New Deal constitute a wrong? When you reference "New Deal type largesse" cnulan, what are you describing?
We're not talking about theft, so your example is void. Besides, I have no problem taking the $100 from the guy YOU gave MY $100 to. substitute the word "overwhelming majority" for "most" check out herbert hill's "black labor and the American Legal System"...check out what happened to qualified students/professionals in engineering, medicine, biology, chemistry, math and other sciences during the 40's and 50's. the proposition that Jim Crow only affected "some" folks or even "most" (suggested to be too strong, please) is absurd and should not be promulgated to suit some latter day theory to explain the early 20th century in the US. more than most, a bit less than all - and if those words are too strong, bring the math and show the world your numbers for a compelling case to the contrary. uma havta hed bek ta da circle afta dis y'all cuz if ya steal ahunnit black folk and ahunnit dollas from all them black folk and give it to all, not some, white folks (in the form of GNP), then however ya wanna randomly select which white folks to take $100 from is cool with me...but ya should git somethin' from everybody that got somethin'.
Simply take the examples noted in the Landau article I cite upthread which links the New Deal and the Great Society in the context of larger right wing cultural domination. The point that I took from this and from your contortious objections to AA is that racism is the indispensible lever underscoring all right wing cultural engineering and propaganda, it is the sine qua non of the corporatist big lie perpetrated on America. I jotted down my thoughts about the machinery of the big lie just the other day.., I've said it before and I'll say it again, as go black folks, so goes the future of America. "Several large cities in California, for decades, set aside some percentage of contracts which were not available to whites, regardless of qualification or being the low bidder. No more, but the cities fought hard to maintain such preferences." This is not true and is not supported by any objective evidence. The set asides, for example, which have not been in existence for decades were implemented as a means to use the resources of these cities to begin to generate the creation of minority owned and women owned businesses. These same cities and resources, i.e. tax dollars, had been used, for example, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, since the 1870s to benefit businesses owned by white men regardless of whether their companies were the low bidders or not. I know for a fact, for example, that in 1927 the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor of San Francisco, who later became governor, gave the Scanvengers Association a no-bid, open-ended contract to collect the city's refuse that is still in effect today. Members of the Board's Health Committee actually met without the knowledge of the committee's chair or any public notice to approve the proposed contract. Later, when the committee chair and members of the public protested thsi action the City Attorney wrote an opinion in which he declared that the committee had a right to meet without notifying its chair or the public. The Scavangers Association was made up entirely of Italians, many of whom had recently immigrated to America. Not one black person was ever hired to work on their trucks until the early 1980s. While my father and other black men were scrambling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads these Italian immigrants and their sons and grandsons were guaranteed lifetime employment as a result of government action. You need to bone up on your local and California history, my man. "What's driving that is a need to continue funding exceptionally generous military pensions." Not so. What is driving these workfare programs for white Americans is the lack of gainful employment opportunities for young whites in these areas and the fear of unemployment on the part of their mothers and fathers, many of whom either work at these bases or work for companies that provide services for these bases or that are used by employees of these bases like coffee shops etc.
Dood, this sounds for all the world like what I've rather harshly termed welfare for useless eaters..., dayyum, do you mean to tell me that the facts of the situation actually bear out the existence of a predator culture which cannot exist without the constant fabrication of enemies both without and within? cause employment for useless eaters isn't the justification I've heard for these bases.., The prison-industrial complex couldn't possibly absorb that many discharged useless eaters, unless of course our systems of governance began waging the War on Drugs against meth heads. But as we all surely know by now, the crystal methamphetamine epidemic is a health issue, not a crime and criminality issue, dammit!!! Guess this means the big liars are either going to have to step up the enemy within rhetoric or Tehran here we come. One way or another, without fresh prey, this American enterprise is headed into the shitter..., it seems that katznelson's argument is new to the extent that is represents "an untold history," which is seldom part of the critique of the New Deal or even the emergence of the Democratic Party...but the trend of Democrats serving southern, conservative interests at the expense of economic justice for black folk is long-standing. there may be examples of the government, especially at the state and local level, rejecting black claims for full citizenship (ie. equal protection of life and the pursuit of happiness), but FDR certainly represents the national fork in the road for democrats...and to the extent that this critique repositions affirmative action as a NATIONAL program under the leadership of a party ostensibly committed to equity while actually sustaining its' white supremacist core, it's compelling. were this a story about affirmative action under republicans serving white interests under hoover, it would not be compelling because it could be seen as part of a continuum linking today's tale of Enron, KPMG and Arthur Andersen to defense contractors during WWII or even large railroad interests in the 1880's. i think the essential thesis of the author suggests not simply the longer historical arc of affirmative action, but the failings of white folks to actually practice democracy, vote against their own interests and perpetuate the scapegoating of blacks as definitive of all that ails america. it may be a new idea, but the vantage point is somewhat unique. I don't disagree with you but "most" is a perfectly acceptable word for describing or saying the greatest in amount, extent or degree. "Overwhelming majority" may carry more of a wallop but using the word "most" does not represent an effort on my part to accommodate any theories of anything.
This is not true and is not supported by any objective evidence.
What's not true, PT? From the '70s until about 1998 that's exactly what happened. It may well have happened with whites the benificiary before that, and such an era may have lasted a long time, but the phenomenom I describe was real.
the proposition that Jim Crow only affected "some" folks or even "most" (suggested to be too strong, please) is absurd and should not be promulgated to suit some latter day theory to explain the early 20th century in the US. more than most, a bit less than all - and if those words are too strong, bring the math and show the world your numbers for a compelling case to the contrary. T3, we weren't discussing how many blacks were negatively affected by Jim Crow. I'll agree that's so close to 100% we'll we'll just say 100%. The question regarded how many blacks were unfairly denied the benefits of Roosevelt and Truman's New Deal, 1934..1950.
Simply take the examples noted in the Landau article I cite upthread which links the New Deal and the Great Society in the context of larger right wing cultural domination. The point that I took from this and from your contortious objections to AA is that racism is the indispensible lever underscoring all right wing cultural engineering and propaganda, it is the sine qua non of the corporatist big lie perpetrated on America. Observe the the biggest example of a New Deal benefit, by orders of magnitude, has been Social Security. The author of your cited piece lost me cnulan when he claimed that the effect of Prop 13 was that "rich people paid minimal taxes". He needs to check his facts. California taxes rich people among the most taxing five states in the nation. I'm guessing some of his other facts are equally suspect. (states have three major sources of tax revenue: real estate, income, and sales. CA has exceptionally high income and sales, and somewhat below average real estate taxes.) When I think of "New Deal", two things come to mind. Social Security, and the WPA. I've known several people who worked for the WPA, mostly building dams. It's sure plausible that these jobs were preferentially given to white people. Importantly, the WPA did not last very long, and went away. The jobs were just that: jobs. They didn't pay well. The work was hard. They were temporary. From the synopsis, it sure seems that Katznelson is claiming that the damage was done before LBJ's Great Society, so in analyzing Katznelson's case, it would presumably be a mistake to combine the two. In any case, as I hinted at earlier, I find the New Deal minus Social Security to have been so limited in both scope and time so as to had only a symbolic effect when analyzed nationwide. The real effect was that it preceded, and broke the trail for the Great Society,as well as deficit spending by the federal government.
I picture you just cracking yourself up when you say stuff like this..., now far be it from me to deny anyone a good belly laugh, but tickling yourself aside, I'm not at all certain where your trajectory on this discussion - away from racism and toward macroeconomics - is headed. Surely you don't propose that social welfare programs even remotely approach predatory welfare programs in their capacity to produce deficit spending? is this your idea of a counter to my request that you quantify the effects of a century of apartheid action with less than half a century of affirmative action, most of whose benefits accrued to white wimmin in any event? i.e., quantitatively WAR is the deficit spending exemplar of predatory welfare programs, and, the prison industrial is war's closely allied handmaiden. I dare you to show me that historical programmes of social welfare - gerrymandered as they were by jim crow and racist administration - even remotely approach the $$$ outlay of the contemporary military and prison industrial systems of welfare for useless eaters. Now given that these are not programs that invest in universal domestic social well-being. and yeah, in my admittedly parochial world-view, I can't feature equating military industrial or prison industrial welfare for useless eaters with universal domestic well-being, shouldn't it be incumbent upon me to set up a countervailing model of predatory apartheid action as the reflexive counterweight to irrational critiques of affirmative action?
I linked to the second page of the review on purpose.
"...do you mean to tell me that the facts of the situation actually bear out the existence of a predator culture which cannot exist without the constant fabrication of enemies both without and within?" You got it down. We live in a country where they have conned folks into believing that manufacturing war materiels, building prisons, creating foreign and domestic enemies and waging armed conflict against real and mostly imagined foes is more important than building schools and educating our children, providing universal health care, feeding the poor and creating affordable housing. These folks are getting their heads bumped and they don't even see the damage it is causing.
Some of that stuff seems speculative, but this seems highly plausible. It was an era when everyone knew that college and business loans would be wasted on most black people. We don't need to get hung up on the details: everyone knows that the Jim Crow era suppressed the advancement of American blacks, both overtly because some whites utilized the climate to implement their personal feeling of inequality with respect to blacks, but far more universally by the mechanism described in that quote. The interesting question, the interesting evidence should Katznelson have any, is how that might apply to today. He seems to claim it does, and posters here want to believe it does, but so far all we have is speculation. Do we expect that Katznelson is going to lay out an argument that racist admininistration of the GI Bill, 1946-1950, is responsible for contemporary black ghettos?
Interesting shift from racism, to macroeconomics, to an attempt to place temporal constraints on the scope of disparate impacts..., frankly I don't see a need for Katznelson to provide evidentiary support for anything anything beyond your own earlier common sense concession that whites have received an apartheid action benefit at an economic ratio that you quantitatively guesstimate at 100 to 1 over the benefits accruing to blacks from Great Society affirmative action. I believe the burden of proof has now been shifted into your court DW. As an ironic aside, there was an impassioned letter to the editor in today's KCStar from a representative for disgruntled merchant marines seeking reparations for not being taken care of like veterans of the regular armed services during WWII...,
Looks like the NBRA has jumped to the head of the class to take the lead in the GOP scripted coonshow;
"The interesting question, the interesting evidence should Katznelson have any, is how that might apply to today. He seems to claim it does, and posters here want to believe it does, but so far all we have is speculation. Do we expect that Katznelson is going to lay out an argument that racist admininistration of the GI Bill, 1946-1950, is responsible for contemporary black ghettos?" Your search for causal links between the invidious and insidious forms of racial discrimination practiced against American blacks is a form of speculative analysis on your part, too. The links between past forms of racial discrimination and contemporary black ghettoes was cumulative and productive, not causal. In the first place causal lines run all through the universe and human events. There is no straight line of causality between these practices and their result. Looking for relationships of causality will result in your missing the significance of the outcomes of such practices which have a predicted probability of occurence. Your search for causality puts you firmly in the camp of the artistic apparatchiks of the Communist Party apparata and I know you don't want to be there. Or do you? If a group of people are denied employment and educational opportunities for generations; thwarted by racially discriminatory practices from living whereever they could afford to live; and, denied access to capital markets and these practices are allowed to go on for several generations then the result would not be markedly different from what you see today in major and small American cities. If, after World War II, blacks in Philadelphia and especially black veterans had been allowed to live whereever they could afford to buy or rent a home or apartment Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs would look vastly different from how they look today. Would Philadephia still have poor people? Yes, but they wouldn't all be concentrated in certain areas of the city. And they probably would be less numerous than they are because if their parents or grandparents had been allowed to live in other counties surrounding Philadelphia there is good reason to suppose that their descendants life chances would have been greatly increased.
Do you think this had no effect? Tell me, what do YOU think the repercussions of this was?
Do you think this had no effect? Everything has some effect, but to leap 50 years in time requires a strong argument indeed, because more recent factors typically have far more effect. This is particularly true when fundamental changes of context have broadly occurred, such as with the civil rights restatement during the '60s. Another fundamental change which occurred was a transition away from adoption of the children of unwed mothers and to welfare funding for unwed mothers. As you would predict, I suggest that that change has far more to do with the size of today's black ghettos than events during the '40s. Adopted kids do better, because their raising is better than that provide by typical teenage girls. So we end up with competitive explanations. For one to be more convincing than the other, it has to both be more plausible and pass common sense skeptical barriers better. This isn't really a scientific pursuit, it's more a logical and historical one. None of us, to include Katznelson, are going to be able to provide hard evidence. Your search for causal links between the invidious and insidious forms of racial discrimination practiced against American blacks is a form of speculative analysis on your part, too. I confess, PT, I don't expect anyone to provide such a causal link. I wondered what kind of evidence might be forthcoming from Katznelson, as compared to the informed analysis we do here every day. Our arguments are frequently light on evidence regarding what caused what, but heavy on historical fact and insight regarding links between historical phenomena. I suspect we'd welcome Katznelson should he arrive, but we would find his arguments to be of that familiar form.
So you don't jump 50 years. What was the immediate effect of being excluded from the GI Bill? Economically, don't give me any psychodramas. And you also don't pretend this evidence is the sole explanation for everything. It's part of a general pattern that we have discussed and YOU have brought forth evidence for (see baseball...because if you're going to pretend everything gets analyzed in isolation, you get to be the poster boy after all)...that white folks take no responsibility for racial disparities even when they are the only active factor in play...as in this case.
Explanation 1: Earth was not hit with a comet that ended all human life Explanation 2: Black people systematically have poorer parents and grandparents because of public policies from 40 years ago. Poorer parents = fewer and less effective ghetto avoidance opportunities Explanation 3: There has been a shift away from adoption. The truth is that explanations 1 and 3 do not really "compete" with explanation 2. Once you concede explanation 2 has any impact at all you are now ready to measure the effect and come up with ways to counteract that effect. The shift away from adoption - as much as I hate to take your bait and change the subject - are you claiming it goes something like 1) Fewer pregnant black women are starving 2) Black women who are not starving less often put their babies up for adoption 3) "Shift away from adoption towards government support for unwed mothers"? And is your "solution" for more black women to be starving? Back to the subject. Once you concede that explanation 2 explains part of today's conditions - which is not something every opponent of restorative policies concedes - you don't really have to read Katznelson's book. You can pass it to one of your brothers who does not yet concede that point. You are now able to graduate to the advanced topic of what are reasonable steps to compensate the people who you concede are poorer today because of racially targetted government policies. The shift away from adoption - as much as I hate to take your bait and change the subject - are you claiming it goes something like 1) Fewer pregnant black women are starving 2) Black women who are not starving less often put their babies up for adoption 3) "Shift away from adoption towards government support for unwed mothers"? And is your "solution" for more black women to be starving? I'm quite happy to not divert the main thread, but I do believe this explanation competes with the one implied by Katznelson when explaining modern black ghettos. The investigation goes in two phases. 1. Do welfare policies begun in the 1960s perpetuate ghettos? 2. If so, shouldn't we implement policy modifications which don't starve anyone but stop perpetuating ghettos? == Once you concede that explanation 2 explains part of today's conditions - which is not something every opponent of restorative policies concedes - you don't really have to read Katznelson's book. You can pass it to one of your brothers who does not yet concede that point. I make no claim of strong knowledge; in fact, I'd go futher and claim that anyone who does claim strong knowledge is likely deluded. I do generally accept that Jim Crow, both broadly and as applied to the GI Bill, had a negative effect on black people living in 1965. The largest factor I see in explaining modern ghettos is that welfare policies begun around 1965 trapped not only some people living in 1965 but insidiously trapped their descendents. The means of the trap was and remains the unwed mother living on welfare and raising kids badly. So I'm not arguing "no connection". I'm arguing "not a modern factor". Would we argue that blacks were precluded from major league baseball unitl 1948 suppresses modern black kids who wish to play professional baseball? In 1947 we would have, and even as late as the 1960s there were certainly black people around who would have been playing major league baseball if they wouldn't have been strongly discouraged by earlier conditions. Today we might find some connection, but we would say "not a modern factor".
Interesting example because in 2005 the lack of baseball diamonds in the hood is the primary modern barrier to participation by modern black kids, and welfare policies conducing to unwed mothers living on welfare and raising kids badly very obviously has little to do with that. Basketball goals galore, cause these are cheap, baseball diamonds scarce because they're not funded in the urban core. By selecting this specific example you've traversed the side argument maze back into a discussion of the factors conducing to ghettoization and its attendant condition of few if any urban baseball diamonds. As contortiously as you want to tee this up DW, there is simply no logically or factually consistent way for you to exclude the effects of apartheid action on the collective well-being of black folks. as OBM put it;
I must say it's fascinating watching you struggle to minimize or obviate inescapable causal economic factors...,
Wrong questions. 1. Did the the USofA set out to specifically restrict the advancement and achievements of Black people, craft specific legislation with that intent, and succeed? You have already admitted this to be the case. 2. If so how can this be undone, fixed, compensated for...pick your term. Follow-up question: how do we get y'all to stop pretending the first two questions aren't the only ones that matter? I must say it's fascinating watching you struggle to minimize or obviate inescapable causal economic factors..., Give it a try yourself, cnulan. It's even more fascinating when you're willing to expose your own lack of total confidence in a context where you'll very likely end up understanding things a little better, even as others occasionally carp about the messy nature of the process. The goal is not to change someone's mind who disagrees with you, there is no universal truth upon which we will all converge just as soon as we get it right. That isn't to say that an uniformed position is equal to a more informed position. Rather, that even highly informed positions can vary widely as to conclusion. The goal is advancement along that informed scale, and the goal is approached by actually engaging people with different positions. This engagement can't be real if one already knows the full truth of the matter.
The question is one of access, exposure, and motive DW. Because my vocation compels me to interact with multiple strata of successful salarymen and women and my avocation consists of a developmental engagement with the children of working poor black mothers - I have a dual consciousness of critic and criticized that is foundational to my point of view. What I DO, not try to do, is to get other salary people similarly engaged in a developmental communion with kids whose circumstances they might otherwise stand back from and ignorantly criticize. As for the ideological engagement, I try it from time to time when I have a taste for rhetorical violence. I have as yet to come across an ideological correspondent who is personally engaged with the object of his ideological scorn. Ideological folks are mostly unprepared to be challenged around the reality of their cherished imaginal representations of others. I have found few conservatives that are capable of upholding any standard of civility when their cherished beliefs are strongly challenged. My last rhetorical/ideological go round was with the individual_ sovereignty libertarian list. In short order, because I wouldn't agree that black folks should be grateful for the privilege of our lives in America, there was an eruption of expletives and accusations that I'm a racist socialist fruitcake. As you might imagine, this resulted in some tightly focused corn-pressing by yours truly and yet further weeping and gnashing of teeth by senior members of that list. After a few days of ruthlessly toying with the emotions of my imaginally invested correspondents, I unsubscribed from the list because it was boring.
This engagement can't be real unless ones own engagement - is in fact - real.
The goal is advancement along the scale of actual interpersonal communion such that the different positions share in common an actual understanding of the subject matter. Everything else is, after all, merely conversation..., "Follow-up question: how do we get y'all to stop pretending the first two questions aren't the only ones that matter?" The short answer is that we can't get them to stop. The long answer is that their real interest in posing such questions beyond evading any responsibility for these circumstances is lull us into thinking that these questions are deserving of an answer. That's why most of the black folks who post on this list will not EVER be seen on Sunday morning television unless we own a station. Cedric Muhammad over at BlackElectorate.com touched on this issue last week when he opined that the media wants non-threatening Negroes. That is, Negroes who will not question the cherished assumptions of what passes for discourse about the legacy of America's efforts to grind black people into dust. DW's questions are immaterial, irrelevant and undeserving of an answer because no reasonable and logical answer will satisfy him. The short answer is that we can't get them to stop. The long answer is that their real interest in posing such questions beyond evading any responsibility for these circumstances is lull us into thinking that these questions are deserving of an answer. So by your analysis, what responsibility do I, a white man your age, have, PT, that you, a black man, do not have?
I believe that you have an ethical responsibility, that is, as a presumably rational, thinking being, to look at the facts and information and accept the logical conclusions that follow as a result. If you agree that black people have been systematically and pervasively discriminated against in nearly all categories of activity outside the social realm then the question that should be asked is how can we as a society take steps to remediate the damgage that has been caused to black people as a consequence of these practices. The issue is not about poor adolescent black girls having babies out of wedlock. Is that a responsibility that you do not have? I consider myself to be reasonably rational and capable of at least a modicum of thought. Given this assumption, it appears that I have the same level of responsibility that you do. Do you have any information that would lead me to think that the current collective economic and financial condition of black Americans with respect to assets, wealth, education, health etc. is not related to past practices of racial discrimination? I consider myself to be reasonably rational and capable of at least a modicum of thought. Given this assumption, it appears that I have the same level of responsibility that you do. Good. I'm pleased to share the boat. Do you have any information that would lead me to think that the current collective economic and financial condition of black Americans with respect to assets, wealth, education, health etc. is not related to past practices of racial discrimination? Of course not. There's some relation. What do you see as our common responsibility in this matter?
My last rhetorical/ideological go round was with the individual_ sovereignty libertarian list. In short order, because I wouldn't agree that black folks should be grateful for the privilege of our lives in America, there was an eruption of expletives and accusations that I'm a racist socialist fruitcake. As you might imagine, this resulted in some tightly focused corn-pressing by yours truly and yet further weeping and gnashing of teeth by senior members of that list. After a few days of ruthlessly toying with the emotions of my imaginally invested correspondents, I unsubscribed from the list because it was boring. And you drew some generalization about conservatives or libertarians or white guys or something from that experience which applies here?
"What do you see as our common responsibility in this matter?" In the context of this list it means not allowing you to stuff the palpable reality of black people's history and day-to-day reality into an ideological box in the hope that what comes out explains and justifies the world view you have adopted.
Nah. Merely reconfirmed simple matters of fact. None of these ideologues had/has any substantive involvement with the object of their abiding conservative scorn. A couple of the most vocal critics of poor blacks were interrogated to the point of grudging admission that they'd never even personally met a black American. What these correspondants had in common was a profound imaginal investment in ideology. Here's the thing DW, and it's not rocket science. I grew up poor and black and due to my mother's integrationist compulsions was compelled from the earliest to deal adroitly with all and sundry types of white folks. However, nowhere along the way did it occur to me to abandon my native poor and black sensibilities. The vice is simply not versa. I suspect that considerably more conservative, libertarian, white guys than we'd care to admit have no closer interaction with black folks - and certainly not poor black folks - than what they read in the paper or watch on the 10:00 oclock news. Abject lack of subject matter expertise notwithstanding, individually and in their collective political mass, many of these guys are perfectly at ease prescribing remedies for the social ills of people they've never met and therefore couldn't possibly know. i am very interested in hearing the answer to the "what do we DO" question. But let's get back to the sixties. There's a myth about the role of the Great Society programs in exacerbating poverty that isn't quite born out by facts. On the other hand, there are individual anecdotes that are at least suggestive that another picture exists. Mae Jemison for example wouldn't be where she is without the anti-poverty programs of the sixties--she's pretty clear about that. One of my father's first jobs was as a worker in one of the many community programs that paid black men and women in urban contexts to organize them.
But again, these are only suggestive.
This is what we do know.
We know that sometime in the mid-fifties suburbs and freeways began to be built. We know that the GI Bill gave money for housing, but not for old housing stock...it could only be used for new housing stock. We also know that most of the suburbs in the north did not allow black people to live in them. This creates the foundation for the dynamic known as "hypersegregation."
White flight sped as whites lost the political battle for cities like Gary, and Detroit. Manufacturers left soon after, following government subsidies designed to decentralize the "arsenal of democracy." But while whites had ready access to the new sites, blacks did not. They didn't live in the suburbs because of housing segregation. And they did not have access to them because whites did not want to spend the money on public transportation to allow blacks to GET to them.
This furthers the wealth gap--whites are able to buy homes in new areas and watch their values raise while blacks are stuck in neighborhoods the government won't subsidize or rebuild. This furthers the income gap--whites are able to stay in the manufacturing positions, and as time passes send their children to strong secondary and post-secondary schools while blacks are not.
what strikes me about the single motherhood thing, is that no one really considers the fact that it is a ratio that can be driven by one of TWO factors. either single mothers can increase the rate at which they have children.
or married couples can have FEWER children.
my grandparents each had several brothers and sisters. most black people i know have similar stories. my mother has one sibling. my father has two.
i have two.
if married black couples are constrained in their ability to build wealth, because of a combination of housing segregation, and lack of work opportunities outside of the public sector, it seems to me that one of their responses will be to make the choice to have fewer children.
on the other hand, i am fairly sure that given the unwillingness to spend health dollars on prevantive efforts of ANY kind...that the single mother birth rate will be inelastic.
The closest I got to a remedy cnulan was "perhaps welfare policy should be modified to not perpetuate black ghettos while keeping people from starving". Is that what you're disagreeing with? Why not disagree directly? on the other hand, i am fairly sure that given the unwillingness to spend health dollars on prevantive efforts of ANY kind...that the single mother birth rate will be inelastic. Do you see where willingness to spend health dollars on preventative efforts would reduce such? How would it go?
I actually never gave that specific point a thought, rather, I took my cue from your objection to the modicum of redress embodied in affirmative action as a "wrong" in light of what had preceded it historically. What purpose would be served DW by my negotiating clauses in an overarching apartheid action social contract - which by your own guesstimation has funneled government largesse {economic preference} to whites at a 100 to 1 ratio over blacks for the past 60 years - both during and after enforced Jim Crow? What's the end-game objective in that approach? What's the end-game objective in that approach? A government which treats each individual fairly, independent of race.
before i continue, why are you focusing on single mothers, rather than on the structural problems that cause black families to refrain from having more children? before i continue, why are you focusing on single mothers, rather than on the structural problems that cause black families to refrain from having more children? If you follow my style spence you'll find that I don't really try to control the flow of the discussion. When x looks interesting then let's examine x. If you believe we should substitute y, because y is more important, then go ahead and address y.
I think Spence wants to know why x looks interesting to you.
ah, I wasn't aware that you're an advocate of reparations for black folks..., I believe single mothers are part of the perpetual ghetto trap. The odds that their daughters end up single mothers and their sons end up in prison is too high. That seems worthy of examination. Tie it back to Jim Crow if that can be done, but it's a real problem worthy of attention. We've been there before though, and we can get back there some other time. I do genealogy. In my familes, up until WWII having more than ten kids was normal. During the '50s, 4 was normal (I'm the oldest of 5). Nowadays, 1-2 is normal. Is it the case that contemporary black families are constrained below normal due to lack of resources, perhaps due to events of 60 years ago, and that's what we should discuss as being more important than the ghetto trap? Ok, let's see how it goes. ah, I wasn't aware that you're an advocate of reparations for black folks..., I've always been such an advocate. If an individual black person has been materially mistreated by the government, reparation may well be in order. The government employee(s) who implemented the mistreatment should be at least fired, and likely criminally prosecuted as corrupt.
how big a part of the ghetto trap? fifty percent? seventy-five? what? how big a part of the ghetto trap? fifty percent? seventy-five? what? When you look at it from the outside, it's the first thing you see. On the surface, it's what is happening, and something which needs to be addressed by society at large. To stay the course is to doom further generations. Is it more complex than that? Everything is. Do other factors imply that we can't change this equation? I don't see such a case. Whatever solution we come up with will save no small number of white kids as well.
Now maybe there's an underlying question here, and maybe it's what Spence was hinting at. Why should we be discussing black losers when discussing the effects of Jim Crow? Why shouldn't we be discussing the black middle class (from lower to higher)? Wouldn't they be better off if not for Jim Crow? Here's one opinion: I have about as much sympathy for them as they have for me. I don't see a problem, I see a success. I myself survived being a total social loser in high school, an attraction to intoxicants leading to doing two years locked up. Were my problems worse than some other guy's? Hell, I don't know. I do know that all successful people have conquered (or captured) their own demons such that they could move on. The experiences make for success stories, make for more empathy regarding young people screwing up, and hopefully how to be useful. We're all here. It's life. DW, your exclusive emphasis on personal responsibility, not structural features, wrongly locates the source of poor black suffering—and by implication its remedy—in the lives of the poor. When you think the problems are personal, you think the solutions are the same. If only the poor were willing to work harder, act better, stay chaste, get educated, stay out of jail and parent more effectively, their problems would go away. It's circular and pointless to argue against any of these things in the abstract; in principle such suggestions sound just fine. But one could do all of these things and still be in bad shape at home, work or school. In this case, you've highlighted in stark and indefensible terms your willingness to completely and irrationally ignore the economic injustice of apartheid action - which by your own guesstimation has inflicted economic injustice at a 100 to 1 ratio - and this on top of centuries of chattel slavery and jim crow. I believe in so doing, you've left even the most patient of your correspondents here at a loss for words. I think you're on a boat all by yourself at this juncture. If only the poor were willing to work harder, act better, stay chaste, get educated, stay out of jail and parent more effectively, their problems would go away. I think you've misinterpreted cnulan. I proposed that the biggest problem involves picking a bad mother, which is beyond individual control. I proposed that society needs to get involved to change the mechanisms which perpetuate this. I do grant success to individuals. No matter how much help they had, no matter that they might not have made it without such help, every success story is a story of an individual mastering his weaknesses.
Who's discussing Black losers?
We are.
Yes. "picking a bad mother?" what does this mean? you said before that single motherhood was part of the problem. i asked you "how big a part?" are you now saying it is the biggest part?
"picking a bad mother?" what does this mean? It seemed more entertaining than "the bad luck to have been born to a bad mother". you said before that single motherhood was part of the problem. i asked you "how big a part?" are you now saying it is the biggest part? I'm saying it looks like the biggest part.
Just a bump to insure everyone knows we're off the first page. "I think you're on a boat all by yourself at this juncture." I jumped overboard yesterday. Go to the census website. Compare the values of every possible characteristic of "nuclear white families" you can get a hold of, with "nuclear black families." If it is single families that is the biggest problem, then you should come up with a number of material characteristics in which black "winners" are similar in status to white "winners." If it's the "losers" dragging down the race, then once you control for them, blacks and whites should be the same.
Ok, we've now concisely identified our difference in perspective. I see the important problem as too many loser blacks. You see the important problem as winner blacks who aren't winning, on the average, as much as winner whites are winning. I suspect we'd both agree that the other's observed problem is indeed a problem, although secondary.
Nope. The problem is white denial of responsibility. DWShelf, I mentioned the census information taking YOUR premises as a given. That is, you think the problem is that there are too many "loser blacks." If this is true, that the real problem is too many loser blacks...then on every important statistical indicator, once we control for those "loser blacks" then there should be no differences between blacks and whites. Again, taking your premise as a given, the position that the problem is too many "loser blacks" is still pretty much bankrupt empirically. This is really the bottom line.
These severe deficits we've outlined, can only come from ONE of three different processes.
1. Dumb luck. Through the roll of the dice, blacks just HAPPEN to be on the bottom, and whites just HAPPEN to be on top.
2. Cultural/genetic deficits. Because blacks lack the cultural or genetic capital to succeed compared to their white breathren, they are on the bottom.
3. Structural deficits. Because of past and present discrimination and subjugation, blacks are on bottom and whites are on top.
Now while I suppose you can make an argument that it is BOTH 2 and 3, this argument would be as intelligible as a the typings of a monkey. It is ONE of the three.
We're not disagreeing on the facts, Spence, including what the census says. I'm a member of a large extended family, 25-35 families depending on whether or not you count unmarried adults as a family. In this group, there are families which fall below the poverty line. Most, however, do not, but those who do are taken as a source of concern by the rest of us. I don't know which of the familes is the most wealthy. It might be me, it might not. I'm among the top three. When it comes to analyzing the needs of our extended family, I start at the bottom. I try to be useful, I'm willing to get involved. I buy people clothes to do job interviews in. I do practice interviews. I discuss what's going to work, what's not. I make sure they can attend family get togethers. Above that layer comes people who are working, but at risk. They really don't have enough money. I worry about them too, but my participation is more limited to buying airline tickets for those who can't afford to attend family functions, and making sure that they are able to enjoy the company of the rest of us. Then comes our great middle class. People who are doing fine, although they're a long ways from being able to quit their jobs and live on what they have. It's at the bottom of this tier I stop worrying about how well anyone is making it. I don't care if they come to make more money than me, I hope they do, but if not, they're still doing fine. And at the top, we all still have to work. When I look at society, I apply a similar algorithm. I worry about people who aren't making it. I worry about those who are, but are at risk. But I don't much worry about anyone else. And they don't worry about me either. That's how life is. If I may make a parallel... If we were talking about winter driving, you'd be discussing tires with bald patches while we'd be talking about being snowed in because no one plows our streets...when the get streets clear it's because of the snow melted. We'd be talking about our road salt being diverted to wealthier communities because we can't drive with all those snowed-in streets anyway. The problem is white denial of responsibility. I started out do deny such responsibility, P6. But I recalled the lesson I learned from you. If I was recommending force as the means to an end, none of those I was seeking to do something for would cooperate, in fact they would resist mightily. Even if what I had in mind was sensible. I'll suggest this applies to this case. If you're speaking to your natural constituency, fine. But if you're speaking to white people who had nothing to do with Jim Crow, your suggestion that they should somehow take responsibility for something they didn't do has no more chance of communication than white people proposing forceful solutions to black educational problems.
I am not suggesting a thing. I am saying outright that white people's inability to accept responsibility for what they are doing right now is what keeps us arguing about what was done in the past. I'm saying Black people's major problem is the mainstream society balancing its problems on our backs. And I put the same meaning across to Black and white folks. White folks in general just don't get it...you have a race problem because you are our race problem...not because we are yours...people are still bitching about Felipe Alou, aren't they? I am saying outright that white people's inability to accept responsibility for what they are doing right now is what keeps us arguing about what was done in the past. That's difficult, but not impossible. First off, you have to assure them you're not talking about some historic thing which happened before they were born. If you don't do that, the attention switch goes to off immediately, or if it stays on, they feel more and more hostile as you go on. It doesn't mean that Jim Crow is beyond discussion, it means that people who had nothing to do with it don't and never will feel personally responsible. Second, you have to convince them that they're doing something now which is causing black people a problem. For example, while I lightened up on Felipe Alou, I fail to see anything in that episode which white people in general need to take responsibility for. Did white people suppress the income of middle class blacks? Did they create more black losers? Since it's apparently one of the best recent examples, can you explain what responsibility I have in that matter?
How about taking responsibility for bad judgement? They blame him for something he was actually not even involved in. If you support objectively racist behavior, or suggest the best response to it is one with no impact the attention switch goes to off immediately, or if it stays on, they feel more and more hostile as you go on. Again, I'm telling you the only reason we have to keep going over the past is because white people will not take responsibility for their current racist behavior. Stop that shit, and things go a LOT smoother...but Black folks can't stop it (because it's not our behavior) and white folks won't. Taken personally, the alou episode doesn't well illustrate your personal culpability DW. But I seem to recall you're some kind of daytrader or broker/dealer or something along those lines, so to the extent that you enable corporate behaviour in your name - depending on which corporate bodies serve your interests, it is precisely there that we can not only identify but quantify the extent of your personal accountability, despite your conscious denials of same. You see, the anglosphere perfected the occult mechanism {the golem} by which it absolves individuals from personal guilt and accountability centuries ago.., it accorded this mechanism full rights of personhood late in the 19th century, and these artificial persons in a variety of guises are now running the corporate fascist state which principally exists to serve their interests. within the inanimate institutional body of a corporate golem, the activities of thousands of perfectly innocent individuals can be harnessed to accomplish the most hideously evil objectives while enabling each individual employee, manager, investor, director, and consumer to plausibly deny any personal accountability for whatever attrocities the corporate golem commits in order to increase shareholder value. oh, the same mechanism works within the corporate public sector. one of the primary lessons I learned from my battle as a whistleblower was exactly how diffuse personal accountability can be in an institutional setting.
I will never use that term (though it's tempting), but I'll never argue with its use either. so you're concerned with poverty then. what i'm concerned with is getting the causal flows right. THEN we can get the solution right. In this case if we look at the individual as the root of the problem--she can't keep her legs closed, she can't keep a good man, she's having too many damn kids--then we look at individual solutions. and depending upon the individual those solutions can become down right draconian. can't keep her legs closed? sew them mugs up. sterilize her. can't keep a good man? forcibly enroll her in man-keeping classes.
the reason i suggested the census is because this is one way to eradicate the discussion. numbers DO lie...but the census numbers usually UNDERrepresent the problem. the census can tell us whether poverty is the cause of single mothers dragging black people down, or something else. i think we can help single mothers through a variety of piece-meal type efforts. but helping single mothers do better in interviews won't deal with the child care issue, for example.
another structural problem.
Again, I'm telling you the only reason we have to keep going over the past is because white people will not take responsibility for their current racist behavior. Stop that shit, and things go a LOT smoother...but Black folks can't stop it (because it's not our behavior) and white folks won't. You know P6, I think I have a better notion of what you're trying to say than most white people do, simply because I'm trying to listen and you and others are trying to explain. But I gotta tell you: it remains a story which isn't compelling. Which isn't to say it's all bullshit, rather, whatever the kernel of truth is, which thinking people actually will respect when they see it, hasn't been accurately described as yet. I believe there's such a kernel in there. As to how important it is, we can't tell until we identify just what it is. I suggest that a hard, small kernel of understanding is more valuable than a gas giant of vague accusations. That small kernel of understanding is not approached by impugning people's fundamental motivations, nor assuming they engage in elaborate denial plots. It's approached by sincere attempts at communication.
"First off, you have to assure them you're not talking about some historic thing which happened before they were born." A brief return from the depths. DW wants to continue to keep the focus on the issue of individual responsibility for the plight of black people. Poor black people who are, by and large, responsible for their problems because they won't change their behavior. On the other hand, white Americans as a group are not responsible for the plight of black people either because the harm that was visited on blacks was done by individual whites. If these individuals are no longer in the realm of the living then blacks have no tortious action against them. If these actions occurred before other whites were born or prior to their immigration to American then these whites have no responsibility to remedy any apartheid era disparities blacks may have suffered. Although DW claims to accept that apartheid-based disparate treatment actually occurred, he believes that it has no cumulative or collective effect on American blacks. In fact, he believes that blacks are actually causing more harm than good by continuing to raise these issues since, in his opinion, the overwhelming majority of whites are not responsible for these disparities. Felipe Alou should have suffered a racist insult like a man. That is, in silence. This is where we wind up if we keep talking about social problems not as societal issues but as individual matters. DW, in my opinion, represents that segment of America that misunderstood Dr. King's description of America's racial problem as being a moral and ethical problem. Since he and others who subscribe to his views see the individual as the locus of all moral and ethical dillemmas they are reluctant to believe that an individual may bear a moral or ethical responsibility even if that person's behavior has been beyond reproach. In other words, if you personally are not a racist then you can morally and ethically oppose remediative policies that are designed to assist black people in overcoming the cumulative effects of the barriers that were placed in their path for more than 300 years. White opposition to these policies is not based on a dislike of blacks or a desire to prevent them from attaining the good life but, rather, on the view that the proposed policies will in the long run be more injurious to the Republic than chattel slavery or apartheid because they will engender feelings of entitlement among blacks and corresponding feelings of resentment among many whites, who, after all, had nothing to do with the apartheid era policies of America regardless of how much they and their ancestors may have benefited from such policies. I'm getting back in the water. Sail on, DW, sail on. i think we can help single mothers through a variety of piece-meal type efforts. but helping single mothers do better in interviews won't deal with the child care issue, for example. another structural problem.
Something as simple as putting some welfare mothers to work doing daycare for other welfare mothers who went to work in regular jobs would seem to be win-win. They all gain self respect, which gets passed on to their children.
I'm getting back in the water. Sail on, DW, sail on. You and I have had too many good times PT for me to abandon you way out here.
Although DW claims to accept that apartheid-based disparate treatment actually occurred, he believes that it has no cumulative or collective effect on American blacks. In fact, he believes that blacks are actually causing more harm than good by continuing to raise these issues since, in his opinion, the overwhelming majority of whites are not responsible for these disparities. Felipe Alou should have suffered a racist insult like a man. That is, in silence. I've not said any of those things PT. I think you're seeing someone else in me, someone you've met before who thought like you describe. As you'll recall, I found Alou's nationally televised characterization "the spawn of satan" to be a fine response. What I did say is that NO one, not me, not you, not nobody is likely to accept responsibility for something they had nothing to do with. Exceptions are shown broadly defective.
"You and I have had too many good times PT for me to abandon you way out here." I appreciate your charitable impulse but I can swim and chew gum at the same time.
If you consider the current circumstances, you'll realize "thinking" isn't what determines who sees it and who doesn't. And I think I've been precise enough to assume "vague accusations" doesn't apply to me. Think about that while I consider how to continue. "Something as simple as putting some welfare mothers to work doing daycare for other welfare mothers who went to work in regular jobs would seem to be win-win. They all gain self respect, which gets passed on to their children." 1. Mothers WORK. Single mothers WORK. Mothers without other forms of income WORK. Mothers who live on AFDC WORK.
2. Why do you assume women on welfare have no self-respect? What does the literature say? Do you know anyone on welfare?
3. what does self-respect have to do theoretically with the poverty rate?
"What I did say is that NO one, not me, not you, not nobody is likely to accept responsibility for something they had nothing to do with. Exceptions are shown broadly defective." I contribute money to Doctors Without Borders because it provides medical care to people who otherwise would not receive it. My intention is to help relieve their suffering in a way that I find useful. I also contribute money to a micro-lending program that provides small loans to women in Africa who are often the sole breadwinners in their families. My behavior has nothing to do with calculating the degree of my responsibility for the conditions of these poor people. Sail on, DW, sail on. Why do you assume women on welfare have no self-respect? Nothing is absolute. We're discussing valid generalizations, not individuals. Why do you assume women on welfare have no self-respect? Because living on money forcefully extracted from other people is inherently degrading. The effect is cumulative over years, and devastating when a child has experienced nothing but welfare support. What does the literature say? Do you know anyone on welfare? I've been on welfare. I've known lots of people on welfare. what does self-respect have to do theoretically with the poverty rate? Nearly everything. People don't choose poverty, they see no choice. When the person most important to them, their mother, could do no better than to collect welfare, how can they know they could do any better? That same person subjected to different experiences will do just fine, because s/he will feel confident of making it in life, and that confidence will be instantiated. My behavior has nothing to do with calculating the degree of my responsibility for the conditions of these poor people. Given that it's not worded for the occasion... but could you see yourself appealing to that part of me which thinks just that way when addressing the questions of the moment?
Why do you assume women on welfare have no self-respect? Nothing is absolute. We're discussing valid generalizations, not individuals. These generalizations are only valid with aggregate level data. Do you have any? Why do you assume women on welfare have no self-respect? "Because living on money forcefully extracted from other people is inherently degrading. The effect is cumulative over years, and devastating when a child has experienced nothing but welfare support." Inherently degrading WHY? As I note above, they ARE working right? Being a mother is one of the hardest jobs you can possibly undertake. The effect is cumulative over years...do you have data to prove this? What does the literature say? Do you know anyone on welfare? "I've been on welfare. I've known lots of people on welfare." Me too. I didn't have a self-esteem problem. Neither did my mother...or my wife for that matter. Did you? AGAIN WHAT DOES THE LITERATURE SAY? what does self-respect have to do theoretically with the poverty rate? "Nearly everything. People don't choose poverty, they see no choice. When the person most important to them, their mother, could do no better than to collect welfare, how can they know they could do any better?" So lack of self-respect causes poverty? "That same person subjected to different experiences will do just fine, because s/he will feel confident of making it in life, and that confidence will be instantiated." So you raise self-esteem you end poverty? "Given that it's not worded for the occasion... but could you see yourself appealing to that part of me which thinks just that way when addressing the questions of the moment?" What is your latitude and longitude at this point? AGAIN WHAT DOES THE LITERATURE SAY? On the kind of forum we find ourselves, it's uttlerly fair if you'd like to cite literature which disagrees with me. The web is very good about making literature available to this kind of context. I base my analysis on my personal experiences (including p6) and observations. Sometimes I'm too quick to generalize. Counter-information is welcome. "I've been on welfare. I've known lots of people on welfare." Me too. I didn't have a self-esteem problem. Neither did my mother...or my wife for that matter. Did you? No, I didn't. I find a major distinction between periods on welfare and a life on welfare. People who don't have self-esteem problems get themselves off of welfare. People who don't get themselves off of welfare, ever, don't feel very good about themselves. So lack of self-respect causes poverty? And crime. So you raise self-esteem you end poverty? No absolutes. You help.
I'm not citing literature that disagrees with you. I am looking for you to cite literature that verifies your claims. If you can't verify your claims, then you should qualify your statements. If there are any claims I've made that require verification, or even a way to get verification if you want to do the research yourself, ask me. In my estimation, personal experiences--particularly those of whites living in segregated contexts (i.e. not around many black people)--are suspect. Outside of perhaps obvious statements like "crack is wack."
I think you are confusing "welfare" with "poverty." All individuals on AFDC are poor. Not all poor people are on AFDC.
So WITHIN folks on AFDC, let's say you're right. People with higher degrees of self-esteem are less likely to be on welfare long. I still think there are structural dynamics to consider but for the time being let's ignore those.
The central question is still the link between self-esteem and POVERTY. NOT self-esteem and welfare. The people who get off of AFDC because of their high self-esteem (your argument not mine) are still poor. They just aren't on AFDC.
"No absolutes. You help."
Help what? I've already provided a theory for what is going on. I'm helping by deconstructing your theory, because there are holes in it.
If you can't verify your claims, then you should qualify your statements. I'm an anonymous net poster, with absolutely no credentials of any sort, except how people judge my postings on p6. Your vote counts. PT is voting hard no these days, but we have had good times. cnulan almost always votes no, but comes up with unique insight and connects. P6 himself doesn't actually vote, beyond the up/down statement as to whether you're meeting the requirements. He usually takes me on, and, while doing so, occasionally ends up rewarding me immensely. So I'd say my credibility overall is quite low, but they keep me around because I'm well behaved, and the discussions are more widely read than one sided ones. More to the point, I try to be a good player in the internet discussion game as I enjoy reading it. Two (or more) sides arrive. Instead of calling each other names, they disect the competing positions. Sometimes they leave it at that, and sometimes they marshall various literature in favor of one side or another. The reader judges for himself whether he learned anything, and whether the posters are worth reading again, changing forums as he sees fit. A lack of literature by both sides leaves the reader judging on what he's read so far. Not all great posters present a lot of documentation, some of them just make sense, but ultimately, other people decide. The central question is still the link between self-esteem and POVERTY. NOT self-esteem and welfare. The people who get off of AFDC because of their high self-esteem (your argument not mine) are still poor. They just aren't on AFDC. Good point. These are the people I've previously described as "at risk". They need attention. They're economically undernourished, and vulnerable to temptations. Confidence (or self esteem) is far from a binary thing. Having a job is positive, but far from sufficiently so. Such people indeed need realistic examples in their life demonstrating proof that someone can traverse from where they are into that middle class. They need to have experiences in their life which are more important than intoxicants, experiences which might involve family and community. "No absolutes. You help."
Help what? I don't think this came across quite like I hoped. "you help" meant that no one can end poverty, but one can help end poverty. "PT is voting hard no these days, but we have had good times" I am not rejecting or condemning you as a person. In my opinion you still have worth and value as a human being. What I am saying is that I see no point in continuing to have a discussion with you on this topic. You are of course entitled to your opinion and you just may, after all, be right but I believe that you are allowing ideology to stand in the way of common sense, which, in my opinion, makes you slightly impervious to reason on this subject. I have taken the same position with friends and acquaintances on the left that I am now taking with you. I'm not struggling with you anymore on these matters. Try not to take it personally. There will always be other issues.
I have two bits of information I need. When you say "thinking people" do you mean white people or thinking white people? This is a serious question. And by compelling, do you mean do you mean something that makes you want to choose or something that leaves you no choice? Try not to take it personally. There will always be other issues. Cool. Thanks.
I have two bits of information I need. When you say "thinking people" do you mean white people or thinking white people? This is a serious question. I meant "thinking (white) people". There's white people who want this "intelligent design" thing, I don't expect you to communicate with them, they aren't thinking. But a compelling case is compelling independent of the race of the reader. And by compelling, do you mean do you mean something that makes you want to choose or something that leaves you no choice? The latter. Although, there's nothing wrong with the former, it's that it's a different kind of case. Take PT's donations. PT wasn't compelled by personal responsibility. He was compelled as a human being. That's a fair case to make, that we're compelled as humans to put resources into some cause which will benefit other humans.
Not true. PT, the fact that we come to this place is itself part of the analysis. I get it, you feel very deeply that I'm (more correctly, white people are) wrong to deny responsibility for Jim Crow. Morally and ethically wrong. The depth of that feeling is something I had not experienced before, but I'm now guessing that this lack of experience wasn't due to your feeling being peculiar to you. "I get it, you feel very deeply that I'm (more correctly, white people are) wrong to deny responsibility for Jim Crow." Point of Clarification: They are profoundly mistaken if they believe that they don't bear more than a measure of responsibility for the consequences of Jim Crow. See, for example, Jonathan Kozol's piece on our public schools in the latest issue of Harper's.
Damn, that thing is in a plastic bag under some laundry around here somewhere... Do the laundry and read the piece during the wash and rinse cycles. We can get back to it another day, PT. I went to a place I suspect you've been. We went to dinner at the Emeryville Public Market. The Emeryville Public Market is a restaurant court, about 20 restaurants sourrounding eating areas. We entered by what might be considered the back door, by the Jamaican restaurant. We proceded slowly (my wife is medically slow), and were passed by a well dressed black lady; her dress was nearly full length, an unusual pattern, with the dominant color being somwwhere between green and brown. The pattern was reminiscent of large jungle leaves, although that may well have been purely in my mind. In any case she looked really classy, and when she looked my way, I looked into her face and smiled a bit. She smiled and said hi. I saw a an Indian family, the wife wearing a spectacular northern Indian outfit (with pants), and carrying a young baby. Her husband wore a large dark blue turban, and was carrying a boy of about 1.5, and a bottle of red wine. I saw a white girl of about 15 eating a bowl of pho with chopsticks, as expertly as I've ever seen a Chinese person do that. I listened to stories of costumes from a gay cruise in the Mediterranean. Apparently Nike roller skates and short shorts made quite a spash. And dozens of people who, like us, just made up the scene. I was feeling very pleased to be a Californian, and to be an American. And I wished you could have been there, PT. So I thought of how that would go. We'd discuss shared experiences, including how similar our primary education was despite very different local contexts. We'd discuss the SF Bay area, places we've both been. We wouldn't argue about race or politics at all, we'd laugh and have a good time. And I know this seems to be traveling far and fast, but I was back at what motivated me to come to P6 in the first place. I had black friends, I still do, but we never discuss this kind of thing. I don't want to upset them, they don't want to upset me. So we share this congenial, but somewhat limited space. It bothered me then, I wanted a way past the limit. It still bothers me now, I still want a way past the limit. So long as that barrier remains mysterious, it remains ultra powerful. So long as we can't discuss it, it remains mysterious. Being upset, pissed off, all of that is going to happen when we take on the mystery, and I thank you for your sincere participation. "I had black friends, I still do, but we never discuss this kind of thing. I don't want to upset them, they don't want to upset me. So we share this congenial, but somewhat limited space. It bothered me then, I wanted a way past the limit. It still bothers me now, I still want a way past the limit." Has it ever occurred to you that your attitude toward these issues might be the chief impediment in having a frank discussion with your black friends? I am fairly certain, for example, that your black friends do not attribute every misfortune that falls on a black person to white racism. On the other hand, I am also fairly certain that they would prefer to have a discussion with someone who is at least reasonably empathetic to the woes of black people that are the causal result of racism or the predictable consequence of chattel slavery and the long nightmare of American apartheid. Has it ever occurred to you that your attitude toward these issues might be the chief impediment in having a frank discussion with your black friends? Not quite as you say it ...(smile). The day for that is coming, PT, but today I still lack confidence I can pull it off. We need a way to defuse the issues first, to make them less mysterious, less powerful. Now sure, I don't claim to speak for every white person, of course, but I think I understand a very common white thought pattern. You on the other hand understand a very common black thought pattern. The thought patterns are at odds. I'm suggesting PT, that our goal in this matter is not to show either of those thought patterns to be illogical or not based on reality; not at first anyway. What I understand now which I didn't understand some 130+ postings ago in this thread is that black people experience life today as having been rigged in favor of currently living white people, during slavery of course, but also during the Jim Crow era. Black people also experience contemporary racism, but that's a (slightly) different question. So a black person sees me as very importantly the beneficiary of the Jim Crow era. That experience is not a matter of opinion, it's for real. When modern (post-Jim Crow) whites deny any such benefit, it's an offensive confrontation of reality. Whites, on the other hand, have not experienced any such pro-white benefit, in fact to many whites, life seems slightly rigged in favor of black people. Doesn't mean they haven't benefitted, it means they haven't experienced it. And not having experienced it, they don't feel responsible for it. And they're offended that others would demand they accept responsibility for something they never did, something which occured before they were born. We can notice a factual question out there in the middle: have uninvolved whites benefitted over blacks from the Jim Crow era? This question can be disucssed. I believe a strong case can be made that life is in fact tougher for blacks than whites, despite first white impressions. What do you think, PT?
How is that even possible? It's the one thing I never understood. How is that even possible? It's the one thing I never understood. If the question involves:
Because knowing that to be false requires understanding life at least a little bit as experienced by black people. If the question involves:
Because they literally have not had that experience.
No it doesn't. It just requires respect for physical fact. It just requires respect for physical fact. What physical facts are available for examination?
"You on the other hand understand a very common black thought pattern." Ah! DW, you don't get it. Many, many black people over the age of forty in this country understand both the common black thought pattern and the common white thought pattern. My great-grandparents, grandparents and great aunts and uncles and aunts and uncles and cousins once, twice and three times removed understood white thought patterns so well that their ability verged on telepathy. What is not understood here in America is black thought patterns.
Is that something you actually don't know? What is not understood here in America is black thought patterns. I can buy that. I see I'm in a zone where the more I understand the less confident I am that I understand well.
Is that something you actually don't know? Correct. I know of no physical fact which demonstrates that life is tougher for blacks than whites. I came to believe that via a series of derivations and other analysis.
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This site best viewed with a jaundiced eye
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now if only there were some compelling way to repackage this program in terms of the broad base of needed social investment for a phase transitioned future. no matter how much data katznelson musters, if there is any hint of AA in the mix, the racial dogs of war will commence their barking and trigger reflexive rejection by the 53 Million working poor whites who're about to get a medieval dose of foot in ass along with 18 Million or so working poor blacks.
I've gotta give it to the American alpha-wolves, they've engineered a matrix for medievalism that looks damn near unbreakable for the masses...,