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Re: Re: The Decline of Black Progress?
| quote: | Originally posted by donnybrasco
The year 1964+36years would bring us to the year 2,000...not "1990". So that's a "7% increase in 26 years", not "36 years". So the "decline" (if it truly is one) is not as dramatic as you think. |
You are correct; I did not pay much attention when transcribing Judge Posner's numbers. However, it is still a decline in the rate of improvement and compared with the decline in improvement since 1990 is a rather small one anyway. Incidentally, there has been little change, or a very small decline from 1990 to 2000, so it is still 7% over 36 years regardless. 
| quote: | | Are you sure you're reading all of this correctly? Extrapolating Census data selectively can be very mis-leading, especially when it's not correlated properly with other relative data. |
You can cite contravening data or perform your own analysis if you prefer, but in the meantime I will take the word of a sitting Federal Judge, especially when it is corroborated by other scholarly research.
That requires a subscription, so here's some the pertinent data:
This graph shows black wages as a percentage of white wages from 1940 to 2000. These numbers confine themselves to a couple of narrow age brackets, and only count income from wages, so they are probably not as representative as Posner's numbers when it comes to overall inequality. The data for females is interesting, and doesn't track with Posner's numbers very closely. However, male figures paint an even grimmer picture, where black men lost ground to whites from 1990 to 2000.
Now, back to the more relevant issue which unless you have some evidence to the contrary is not whether black progress has slowed, but why it has, Judge Posner has offered some possible explanations:
| quote: | | It is possible that antidiscrimination laws do not benefit their intended beneficiaries, because they give the beneficiaries a sense of entitlement and victimhood, foster tokenism, increase employers' costs, cast a shadow over the real achievements of outstanding members of the "benefited" group, create an unhealthy preoccupation with racial and ethnic identity, and cause white backlash. It is also possible that the sexual revolution of the 1960s promoted the break-up of the black family--of the white too, but the whites were in a better position to adapt. To the extent that the "Great Society" programs of the 1960s and the social disorder of the same period are correlated phenomena, together constituting a lurch to the Left, the net effect on black progress may have been negative. |
The decline of the family unit strikes me as the most compelling of these explanations, for example while there certainly exists an unhealthy preoccupuation with racial and ethnic identity, this is not a phenomenon which has increased since 1964 by any means.
It's possible that single-parent families tend to have considerably less social mobility, and if that is the case, it would disproportionately affect blacks by a considerable margin(ref). I cannot find any data comparing the economic fortunes of children who grew up in single-parent households to those who did not, but it is a possibility.
Other cultural factors may affect the financial success of blacks; it is not a given that even with equal opportunity each ethnic group will achieve equal success due to possible differences in behavior patterns conducive to success or failure, or other cultural factors.
Of course, as Posner notes, "it is nowhere written that all ethnic groups shall have the same average income," and to the extent that this inequality remains because of the willing choices of blacks themselvs, the inequality need not be regarded as an inequity. The problem is that we cannot ascertain this extent with any certitude.
Shaolin_Z raised the issue of role models. This could certainly be one of the cultural phenomena which works against black progress. He also raised the fact that it is a very sensitive issue likely to be "loaded with unfair and inaccurate accusations that obfuscate the enitre discussion or any legitimate point being made." On that count, I agree as well.
Perhaps it also bears consideration that the stifling of open and honest discourse in favor of vain attempts to ignore the issue or pretend it doesn't exist (like donny) or to consider only a few possible factors which do not offend (as is fairly typical of the left,) may actually be contributing to the problem as well. Such a closed-minded approach does not appear to be very conducive of actually solving problems of inequality or inequity.
Zild believes that systematic racism is alive and well. I do believe that racism has declined, but I agree that we have not begun to approach eliminating it. What we have done is to by in large drive it into "hiding." This is not particularly a good thing, in part because it makes the problem of racism much more difficult to measure and address, and in part because it is an example of the sort of ideological repression that I believe to be at odds with the principles of an open society.
The "underground" racism rears its head from time to time in one scandal or another, for example the bizarre incident in which someone in the Harris County District Attorney's office used "Canadian" as a racial slur against blacks, but the truth is that the most problematic racists are also those who most closely guard their prejudice. With racists pretending to support racial equality, it becomes impossible to determine with any certitude the prevalence of racism. Furthermore, false or spurious accusations of racism have risen considerably, which has at least four significant negative effects:
1. It serves to stifle open and honest discussion of racial inequality.
2. It causes those of us who do not buy into the hysteria to view all claims of racism through a skeptical lens.
3. It reinforces the inordinate preoccupation with racial or ethnic identity which underlies racism and other forms of prejudice.
4. It makes genuine racism appear less evil by associating it with acts or beliefs which are relatively innocuous.
There has also been a significant re-framing of what constitutes racism. In the past, racism was essentially the idea that races were inherently unequal in their worth; that is, that some were inherently superior to others. More recently, however, it seems to extend to any form of prejudice or generalization with regards to race. It is certainly possible to generalize about a racial group without believing it to be inherently superior or inferior, or to pre-judge individuals with regards to some particular thing based on race without holding the belief in a superior race. It is even possible to hate an ethnic group without believing that it is inferior.
Multiculturalism may contribute negatively as well. While ironically devised as a way to celebrate our differences, it is truly a quixotic idea which rather serves more to emphasize that difference and suggest a shared "group identity" -- precisely what racists believe, only they believe the groups are unequal. Indeed, to on the one hand strive to eliminate racism, and on the other to uphold multiculturalism, as the left seems to attempt to do, strikes me as absurd. It is rather like trying to dampen oneself before running through a fire -- except this particular fool used gasoline! It seems that a better way to proceed would be to attempt to de-emphasize racial or ethnic identity at every turn. Our goal should not be to form a society where black culture, white culture, hispanic culture, et cetera co-exist in equality. It should be to create one, non-homogenous but also non-fragmentary culture where people work together with little or no regard for their varying ethnicities. In short, the best way to eliminate racism is to eliminate the very idea of people identifying themselves and others in terms of race. Now, that of course is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, and even in the best case scenario will probably take a large number of generations. But the troubling thing to me is that we seem to be moving in the opposite direction with multiculturalism. That is, it seems as though we are trying to reaffirm the idea of dividing ourselves into discrete groups. If that is not creating an environment in which racism might thrive, I don't know what is.
In short, there appear to be a large number of possible explanations for the observed data. Unfortunately, it seems there are few willing to discuss the matter openly (and fewer still who are in a position to actively investigate and address these problems.) If sensitivity to racial issues prevented us from eliminating racial inequity, that would be a cruel irony...
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