This is being written on April 4, 2018; 50 years ago, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis. This anniversary affords an opportunity to consider the state of America regarding three things that were of great concern to Dr. King. These are discrimination, segregation and poverty.
On the face of it, it would seem foolish to deny that things are better in 2018 than they were in 1968. After all, civil rights have been enshrined into law, racial discrimination is generally illegal, and people are free to live and go where they will. While this all seems true, it would be even more foolish to deny that discrimination, segregation and poverty are not still problems.
While there are laws against discrimination, there are always gaps between the laws that can be exploited. And, of course, there are always those who simply break the laws. Discrimination still, like a bacterial infestation, flourishes in this land that purports to worship equality and justice. The legal system provides numerous examples of discrimination, ranging from the use of force to sentencing for identical crimes. Economic discrimination is also rampant and features predatory lending that targets minorities, unfair hiring practices and other such economic injustices.
Legally, a person (who is not a convicted sexual predator, etc.) in the United States can live anywhere they can afford to rent or buy. So, for example, a landlord cannot refuse to rent to a person because they are insufficiently white. However, the United States is still highly segregated. Everyone knows that certain areas of any multiracial city or town are the “black”, “white”, etc. areas. While there are isolated exceptions, these anecdotes about black neighbors do not counter the statistical data.
What might surprise some is that public schools are becoming increasingly segregated. This is despite past efforts to explicitly address segregation. It seems certain that the situation will worsen, especially as there is ever greater power behind the privatization of education and school voucher programs. One consequence, one would hope is unintended, is that white students flee from failing schools while minority students tend to remain trapped. Many proposed solutions to this problem involve doubling down on privatization and vouchers, which is rather like trying to extinguish a wood fire by doubling the wood in the fire.
While the United States is supposed to be the land of merit and opportunity, it suffers from brutal economic inequality. The United States, apparently, now matches the oligarch ruled Russia in inequality. While the American dream has involved the idea of upward mobility, the wage gap is the largest it has ever been. Of course, inequality itself need not be bad—if those who work hard are doing well it is can be acceptable, even desirable, for exceptional performers to receive exceptional rewards that vastly exceed those earned by the little people. However, this is not the case.
The current poverty rate, as defined by the state, is 12.7%. While there is the usual narrative that the poor deserve to be poor, this does seem to be a rather large percentage of poor people for the wealthiest country on the planet.
Fortunately, the news is not all bad. While wages have generally been stagnating, there has been an upward tick in median household income and a decrease in poverty. Also, as Trump said, household income had been declining since 2000. As such, poverty is still a serious problem, as it was in 1968.
While Dr. King saw the promised land, it still lies far away.
While there is the usual narrative that the poor deserve to be poor…
I’m not sure that this is an accurate characterization of the narrative. If you tell teenage girls: “Don’t have kids until you are older and can afford them” does this really equate to: “you deserve to be poor”?
Odd. The Narrative spouted by the MSM, academia, a good chunk of leftist and even mainstream religion, and the Democrat party (BIRM) is that the poor have zero responsibility for their situation. If anything The Narrative is probably more responsible for keeping the poor poor by shutting down any discussion or rational examination of what and how the poor can be lifted out of poverty.
Anyone here, besides as noted previously…me…done actual work with people on the margins of poverty? Spent real time listening to and making a real effort to understand the mind set of many poor people? My experience is how terribly tragic it is. The poverty that I see is far more of the soul, far more of a Narrative that discourages people from even trying to help themselves. What is amazing is on those rare occasions to see lights go on in people’s heads that they don’t have to accept what the world discards their way, that they have some degree of actionable behaviors through which they can and do improve their lives. Unfortunately, The Narrative does everything it can to prevent such moments from happening.
This is actually a core narrative thread in the United States. Some of it comes from the influence of Calvinism. While not everyone buys into it, it is certainly common. This sort of view, presented by Mo Brooks, is not unusual.
But, you are right to point out the influence of choice. It would be absurd to claim that no poor people have earned their poverty. But, segregation, discrimination and poverty all narrow the options for people, thus reducing the effectiveness of their choices. So, if we had the power to create 100 black and 100 white humans who are otherwise identical and placed the black people into poverty for their start and placed the white people into a well-off start, it is rather clear how this would play out. We could even mix and match things to control for race and such.
So wouldn’t a better statement of the narrative be: “while some believe that poverty is only caused by poor life choices…”
Yes.
“While not everyone buys into it, it is certainly common” and Mike links to a Guardianista leftist column to “prove” his point. This is absurd. Look! My point is valid because someone of my same political stripe agrees with me!
Interesting that a discussion of MLK so easily degenerates into a discussion of poverty. As if race and poverty are tied together. A racist ideal itself. The “War on Poverty” started by LBJ was sold to the general population to a significant extent based on white poverty in Appalachia. And yet there is still considerable poverty in Appalachia. I know because I have seen it with my own eyes. I also know from whence it comes. Because I go out into the real world and deal with such things.
But speaking of poverty, I came here to drop off a thought for consideration on this topic…I found this interesting. I have a slightly different take on this in that I more believe these two things have been addressed in the same manner…What if the war on poverty was covered by the media in the same manner as the war in Viet Nam?
http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/05/media-covered-war-poverty-like-vietnam/
Now here is something truly racist. A black woman. A judge, no less. Refused the sale of a shotgun based on “store policy”.
http://www.whec.com/news/astacio-shotgun-dicks/4851568/
But see also
http://www.whec.com/news/judge-leticia-astacio-dwi-case-timeline-of-events/4507136/
The store did not specify the policy under which they refused the sale, but there might well be reasons other than race in this incident.
That timeline is racist. It makes no mention of her $175K salary nor her recent $11K raise nor her stellar attendance record.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/29019/taxpayers-screwed-drunk-judge-shows-1-214-days-amanda-prestigiacomo
OK. I walked into that.
The problem with trolling for big tuna is it’s not a dolphin safe endeavor, IYKWIM.
I think that if nothing else, we have all agreed that popular narratives and partisan talking points don’t really do anything for a productive discussion.
I’m so tired of the “Income Inequality” conversation, as I am of the idea that all of the problems of the African American population boil down to racism. If we can get past that idea, maybe something positive can happen.
It already has, in fact – but that doesn’t serve the narrative or the political agenda too well. I wonder how MLK would feel about Barack Obama?
There have been great strides made since 1968, and if you are going to write a non-partisan, comprehensive thought-piece about race in this country, you really need to offer some of that information as well. Here’s a start –
In 1967, the very first African American governors were elected – there were two of them. Today there are eight. For those who like to make a comparison relative to population distribution, 8/50 = 16%, which is greater than the 13% of African American representation nationwide.
Since 1970, 39 of the largest 100 American cities have or have had African American mayors, many of which have white majority populations.
In 1968, about 55% of white people of both sexes 25 years or older had completed four years of high school, as compared to about 30% of African Americans. Today (as of 2016), that number is almost the same for both populations – 89% for whites, 87% for African Americans.
In 1968, 11% of whites and 4% of blacks completed four years or more of college; as of 2016 that number is 33% of whites and 23% of blacks.
Note that this statistic is about ALL members of the population age 25 or older – not the number who graduated in that year. As such, the rate of increase for African Americans has been much greater than for whites.
Once you mention “race” in this country, that’s the end of the conversation. It’s true, racism exists here and it is a persistent scourge – but it also goes both ways. All you need to do is listen to the preaching of people like Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, or Jeremiah White to realize that racism and anti-Semitism are alive and well and flourishing in the black community – but somehow we officially tiptoe around those issues and focus only on one aspect of the problem.
I think it would be fruitful to look at the successes over the last 50 years, and ask what is being done right – and to drill down beyond the stock “racism” answer and find out more about opportunity, attitudes, and achievement. Why did Oprah Winfrey become a billionaire? How did Ursula Burns become the CEO of Xerox? Why is the number of African Americans who have attained professional degrees in law and medicine rising steadily, while others wallow in persistent poverty? How did Condolleezza Rice rise up from segregated Birmingham in 1952 to become a professor, a diplomat, a political scientist, an author, and Secretary of State, with a net worth of over $8 million? What did Wally Amos do to become so successful?
I am not saying that everything is rosy here – far from it. I’m saying that talking points do not do any good, and in fact, they do harm. Pointing out and attributing problems in this country to racism is not only short-sighted and incomplete, it feeds right into the political agenda of those who wish to exploit the situation for their own gain. If racism were eliminated in this country, many powerful people would lose their jobs or their platform.
And let us not forget the racist attacks on the likes of Ben Carson and Condolleezza Rice, amongst others who have risen out of poverty yet are more scorned in the black community than praised. Meanwhile those true racists Farrakhan, Sharpton, White are respected by so many not just in the black community but academia and the media as well.
Yeah, that’s a political thing, and points directly to my agenda/exploitation comment at the end of my post. Republicans in Congress have been very critical of the Congressional Black Caucus, many of whom refuse to join. It seems fairly clear that the caucus exists as nothing more than a race-motivated arm of the Democrat party.
In 2006, Steve Cohen represented a district in Tennessee which is 60% black; part of his campaign platform was to apply for membership in the caucus in order to represent his constituents. He was refused. Even though the bylaws do not make race a prerequisite for membership, the members agreed that the group should remain exclusively black. It doesn’t seem unreasonable for a member of Congress to want to be in on the conversations that apply directly to a majority of his constituents. African Americans who break through the barriers and change the racial mix of traditionally white institutions are hailed as heroes, upheld for their fortitude and character …
(“I have a dream … that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”)
The official statement put out by Wm. Lacy Clay, Jr., on behalf of the black caucus was this:
“Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept—there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it’s our turn to say who can join ‘the club.’ He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives.”
Not only is that blatantly racist, but it is separatist as well – working against any and all efforts to eliminate division and discord among the races and to come together as a single governing body. Oh – and I think it’s illegal as well.
But this conversation isn’t about who is racist, or who is more racist than whom – and as long as we allow ourselves to go down that path, the status quo will remain.
I would argue that all general discussion of race relations in America should be tabled so as to clear the decks for an exploration of specific bold proposals which can improve the situation in a substantial manner. As example…
1) Every black child born should receive a $100,000 education voucher which can be spent on any K-12, community college, trade school, or university program the parents feel are in the best interests of their child.
2) This plan should continue until such time as black and white Americans have, on average, the same level of wealth.
3) This plan would cost approximately 60 billion dollars. The vouchers should be paid for by the richest Americans, those who have benefited most from an economic system which has been rigged against blacks for hundreds of years.
Please note this statistic from the Washington Post.
“The top 20 percent of households actually own a whopping 90 percent of the stuff in America…”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/the-richest-1-percent-now-owns-more-of-the-countrys-wealth-than-at-any-time-in-the-past-50-years/?utm_term=.a2a20e2a9c80
That article also reports that the top 1% own 40% of America’s wealth.
Point being, the money is there.
What’s lacking is focus and will. Americans are having endless discussions on the general subject of race relations, but we aren’t serious enough to convert those good intentions in to a specific bold plan of action which would make a real difference.
Specific. Bold. Effective.
Martin Luther King fought for the Voting Rights Act. Like that.
Please Note: Challenging this or any specific bold proposal is an entirely valid exercise so long as the purpose of the challenge is to improve the plan or replace it with a better specific bold plan. I would enthusiastically welcome any and all challenges which meet those criteria.
Otherwise, it’s just more of the same old yack that never accomplishes anything.
Ok, fair enough Dr. LaBossiere. General yack about race is preferred to specific plans for enhancing racial harmony. It’s your blog, your choice, no problem.
A fair criticism; many are the yaks, few are the plans.
Thank you Dr. LaBossiere for publishing the plan outlined in my post above. I would welcome any advice on how such specific bold plans (the above being just one example to illustrate) might be made sufficiently engaging so that Internet users generally, and philosophers in particular, would find them more interesting than a general discussion of race.
Should anyone be interested I’ve explored the above plan in more detail on the blog of the American Philosophical Association, here:
https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/04/03/black-issues-in-philosophy-a-conversation-on-get-out/
I’m selling this plan because it’s the best I can come up with at the moment, but I have no doubt it can be improved or replaced with a better plan once many intelligent minds are engaged in such an effort. But I appear not to be intelligent enough myself to know how to get such a process going, as evidenced for example by the complete lack of interest in what I’ve written so far.
What’s puzzling is that there does seem to be a significant amount of interest in the general subject of race relations, as there should be, but when the focus shifts from general discussion to an examination of specific actions, that interest seems to melt away.
What’s further puzzling is that plans like the one above would not cost the average American a single penny, and those who would bear the burden could do so without even noticing. So basically we could accelerate the education of black youth, pump 60 billion dollars in to the education sector, and make a big stride forward in race relations all FOR FREE, and yet that’s somehow not interesting enough to discuss.
And it’s not just philosophers or white people. I could be wrong, but I’m unaware of any black activist group discussing such a plan either.
In any case, these phenomena seem a rich area for philosophical investigation, so I’m hoping that someone with more skill, contacts and authority than myself might figure out how to get such an investigation going.
Thanks again for allowing me to share these thoughts, much appreciated.
One thing about plans with particulars is that they are calls for actual actions rather than, as you have noted, general discussions. They are the difference between “We should do X!” and “Something should be done.” People are almost always willing to agree that something should be done about something, but usually a bit busy when it comes time do something specific.
As far as sharing thoughts, this is an open forum for discussion-I’ve only had to ban one person since 2007 and that person crossed all the lines.
Hi Michael,
Yes,, well, besides being more serious, calls to action would seem to be more productive philosophically as well as they require more thought than general sentiments. What are the pros and cons of various plans, what is realistic and what just idealistic etc.
I’ve taken the plan above on to a black forum and they are now busy ripping it up, which is what I was looking for. So far in the discussion lump sum reparations seem to be in the lead.
John Locke would, I think, argue in favor of reparations for slavery. This was a topic in my ethics class this past week. The gist of the argument is that the harms done then persist to this day, although (obviously) none of the slave owners and slaves are alive today. The idea that was the most appealing was the notion of having the state provide the reparation (to spread the cost) and for reparations to be aimed at improvement: grants to students, for example. The idea being to not punish whites, but to try to offset the advantages that whites inherited from their ancestors.
A similar argument could also be made for reparations for all groups that have been exploited with low wages and such over the years. Some might see this as a reductio.
Yes, that’s it exactly, slavery and Jim Crow are not yet over, they live on today in a variety of ways. Your post expresses my thoughts very well.
We can’t do anything about the past, and we can’t do much about a lot of the damage oppression left behind, but we _can_ do something about the wealth gap between blacks and whites, which is a direct result of the centuries of oppression.
The part that intrigues me the most is that whatever we were to do to heal the wealth gap we could do it basically for free.
1% of Americans own 40% of the country’s wealth. 20% of Americans own an incredible 90%. 90%!
There’s no need for the 80% of us on the bottom to pay a dime, and those who were taxed wouldn’t see their experience of life changed in any meaningful way. If their accountants didn’t tell them they probably wouldn’t even notice.
And in spite of this math, in spite of the lack of any real pain or price tag, we see reparations as some kind of crazy insane unrealistic insurmountable problem. That’s the part that hooked me on this subject, the widespread near universal total disconnect from logic. I find that fascinating.
I’m not really an activist (been there, done that) but a wanna be philosopher, and the phenomena that interests me the most are those cases when the widely accepted group consensus agreement appears illogical almost to the point of insanity.
I’m watching a documentary right now about The Source family, a wacky 1970’s cult that went off the deep end. (Amazon Prime) Sometimes it feels like the entire culture is really little different, except that we don’t have as colorful costumes as The Source family did.
Another example if you will forgive me. You’re a philosophy professor, right? You’re a professional, intelligent, articulate, highly educated, solid middle class or higher. And even you are in the bottom 80% that is fighting over the 10% of the economy that the rich allow us to have.
But you don’t feel like a victim, right? And neither do your colleagues, or me, or most of the rest of us. We live in the suburbs, we have new cars and nice clothes, we feel we’re doing pretty darn good.
And it’s all wrong! We aren’t savvy, we aren’t smart, we’re suckers. We go merrily about our little lives content that 20% of Americans should own 90% of the economy, leaving us the last 10% to feast on.
Fascinating….
BTW, this sucker salutes you from just down the road in Gainesville.
While I am doing better than many, I still am aware of their plight and even feel the bite of the system myself.
As you said, it would be painless to re-adjust the economic system to give more people a chance in the allegedly competitive system of the free market.
Yes, that’s what’s interesting. It would be painless, and yet we consider it impossible. It seems to me an example of how entirely wrong the commonly accepted wisdom can sometimes be.
When talking about Anarchism and addressing the criticism that it is impractical, Goldman made the point that people think that what is practical is what is currently in place; what is not is generally seen as impractical just because it isn’t what we are doing now.