Affirmative Action; replace it, don't mend it.
Unfortunately, it appears that anyone wishing to write on race must first identify themselves: I am white. I have never lived in the South. By 1963, a benchmark year, I was already a mature adult.
My overwhelming first thought about race relations in this country is how much better things are than they used to be.
My second thought when I think of race relations is that as good as things are, we still have a ways to go. Complacency is not yet near appropriate. In fact, I suspect complacency will never be appropriate.
My third thought is that the amount of racism remaining in this country is vastly overstated because everyone labels acts of prejudice based on racial stereotyping as acts of racism. People my age know racism is a term that should be reserved for acts far more serious than simple racial stereotyping and prejudice. This isn’t to say racial prejudice is okay, it is only to say that loose terminology makes things appear worse than they are.
My fourth thought is that the amount of racial prejudice and stereotyping in this country is also vastly overstated because too many people confuse racial stereotyping and prejudice with cultural stereotyping and prejudice. Cultural stereotyping and prejudice are far less pernicious than racial stereotyping and prejudice, and therefore, again, loose terminology (and loose perception) makes things appear worse than they are. This loose terminology also masks a situation that is far more complex, and harder to solve, than what is commonly asserted.
I suppose old white guys are not supposed to say this, but I think blacks (at this particular moment) have a longer road to utopia than whites. White America, overwhelmingly, accepts in their hearts Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence. Before 1963, we took pride in those words, but we were hypocrites. We now accept our obligation to live by the words. We now know that if we don’t live by the words, we forfeit our claim to the title “Americans.”
I think blacks have farther to travel to utopia because more blacks than whites have confused race with culture. A society can be color-blind and still not be culture-blind. There are millions of mini-cultures in this country. Each family is a mini-culture. Every group of friends is a mini-culture. Mini-cultures come in all sizes and individuals can belong to dozens of them at the same time.
Time for an example: There is a mini-culture known as Dallas Cowboy fans. Membership is open, but selective, which means that anyone can join provided they adopt the values important to the mini-culture. If you are willing to dress in blue and white football jerseys and if you are willing to insist that Tom Landry was one of the Greatest Americans of the 20th Century, then you are welcome to join this mini-culture.
When an individual chooses to join a mini-culture, she joins with the expectation that membership will convey benefits when dealing with fellow members, and with the knowledge that membership may bring detriments when dealing with non-members. In a civilized, tolerant society, such benefits and detriments should be trivial, psychic, and ephemeral. The Dallas Cowboys fan who expects his favorite sports bar to deny admission to a non-Cowboys fan has gone too far. And yet, anyone care to guess how many salesmen in the business world pretend to root for whatever team their customer roots for? Or indeed, anyone care to guess how many customers are swayed by such feigned loyalty?
The more importance a person puts on his membership in a mini-culture, the more he invites both benefits and detriments. The more a person defines herself by membership, the more a person should expect others to define her by the membership, including the stereotypes other persons may have regarding members.
Not all mini-cultures are created equal. A society does not have to accept and tolerate all possible cultures. A culture that promotes education, thrift, hard work, and respect for rules is quite likely to have its members achieve greater economic success than a culture that promotes sloth, consumption, rule-breaking, and ignorance.
While there are millions of mini-cultures, there is a single mega-culture in this country. To the extent that mini-cultures embrace and emphasize mega-culture values, the mini-culture members thrive. To the extent that mini-cultures reject mega-culture values, the mini-culture members will find themselves discriminated against (somewhat), ostracized (somewhat), and find that they have (somewhat) less economic success. Not only is this not necessarily a bad thing, it is (to a certain extent) natural, inevitable, desirable, and in extreme cases, necessary for the mega-culture to survive. Tolerance of other people’s cultural quirks is currently a value of the mega-culture. This is a good thing. But, government cannot, and should not, attempt to legislate against discrimination based on culture. Such a law would be impossible to write and doubly impossible to enforce.
Consider the subject of school test scores. A test is a piece of paper with words on it. The piece of paper does not know the race of the person reading it. It perverts language to say that a piece of paper is racially biased. The piece of paper also does not know the culture of the person reading it. However, the piece of paper can be culturally biased. For example, if the piece of paper has English words on it, it is biased towards people who read English.
When an African-American political leader derides the SAT test as being racially biased, he makes two fundamental mistakes. First, he mistakes race for culture, and second, he defames African-American culture by defining it as one that cannot do well on SAT tests. Since there is nothing racially to prevent African-Americans from doing as well on the SAT as whites, the key is to have the various African-American mini-cultures emphasize the values that translate into good SAT scores as much as the white mini-cultures do. (Or, if they want to do better than whites, as much as the Asian mini-cultures do.) The mega-culture gets to write the SAT test. The mega-culture gets to articulate what knowledge and skills are important in getting accepted into college. It is up to each mini-culture to promote such knowledge and skills within its youth.
The reason I say this is more a black cultural problem than a white cultural problem can be found in one word: Oreo. Not in all, but in far too many mini-cultures, if a black teenager attends every class, does every homework assignment, is respectful to every teacher, and/or is friendly with whites, he is subject to being called an Oreo. (Black on the outside, white on the inside.) Those saying it will mean it as an insult, and the good student hearing it will take it as an insult.
Think about it. If a mini-culture insults those that strive to achieve on the mega-culture’s terms, the mini-culture’s members will not succeed within the mega-culture. It is that simple. It is that fundamental. It is that wrong-headed.
Oreo. Regardless of the context in which it is used, it is wrong. It is based on a fundamental confusion of race and culture. A person of any race can embrace the values of any culture and still not change her race, or, and this is important, be disloyal to her race. Any person of any race should be able to try and succeed on the mega-culture’s terms without ever being accused as being less than fully loyal and true to her race.
Until this is as true in the black mini-cultures as it is in the other mini-cultures, I will say that African-Americans have a farther road to racial utopia than other Americans.
Does this mean whites are already in utopia? Regrettably, no. What do whites need to do? Actually, just keep on building on what has been done since the sixties. Racists can’t be eliminated, but with every year that they are kept on the lunatic fringe, their numbers will diminish. Prejudice based on racial stereotyping is still around, is still wrong, but is not insurmountable, and will continue to diminish with time.
Prejudice, as defined as stereotyping, as defined as making instant assumptions about many aspects of a person based on knowledge of very few aspects, will never be eliminated. Ten seconds after meeting someone you have formed dozens of opinions about them. Such first impressions are, or course, usually wrong but we make them anyway. These stereotypes are not carved in stone; as we learn more about a person, some impressions are weakened, some are strengthened.
I have a belief, however, that prejudices and stereotypes based on race are far weaker than commonly believed. But, I think this enlightenment is clouded by prejudices based on things other than race. Primarily, it is clouded by prejudices based on culture. Yes, race is noticed as a first impression, but so are hairstyle, clothes, gait, diction, posture, eye contact and body-piercings. If everything other than race is consistent with a culture white America is comfortable with, the overall first impression is positive notwithstanding race. If things other than race, however, give the impression of membership in a mini-culture perceived as negative, then the first impression (and prejudice) is negative.
There are limits to what government can do. Government should enact and enforce anti-discrimination laws and then let nature, and cultures, run their courses. Government must be careful not to punish permissible cultural discrimination in its effort to punish wrongful racial discrimination.
Will this essay ever make a specific suggestion? Okay, here it is. To the extent affirmative action is quotas and goals and reverse discrimination, it should be tossed. It is based on the false premise that every racial group is entitled to proportional economic success regardless of the values adopted by their mini-cultures. In its place, I would multiply the budget for investigating and prosecuting housing and employment discrimination. I would hire thousands of part-time minority decoys to go around and apply for jobs, apply for loans, or attempt to rent apartments. It would be almost like a volunteer position that would require only a couple hours per month. I would have decoys of both sexes and of all ages. I would require these decoys to fully reflect mega-culture values – mainstream hairstyles, mainstream clothes, etc. I would give these decoys good, but not exceptional, resumes. I would insure that these decoys had excellent interview skills.
If these decoys don’t get the loan, or the apartment, then someone’s in trouble. If these decoys don’t get the job, then my government is going to ask to see the resume of the person who got it. It better be better than my decoy’s. If the decoys do get the job/loan/apartment then they simply say they have changed their minds and turn it down.
See what happens? Without affirmative action, without reams of paperwork and statistics of racially skewed results that may have nothing to do with race, the government makes apartment managers, loan officers, and employers afraid to say “no” to a qualified minority applicant. They can say “no” to all the unqualified minority applicants they want. My government does not send unqualified decoys. But if they say “no” to a decoy, high lawyer bills are the least of their problems.
See what else happens? If I am right about the current mental state of white America, the decoys will be told “yes” in overwhelming numbers. My government would publicize those numbers. My government will give the minority mini-cultures proof that if they play by the mega-culture’s rules, they will succeed. These statistics would also make it more difficult for non-succeeding mini-cultures to falsely blame racial discrimination for their non-success.
Will such a program bring utopia? No guarantees. Racial utopia is too complex a subject. To assert that one has the answer for universal racial happiness is to assert that one has the answer for universal happiness. That would be an essay that is way beyond the likes of me.
C E Sutton
My overwhelming first thought about race relations in this country is how much better things are than they used to be.
My second thought when I think of race relations is that as good as things are, we still have a ways to go. Complacency is not yet near appropriate. In fact, I suspect complacency will never be appropriate.
My third thought is that the amount of racism remaining in this country is vastly overstated because everyone labels acts of prejudice based on racial stereotyping as acts of racism. People my age know racism is a term that should be reserved for acts far more serious than simple racial stereotyping and prejudice. This isn’t to say racial prejudice is okay, it is only to say that loose terminology makes things appear worse than they are.
My fourth thought is that the amount of racial prejudice and stereotyping in this country is also vastly overstated because too many people confuse racial stereotyping and prejudice with cultural stereotyping and prejudice. Cultural stereotyping and prejudice are far less pernicious than racial stereotyping and prejudice, and therefore, again, loose terminology (and loose perception) makes things appear worse than they are. This loose terminology also masks a situation that is far more complex, and harder to solve, than what is commonly asserted.
I suppose old white guys are not supposed to say this, but I think blacks (at this particular moment) have a longer road to utopia than whites. White America, overwhelmingly, accepts in their hearts Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence. Before 1963, we took pride in those words, but we were hypocrites. We now accept our obligation to live by the words. We now know that if we don’t live by the words, we forfeit our claim to the title “Americans.”
I think blacks have farther to travel to utopia because more blacks than whites have confused race with culture. A society can be color-blind and still not be culture-blind. There are millions of mini-cultures in this country. Each family is a mini-culture. Every group of friends is a mini-culture. Mini-cultures come in all sizes and individuals can belong to dozens of them at the same time.
Time for an example: There is a mini-culture known as Dallas Cowboy fans. Membership is open, but selective, which means that anyone can join provided they adopt the values important to the mini-culture. If you are willing to dress in blue and white football jerseys and if you are willing to insist that Tom Landry was one of the Greatest Americans of the 20th Century, then you are welcome to join this mini-culture.
When an individual chooses to join a mini-culture, she joins with the expectation that membership will convey benefits when dealing with fellow members, and with the knowledge that membership may bring detriments when dealing with non-members. In a civilized, tolerant society, such benefits and detriments should be trivial, psychic, and ephemeral. The Dallas Cowboys fan who expects his favorite sports bar to deny admission to a non-Cowboys fan has gone too far. And yet, anyone care to guess how many salesmen in the business world pretend to root for whatever team their customer roots for? Or indeed, anyone care to guess how many customers are swayed by such feigned loyalty?
The more importance a person puts on his membership in a mini-culture, the more he invites both benefits and detriments. The more a person defines herself by membership, the more a person should expect others to define her by the membership, including the stereotypes other persons may have regarding members.
Not all mini-cultures are created equal. A society does not have to accept and tolerate all possible cultures. A culture that promotes education, thrift, hard work, and respect for rules is quite likely to have its members achieve greater economic success than a culture that promotes sloth, consumption, rule-breaking, and ignorance.
While there are millions of mini-cultures, there is a single mega-culture in this country. To the extent that mini-cultures embrace and emphasize mega-culture values, the mini-culture members thrive. To the extent that mini-cultures reject mega-culture values, the mini-culture members will find themselves discriminated against (somewhat), ostracized (somewhat), and find that they have (somewhat) less economic success. Not only is this not necessarily a bad thing, it is (to a certain extent) natural, inevitable, desirable, and in extreme cases, necessary for the mega-culture to survive. Tolerance of other people’s cultural quirks is currently a value of the mega-culture. This is a good thing. But, government cannot, and should not, attempt to legislate against discrimination based on culture. Such a law would be impossible to write and doubly impossible to enforce.
Consider the subject of school test scores. A test is a piece of paper with words on it. The piece of paper does not know the race of the person reading it. It perverts language to say that a piece of paper is racially biased. The piece of paper also does not know the culture of the person reading it. However, the piece of paper can be culturally biased. For example, if the piece of paper has English words on it, it is biased towards people who read English.
When an African-American political leader derides the SAT test as being racially biased, he makes two fundamental mistakes. First, he mistakes race for culture, and second, he defames African-American culture by defining it as one that cannot do well on SAT tests. Since there is nothing racially to prevent African-Americans from doing as well on the SAT as whites, the key is to have the various African-American mini-cultures emphasize the values that translate into good SAT scores as much as the white mini-cultures do. (Or, if they want to do better than whites, as much as the Asian mini-cultures do.) The mega-culture gets to write the SAT test. The mega-culture gets to articulate what knowledge and skills are important in getting accepted into college. It is up to each mini-culture to promote such knowledge and skills within its youth.
The reason I say this is more a black cultural problem than a white cultural problem can be found in one word: Oreo. Not in all, but in far too many mini-cultures, if a black teenager attends every class, does every homework assignment, is respectful to every teacher, and/or is friendly with whites, he is subject to being called an Oreo. (Black on the outside, white on the inside.) Those saying it will mean it as an insult, and the good student hearing it will take it as an insult.
Think about it. If a mini-culture insults those that strive to achieve on the mega-culture’s terms, the mini-culture’s members will not succeed within the mega-culture. It is that simple. It is that fundamental. It is that wrong-headed.
Oreo. Regardless of the context in which it is used, it is wrong. It is based on a fundamental confusion of race and culture. A person of any race can embrace the values of any culture and still not change her race, or, and this is important, be disloyal to her race. Any person of any race should be able to try and succeed on the mega-culture’s terms without ever being accused as being less than fully loyal and true to her race.
Until this is as true in the black mini-cultures as it is in the other mini-cultures, I will say that African-Americans have a farther road to racial utopia than other Americans.
Does this mean whites are already in utopia? Regrettably, no. What do whites need to do? Actually, just keep on building on what has been done since the sixties. Racists can’t be eliminated, but with every year that they are kept on the lunatic fringe, their numbers will diminish. Prejudice based on racial stereotyping is still around, is still wrong, but is not insurmountable, and will continue to diminish with time.
Prejudice, as defined as stereotyping, as defined as making instant assumptions about many aspects of a person based on knowledge of very few aspects, will never be eliminated. Ten seconds after meeting someone you have formed dozens of opinions about them. Such first impressions are, or course, usually wrong but we make them anyway. These stereotypes are not carved in stone; as we learn more about a person, some impressions are weakened, some are strengthened.
I have a belief, however, that prejudices and stereotypes based on race are far weaker than commonly believed. But, I think this enlightenment is clouded by prejudices based on things other than race. Primarily, it is clouded by prejudices based on culture. Yes, race is noticed as a first impression, but so are hairstyle, clothes, gait, diction, posture, eye contact and body-piercings. If everything other than race is consistent with a culture white America is comfortable with, the overall first impression is positive notwithstanding race. If things other than race, however, give the impression of membership in a mini-culture perceived as negative, then the first impression (and prejudice) is negative.
There are limits to what government can do. Government should enact and enforce anti-discrimination laws and then let nature, and cultures, run their courses. Government must be careful not to punish permissible cultural discrimination in its effort to punish wrongful racial discrimination.
Will this essay ever make a specific suggestion? Okay, here it is. To the extent affirmative action is quotas and goals and reverse discrimination, it should be tossed. It is based on the false premise that every racial group is entitled to proportional economic success regardless of the values adopted by their mini-cultures. In its place, I would multiply the budget for investigating and prosecuting housing and employment discrimination. I would hire thousands of part-time minority decoys to go around and apply for jobs, apply for loans, or attempt to rent apartments. It would be almost like a volunteer position that would require only a couple hours per month. I would have decoys of both sexes and of all ages. I would require these decoys to fully reflect mega-culture values – mainstream hairstyles, mainstream clothes, etc. I would give these decoys good, but not exceptional, resumes. I would insure that these decoys had excellent interview skills.
If these decoys don’t get the loan, or the apartment, then someone’s in trouble. If these decoys don’t get the job, then my government is going to ask to see the resume of the person who got it. It better be better than my decoy’s. If the decoys do get the job/loan/apartment then they simply say they have changed their minds and turn it down.
See what happens? Without affirmative action, without reams of paperwork and statistics of racially skewed results that may have nothing to do with race, the government makes apartment managers, loan officers, and employers afraid to say “no” to a qualified minority applicant. They can say “no” to all the unqualified minority applicants they want. My government does not send unqualified decoys. But if they say “no” to a decoy, high lawyer bills are the least of their problems.
See what else happens? If I am right about the current mental state of white America, the decoys will be told “yes” in overwhelming numbers. My government would publicize those numbers. My government will give the minority mini-cultures proof that if they play by the mega-culture’s rules, they will succeed. These statistics would also make it more difficult for non-succeeding mini-cultures to falsely blame racial discrimination for their non-success.
Will such a program bring utopia? No guarantees. Racial utopia is too complex a subject. To assert that one has the answer for universal racial happiness is to assert that one has the answer for universal happiness. That would be an essay that is way beyond the likes of me.
C E Sutton