Following the general trend in the media, I will take Martin Luther King, junior Day to reflect on race in America. When King wrote his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, he compared that present with the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. While matters had obvious improved, King pointed out that segregation, discrimination and poverty remained blights on the American dream. So how are things in 2020?
While there have been efforts to address segregation in American public schools, the overall picture is grim: segregation “has soared in American schools.” Segregation in housing also remains a problem. The current segregation is not a matter of laws that impose segregation; rather it arises from policies, practices and behavior that creates segregation in many ways. While some might be tempted to lay all the blame on white conservatives, white liberals are also instrumental in the preservation and expansion of segregation. From a moral standpoint it can be argued that what white liberals do is morally worse: in addition to the wrongness of contributing to segregation, they are also acting in violation of their professed principles. It should be noted that there are both liberals and conservatives who take positive action against segregation; though liberals talk the most about it. Yet little is done overall.
The United States professes equality as a core value while also endorsing the notions of success based on merit within a free and fair system of competition. These ideals perish instantly when exposed to muck of reality—discrimination is a serious problem in the United States, so much so that Human Rights Watch is, well, watching us. The Trump administration has also made it clear that it is, at best, indifferent to discrimination and actively engages in discriminatory actions while advancing discriminatory policies. While these mainly target foreigners, even these have a spillover effect on Americans. On a positive note, hate crimes have decreased in number. On the minus side, the number of violent hate crimes has increased. White nationalism has also become far more open, primarily because the Trump administration is, at best, ambivalent about the matter. While Trump himself seems to lack any coherent ideology, Stephen Miller clearly has one and has been doing his best to implement it. While some might contend that he cannot be a white nationalist, he most evidently is.
While the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, poverty is still a serious problem. Unemployment is at a record low and the stock market has generally been doing great, but the benefits of the economy flow upward and concentrate at the top. The overall poverty rate in the United States is 11.8%, using the Federal government’s definition of an income of $25,700 for a family of four. 29.9% of the population lives close to poverty (incomes less than twice the poverty level). 5.3% of the population is in deep poverty, making less than 50% of the poverty level of income.
While the exact income that counts as poverty can be debated. MIT has created a very informative living wage calculator: the income required for a household to earn to support itself. Where I live (Leon County) an adult with no children could support themselves on $24,763. But a family of four would need $64,047 per year if both adults worked or $52,333 if only one does. As such, a family meeting the Federal definition would be in dire straits indeed. Poverty, as one would expect, is not distributed evenly and non-whites have the highest poverty levels; in some cases, 2-2.5 times that of white Americans.
While some might be tempted to chalk up these poverty levels to various failings on the part of the poor, such as laziness, many of the poor are elderly (9.7%), the disabled or children (16.2%). There are also the working poor who compose 6.3% of the labor force. It must also be noted that falling below the living wage in an area means that a person is poor, then many full-time workers are poor. This would, of course, create a debate about what it is to be poor and why people are poor—a debate fraught with ideological bias. But it is fair to say that for whatever reasons people are poor, poverty is still a serious problem.
Mike, you work at an HBCU. Presumably a high percentage of the students there are African-American. Presumably the students choose to go to an HBCU because they want to. Can you comment on advantages and disadvantages of an HBCU? Are HBCUs part of the “segregation” you are discussing? If not, why not?
Yes, FAMU’s student body is predominantly African-American. HBCUs arose out of the “separate but unequal” phase of the United States when black students were largely denied access to white schools.
But, as you note, students now have a broader range of choices-students who go to FAMU could have gone to a PWI instead, but selected FAMU. As such, to the degree that students could have gone elsewhere and to the degree that they selected FAMU because it is an HBCU, then they are engaged in voluntary segregation(or self-segregation).
This, as you would suspect, does fuel some discussions about the relevance of HBCUs today. If people pick them based on race, one could say this is analogous to white students picking white schools to avoid other races-something that is supposed to be bad. If people pick them because of culture and tradition, this also brings in race-something that would be criticized if a white student said they picked a school because of its white culture and white tradition.
So, it would seem that one must either say that HBCUs are obsolete and we should be working to diversify them (on analogous grounds that are used to justify diversifying white schools) or one must have a very strong set of relevant differences that would warrant the voluntary segregation. It could also be argued that even now black students do not have the full range of choices as white students, so that might be a relevant difference.
I have been to various meetings where the future of HBCUs has been discussed; this is an ongoing matter.
Asians segregate also. So do Jews (white I guess?). Is this also a problem? Freedom of association should be a thing. Apparently the NBA is also segregationist (90% + African-American).
There is a sorting of ethnic groups all over the world, in every country, for all of history. Does mentioning biology (human nature) make me a Nazi or White Nationalist?
I should also note that despite many whites working for the same goals as MLK in his day, he only seems to have been closely associated with one white person (again, going with the notion that Jews are white): Stanley Levison, member of the Communist Party USA, financier and Communist cutout for Moscow, and speech-writer for MLK.
It seems that MLK segregated himself, but did allow himself to be influenced by malign white foreign actors.
But I suppose that is neither here nor there. Only Nazis discuss such things, or John Birch Society types.