Ezra basically nails it:
Indeed. I'm going to take this a step further--The idea that Affirmative Action justifies white resentment may be the greatest argument made for Reparations--like ever. Let's grant that white people have the right to resent black people because of 40 years of race preferences. But black people suffered through 300 years of race preferences which included, but weren't limited to--slavery, pogroms, wanton rape, land theft, and wealth transfer. Southern whites (the very people who perpetrated much of that sad history) can have their resentment, unashamed and public--right after they give us the deed to the entire Deep South. Sounds fair to me. What's that you say? Most whites didn't own slaves? And your grandfather hated the Klan? My sentiments exactly. Most black people don't benefit from Affirmative Action either. So what are we saying here?The end of privilege -- though of course, white privilege didn't end, it was only somewhat reduced -- hurts. Ending slavery meant destroying a lot of privilege, and it created a war. Reconstruction disrupted a lot of privilege and it produced countless lynchings and murders. Ending segregation destroyed a hefty amount of privilege, and it spurred societal tumult and vicious violence. By contrast, affirmative action was a relatively modest policy with fairly minimal effects on privilege, and it merely resulted in a potent political issue for conservatives. But to call white resentment the "poisoned fruit" of affirmative action is extremely strange. White resentment has been around a lot longer, and stems from people's desire to protect the fruits of a gross and grave injustice.
Racial resentment is just racial grievance---for white people. If it's absurd to hear Civil Rights era black folks attributing the entire fate of black people to racism, than its just surreal to hear white folks chalking their problems up to Affirmative Action. One doesn't have to be pro-Affirmative Action to see the hypocrisy in those who say to blacks, heaving under a legacy of hate, "get over it" and then turn to Southern white "resenters," merely grappling with equality, and say "I understand."
UPDATE: Just to bang on this racial resentment thing a little harder, I think it's no mistake that Geraldine Ferraro basically used this same phraseology when making her case against Obama. The whole phrase strikes me as a politically correct term for bigots. Frankly, believing that Affirmative Action actively influences your economic prospects as a white person, is only slightly more logical that believing that gay marriage will somehow affect marriage overall. But I suspect that they're both proxies for folks who have a long history of resenting blacks and gays which stretches way past the advent of Affirmative Action or gay marriage.
One can have a principled case against Affirmative Action. But to resent black people--as a group--because of Affirmative Action is, really, the essence of racial prejudice. It's a judgment passed on a whole group, based on a minority of that group. We lefties get banged over the head--rightly so--for, at times, being mealy-mouthed and soft-headed. Fair enough. All I'm asking for is some consistency.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Hmm. Another thought-inducing post (Ouch!).
If I've ever been in any way affected by Affirmative Action, it would certainly be news to me. As a white dude living in the rural white hinterlands, I have nothing to resent.
Yet some of the stories that gain attention on occasion do induce a certain, shall we say, vicarious indignation on the part of some whites who tend to get exercised by "race." I put "race" in quotes in this context because the good folks I have in mind, but into whose minds I cannot see, mean "blacks" by the term.
Lord knows I don't have any answers on issues of race. But at least I'm on the road to redemption by way of the talking cure...
the Douthat's owned near a hundred slaves at one time. Perhaps they benefited a bit from that.
But Ross, an Ivy league graduate seems to have a problem with AA:
You nailed it. How DO you do that?
I also use the word "problematic" to sum up my feelings about affirmative action.
About 15 years ago, I attended a conservative conference in which the featured speaker listed affirmative action alongside slavery and Jim Crow as the great betrayals of the American principle of equality. At that moment, I realized that however you describe my political views, "conservative," at least how the people in that room defined "conservative," wasn't it.
I am not American, and I am neither white nor black, so count me as neutral.
One of the issues that should be weighed is that the mere existence of AA is a handy excuse for assuming that a black person in a position of responsibility had it easier than the equivalent non-black, i.e. that the white person, all other things being equal, has a higher probability of being the "better" one.
One is reminded of the ER episode where the black patient was not happy with Dr Benton (Eriq LaSalle) treating him.
There could be some better way.
Given the current situation, I'd fully agree with Mr Coates.
But I suspect that they're both proxies for folks who have a long history of resenting black and gays which stretches way past the advent of Affirmative Action or gay marriage.
All of which makes Sullivan's comments especially ironic.
Just wanted to say that I really love your blog, and this post is a perfect example of why. You're a very valuable voice, and I'm glad you're here.
But I suspect that they're both proxies for folks who have a long history of resenting black and gays which stretches way past the advent of Affirmative Action or gay marriage.
All of which makes Sullivan's comments especially ironic.
What a great post. It seems as Ezra got it spot-on as well. One quick question...
"The idea that Affirmative Action justifies white resentment may be the greatest argument made for Reparations..."
I know you are probably speaking in general terms, but just to be clear, Sullivan certainly wasn't saying that AA JUSTIFIES white resentment, right? I think he was simply pointing out that white resentment is a by-product of AA, justifiably or not. I don't think he was saying its legitimate, no?
Yes, fair enough Stacy. I would then lower the bar and say it makes reparations understandable.
I completely agree with most of what you're saying, but just to point out the obvious objection to your white resentment/reparations analogy: the direct victims of 300 years of race preferences are long dead, while many of the "victims" of 40 years of Affirmative Action are still with us. Which raises the issue, an important one I think, of whether race preferences--as well as any redress for them--should operate at the individual or the collective level. In general, I think we too often frame race as a matter of individual conscience & intention--I didn't mean anything by it, thus I am not a racist--rather than understand that, a few extreme cases aside, it is primarily "structural," i.e., a matter of populations and policies.
"One is reminded of the ER episode where the black patient was not happy with Dr Benton (Eriq LaSalle) treating him."
There was also the episode when Dr. Benton went through the admissions files and found out that he had been the recipient of affirmative action.
Count me as one of the people who resents affirmative action. That's because I'm smart, but not smart enough (e.g., like Matt or Ross) to succeed despite that extra headwind. My test scores were high enough to get me into an Ivy League grad school if there were no affirmative action taking away spots from applicants like me. I know this, because I know the gender and racial background of the applicants, and I know what their average test scores were for different groups.
Perhaps if I had gone to an elite private high school like Matt or Megan, I would have had a tailwind of my own, but I didn't. My parents were lower middle class Democrats and sent me to a school full of blacks.
Ta-Nahesi is privileged and he doesn't even realize it. Affirmative action has been an invisible (to him) wind at his back. Enjoy it, but don't expect others to not resent it. Resentment is our consolation prize. It's all we have, really.
White resentment has NOTHING to do with affirmative action.
It has EVERYTHING to do with fatigue and frustration over claims of racism, white privilege, etc.
The vast majority of white Americans live their lives every day trying to be even-handed about race. They do not harbor racial animosity; they treat their black neighbors, colleagues and fellow citizens with respect.
And then they find themselves constantly blamed for black poverty, crime, poor educational performance, bad health ... the list goes on and on. And yes, slavery and Jim Crow are their fault too, even if they had no relatives here during the early 1800s or aren't old enough to know the difference between Bull Connor and Bull Durham.
Oh, and by the way, if they don't support the liberal senator from Illinois, they are definitely racist, doubly so if they also listen to Toby Keith.
This constant drumbeat of white blame -- from the media, from "civil rights" leaders, from liberal whites -- has taken its toll. The result is resentment that sometimes manifests itself in complaints about affirmative action, because it seems to be the one issue that can be discussed in our politically correct environment.
You may argue -- and I'm sure many will -- that white resentment is NOTHING compared to the feelings that black Americans harbor, and I would agree. But it doesn't make it less real.
I think we should bookmark Fred's comments - it explains a lot of his other comments.
Oh so bitter.
And possibly mistaken - if you were applying for an Ivy League, perhaps average test scores arent the best metric.
Excellent. You & Ezra are very thoughtful here. To start history in the 1970s, as Andrew does, is absolutely preposterous and disappointing because Andrew is so nuanced when he speaks of issues that affect him directly, namely, faith and gay marriage.
If only Andrew had no healthcare!
I'll never forget Colin Powell incredulously wondering how it was that white Americans begrudge so few blacks a shot at the American Dream after so many years of brutal discrimination. Don't folks wonder why it is that Powell and Rice are pro AA?
And are we against AA for Af-Ams or white women too, the primary beneficiaries of the policy? Bet white women (working class or not) have little problem with that.
I'm calling bullshit on Fred's story. What, does he just scan different websites for stories about AA so he can come and tell his sob story? Oh, and just to make it even more unfair, his parents were lower middle class, and he even sent him to a high school with the same people who ended up squashing his Ivy League dreams! Oh, the humanity...
I think a few important points have been missed here:
1. Resentment about AA doesn't require beneficiaries. The very PRINCIPLE that some people get a benefit because of their race is offensive to those raised to believe that there shouldn't be any. It is very likely that people who have benefited from AA could help show its value... but absent the good testimonies of the benefited, it seems like a principle designed to perpetuate racial unfairness.
2. As a white person, I have never seen, nor would I tolerate, racist treatment of a black person in my presence. Yet as a white person I have been a victim of race based discrimination by black people on more than one occasion. White resentment, whatever else it may be, has something to do with the fact that whites aren't included in the same code that we are expected to defend.
3. Lastly, white resentment also crops up in responsibility and blame. With the recent news of AIDS rates in the black community we are reminded by the media that the cause of the problem is lack of health care services and education. Just as Ta-Nehisi said some months ago about "the cringe" in the black community at the killing of a white college girl by a black man, there is a white cringe - we aren't providing enough health care and education to help minorities. White cringe happens with a failure to help all minorities; black, asian, the poor, women, immigrants... white people believe they are supposed to do something about it. Sometimes though, we don't think its our responsibility, or our fault. Therefore, resentment.
This blog is awesome...you nailed this one...
I agree, but I'd also like to add that affirmative action might be more harmful to blacks than whites because it gives everyone an excuse to continue to believe that blacks are inferior. Black law school students being interviewed for jobs will get asked what their LSAT scores, so they can find out if they are affirmative action candidates. This goes on everywhere you find successful black folks. It gives people an excuse to delegitimize our accomplishments.
White resentment is another way of saying white racism. The people who have benefited most from affirmative action are white women, so the very idea that 'white resentment' towards blacks is the product AA is ludicrous on its face.
Secondly, there's never such resentment at legacy admissions, which were around before AA and will continue well past AA. Its racism folks. If you can paint an issue black, and use that as the flimsiest reason to be mad at it, you are employing textbook racist thinking.
TC, you killed it on the update too, btw.
NO resentment that most of your tax dollars are given away to some Corporation who has more many than god, but if you can't get into Harvard, it must be that damn affirmative action. AA, particularly as it relates to schools, is not ruining anybody's life. Assuming you had the credentials to get into an ivy league school, you will get into a good school somewhere regardless. Its not as if you are barred from going to school, or blocked from working.
How about this, the college educated black man has the same job prospects as as a white man with a felony. I think thats something to be slightly more 'resentful' about.
I'm not sure. For uneducated white folks, affirmative action is an easy talking point to stoke racial resentment. And it makes little sense for an African-American from a middle class background, coming from a decent high school to have a leg up in university admissions over a poor white person from an impoverished school district, all other factors being equal. Affirmative action allows talking heads on the right to bring those poor whites who most directly suffer from race-based affirmative action over to the right, where their economic interests are undeniably with the left. It stands in the way of progress by serving as a wedge between poor whites and poor blacks, whereas their interests are in fact closely aligned.
Moreover, considering that affirmative action placement is based on skin color rather than actual descent, and many affirmative action placements are taken by Caribbean immigrants and their children, who came to the United States after desegregation, I don't think it's difficult to understand white resentment. If the goal is to overcome the legacy of slavery, shouldn't it be addressed at the descendants of slaves, not the children of a Caribbean black middle class that immigrated to this country?
I say this as someone who doesn't really oppose affirmative action, but thinks that it stands as an impediment to the betterment of America.
Exactly, I don't see the indignation that a moron like Bush got in purely on name and money, despite it meaning another (white) person could have been there on merit.
I agree with most of what you say, but I don't think that publius was saying that white resentment "justified" anything (I haven't read Sullivan's post). As I understood it, (s)he was describing the white resentment that conservatives habitually exploit, rather than sympathizing with it. Understanding is not the same as agreement, after all.
Is "white resentment" is the same thing (or a part of) "racism?" I would say "yes." But this is a question of definition; what do we mean by "racism?" Does the word describe only the conscious endorsement of ideas about racial superiority, or does it also describe attitudes and understandings that are ideologically embedded in our language and culture to the extent that most of us are never aware of their presence?
Personally, I believe in the latter definition. I suspect you'd agree that American culture has been inherently racist throughout its history. I think publius has noticed this, too; after all, (s)he talks about the need to "address our more complex world where the structural legacies of racism are arguably a bigger problem than actual racism proper."
The question is, what does publius mean by "actual racism proper"? I suspect publius uses the word "racism" differently than I would, but (s)he also says, "Whether this intended act should be called 'racist', well, I care less about the linguistic labels. We need new words anyway." That might be right, but it might not.
How useful is the word "racist?" The powerful connotations associated with it provide an appropriately negative evaluation of the attitudes in question, but also make people reluctant to use the word to describe any action they themselves might be guilty of. To be racist is to be monstrous; this is part of the reason many people want to encode racism as a characteristic of the extreme fringe, and of history.
Do we need new words to accomplish the social and cultural changes we desire? What words might they be?
"How about this, the college educated black man has the same job prospects as as a white man with a felony. I think thats something to be slightly more 'resentful' about."
Not saying I don't believe you Kai, but do you have a source for that statement? I'd feel a lot more comfortable repeating it if I could read it myself...
"Not saying I don't believe you Kai, but do you have a source for that statement? I'd feel a lot more comfortable repeating it if I could read it myself..."
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/24/study-black-man-and-white-felon-same-chances-for-hire/
Devorah Pager did the study in New York, I think. I don't have a link to it handy. But she wrote the piece I linked.
There are good reasons to believe that gay "marriage" will undermine the institution of marriage. It will further erode the idea that childbearing is an essential and crucial aspect of mariage, not an optional extra, as Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has put it. And it will further erode the idea that men and women have distinct and special natures and differ spiritually and emotionally as well as physiologically.
It must be said that by and large, the African American community, and other racial minorities, have been possessed of much deeper wisdom about the dangers of gay marriage then white Americans. It's a pity that Mr. Coates does not share that wisdom.
Thanks for the link.
"Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job."
Yikes.
Affirmative Action is "problematic" huh? For who? I think all the thousands of A.A. people who it's helped get a foot in the door would beg to differ. You could say that civil rights protection in the work place is "problematic" too because someone could cry racism for reasons to retaliate or as a bargaining tool but how much of that is happening? These kind of arguments remind me of the whole voter fraud canard thrown out by people on the right. I'm all for bootstrapping your way out of poverty but how many people are going to be exceptional enough to do that? As far as the white resentment thing goes I'm still waiting for an example of real suffering that justifies it. Maybe my eyes deceive me but white people seem to be doing fine. Maybe this is only an antecdote but thhe long lines around the country for the new iphone, don't see to many non-white faces there.
I never made any such claim. You may assume if you wish that my ancestors were slave holders and clansmen (I have no knowlege one way or the other). What I have said is, "We are not responsible for the sins of our fathers." You are not and neither am I.
Your father could have been a murderer or a war criminal. I do not care. You are not guilty of anything.
"As far as the white resentment thing goes I'm still waiting for an example of real suffering that justifies it."
Uh, then you obviously didn't read Fred's post about ten comments above. He's barely getting by after what happened to him at the ripe age of 18. That man is suffering.
I think a few important points have been missed here:
1. Resentment about AA doesn't require beneficiaries. The very PRINCIPLE that some people get a benefit because of their race is offensive to those raised to believe that there shouldn't be any. It is very likely that people who have benefited from AA could help show its value... but absent the good testimonies of the benefited, it seems like a principle designed to perpetuate racial unfairness.
2. As a white person, I have never seen, nor would I tolerate, racist treatment of a black person in my presence. Yet as a white person I have been a victim of race based discrimination by black people on more than one occasion. White resentment, whatever else it may be, has something to do with the fact that whites aren't included in the same code that we are expected to defend.
3. Lastly, white resentment also crops up in responsibility and blame. With the recent news of AIDS rates in the black community we are reminded by the media that the cause of the problem is lack of health care services and education. Just as Ta-Nehisi said some months ago about "the cringe" in the black community at the killing of a white college girl by a black man, there is a white cringe - we aren't providing enough health care and education to help minorities. White cringe happens with a failure to help all minorities; black, asian, the poor, women, immigrants... white people believe they are supposed to do something about it. Sometimes though, we don't think its our responsibility, or our fault. Therefore, resentment.
you can have the deep south (Im actually from IL) but can I still live here?? I like living 3 miles from the ocean.
I think your missing the point of white resentment and you seem to think that people who resent affirmative action are bigots but I don't think that is the case for all the people who harbor resentment.
There is a possibility that some people may be bigots but to just state without any real information or evidence that the people are bigots, I think is a mistake.
In my opinion and I live in Bed-Stuy brooklyn. People resent black people and affirmative action because they don't think black americans (not all but quite a few of them) have worked hard to get the benefits. It's just a number of programs by the government targeting a specific group while punishing another. It is a combo of welfare programs and affirmative action that stokes resentment and it's not just white people who feel that way.
Not to mention, that some of the people, not all but some, have also been victims or know someone who has been victimised in a crime or harrassed by African-Americans.
I've known people who have been spit on and called cracker for no reason in a black neighborhood just for being white.
I could say more but I want to see what others have to say.
Great post, Ta-Nehisi.
On one hand, I agree. It is racist to resent all black people because some black people support and/or benefit from affirmative action. Of course it's also racist to support reparations paid for by all non-black people because some white people resent all black people because . . . I'm not pointing a finger, just pointing out that we're stuck sliding down a rabbit hole of some kind here.
On the other hand, there is something in the response of some non-beneficiaries to AA that isn't racist, just predictable. If you agree that African-Americans deserve AA, then it is mean-spirited and racist to resent it. If you don't agree with the first premise, then AA shows government as kind of a zero sum game where we all fight for the programs that will benefit us personally. (Yes, government always was that at some level, but for some people AA, or social security, or farm subsidies, or whatever, is the first time they realize it.)
I second shani-o's comment (third) all the way through.
Ta-Nehisi -- excellent post. And it's even led to a useful discussion, which is a bonus.
In general, I think any white American (and I include myself here) insisting that they don't have a racist bone in their body is like a fish insisting it isn't wet.
I want to say something about ewk's first comment:
I'm a straight, married, white man, and I live with positive preferences -- that is, affirmative action -- every day of my life. I'm treated with presumptive respect in commercial interactions, bureaucratic situations, even recreational ones. I make more money because of my SMWM status; get taxed less; get deferred to more by authority figures; and see images that resemble me used as the "typical person" in pretty much every corner of popular culture.
And that's the way it's been for as long as I can remember.
Affirmative action for African-Americans or women or the disabled or whomever isn't some radical introduction of racial/gender/ability preferences into a previously pure, unbiased system. It's an acknowledgment that our society is incredibly biased already in favor of a minority of its citizens, and an effort to proactively deal with the effects of that bias, rather than sitting on our hands and just hoping everything somehow sorts itself out.
I've really liked the dicussion on race over the past year or so its been very instructive, and far more open that it was in past. IMHO
Ta-Nahisi is right AA is not the cause so much as the straw-man excuse of the moment for white discomfort/racism/resentment. (People use the same language of resentment regarding immigrants, both legal and non) Nonetheless, its still there and I think bperk above me makes a good point as well that AA is used as a way de-legitimize, not just though mostly, black accomplishments.
Given that blacks are a whopping 13% of the population, its highly unlikely that Fred or poolside were ever the 'victim of reverse discrimination'.
That said part of the 'problematic' nature of AA is the excuse for resentment that AA lends itself to be. Jim Webb said it best, it appears that AA has been expanded to include all 'minorities' EXCEPT white males (Thats me BTW). This is the problem.
Personally, I think that re-inventing AA to be class based would be better. It will effectively be the same; since blacks, and hispanics, are typically lower on the wealth totem pole, but its not the racial background per se that is the driving factor anymore. At the very least it would remove a big focal point of subliminal racism.
Obama has hinted at this direction, and I think if he made a move in that vein he could 'close the deal' on this election by solidifying the white-working-class-male vote.
the direct victims of 300 years of race preferences are long dead
James Meredith is still alive at 75.
As far as I can tell, the Little Rock Nine are all still alive and in their sixties.
Rosa Parks has been gone for not quite three years.
Brown vs. Board of Education was in 1956; people who had just completed their high school education at the time would be 70 now.
I could go on, but you all get the point.
Anon:
"I've known people who have been spit on and called cracker for no reason in a black neighborhood just for being white."
People being spit on and racist behavior are wrong and unacceptable no matter the place but what that have to do with affirmative Action?
"It is a combo of welfare programs and affirmative action that stokes resentment and it's not just white people who feel that way."
Wow, conflating welfare programs and affirmative action. Why didn't I see it, there almost the same thing! Maybe if black people where made to made to make an articulate, passionate plea to prove that they are really worthy of these programs that would be enough. Black people you say you are thinking humans well prove it! Then maybe, just maybe.
By the way, living in Bedstuy you wouldn't be benefiting from the low rents of an economically depressed minority neighborhood just ripe for gentrification now would you? But I digress...
Try explaining to 3rd generation immigrants how they or their forebears benefited from slavery. There are many facts that you could produce that may indeed prove it. But do these arguments have the same impact as the anecdote about the 2nd cousin who was denied a promotion because of a quota? This is the disconnect. The descendants of immigrants see themselves as not personally responsible for the crime of slavery, yet they see themselves personally paying for it. Why shouldn't they resent it? AA doesn't seem all that noble to them.
Anon:
"I've known people who have been spit on and called cracker for no reason in a black neighborhood just for being white."
People being spit on and racist behavior are wrong and unacceptable no matter the place but what that have to do with affirmative Action?
"It is a combo of welfare programs and affirmative action that stokes resentment and it's not just white people who feel that way."
Wow, conflating welfare programs and affirmative action. Why didn't I see it, there almost the same thing! Maybe if black people where made to made to make an articulate, passionate plea to prove that they are really worthy of these programs that would be enough. Black people you say you are thinking humans well prove it! Then maybe, just maybe.
By the way, living in Bedstuy you wouldn't be benefiting from the low rents of an economically depressed minority neighborhood just ripe for gentrification now would you? But I digress...
Anon:
"I've known people who have been spit on and called cracker for no reason in a black neighborhood just for being white."
People being spit on and racist behavior are wrong and unacceptable no matter the place but what that have to do with affirmative Action?
"It is a combo of welfare programs and affirmative action that stokes resentment and it's not just white people who feel that way."
Wow, conflating welfare programs and affirmative action. Why didn't I see it, there almost the same thing! Maybe if black people where made to made to make an articulate, passionate plea to prove that they are really worthy of these programs that would be enough. Black people you say you are thinking humans well prove it! Then maybe, just maybe.
By the way, living in Bedstuy you wouldn't be benefiting from the low rents of an economically depressed minority neighborhood just ripe for gentrification now would you? But I digress...
As a native southernern who now lives in DC, I don't think Andrew and Publius were accurate either (1) when they identified southerners as bearing resenetment against blacks or (2) when they suggested affirmative action as the cause.
With respect to point #1, I think the real emotion is something much more akin to what you feel after a long fight with a lover or spouse. You've been fighting all day, nothing has been settled, you have the feeling the argument is going nowhere, and at some point just realize you just want to end the argument and move on to something else. Here, the argument is over whether slavery and Jim Crow were wrong (yes), whether they continue to have negative effects (yes), whether white southerners nevertheless have any right to embrace and celebrate their own culture (apparently not), whether black and white (and now Hispanic) southerners will succeed in building a new common identity as southerners (yet to be determined), and what, if anything, can be done about the seemingly intractible poverty that continues to affect so many black communities (more government programs? fixing the family? affirmative action? reparations?).
The arguments have been going on for years, but not much seems to change. And, rightly or wrongly -- but certainly not realistically -- after a point folks just get tired and want it all to go away.
With respect to issue #2, I think affirmative action is only a small, if not unrelated, cause of these feelings of race weariness. In personal fights, the hope is that they are eventually resolved -- though forgiveness, reconciliation, and some shared committment between the parties about how to move on and prevent similar arguments in the future. Either that, or the dispute might end in divorce or some other form of permanent rupture. For race, the first option does seem to be occurring on some lever. Witness the rise in interracial dating and marriage, which, I believe, is highest in the South. But the second option also seems to be occurring on BOTH sides. To cite just one example, in my public high school, it was not uncommon for black students to "jump" white students (often smaller boys) at football games. This happened to my best friend, actually (who, incidentally, was a Candadian transplant). If similar violent attacks happened the other way around, I never heard of it.
So, there you go. One white southerner's assessment of the problem. And, btw, having now lived in both Boston and DC, I will have to say that the one advantage of being southern is that you at least feel some responsibility to achieve racial reconciliation. I never got that sense from living up North. Judging from the sort of things I hear at dinner parties, up here, most folks don't even seem to be aware there is a race problem anywhere except perhaps down south.
Anon:
"I've known people who have been spit on and called cracker for no reason in a black neighborhood just for being white."
People being spit on and racist behavior are wrong and unacceptable no matter the place but what that have to do with affirmative Action?
"It is a combo of welfare programs and affirmative action that stokes resentment and it's not just white people who feel that way."
Wow, conflating welfare programs and affirmative action. Why didn't I see it, there almost the same thing! Maybe if black people where made to made to make an articulate, passionate plea to prove that they are really worthy of these programs that would be enough. Black people you say you are thinking humans well prove it! Then maybe, just maybe.
By the way, living in Bedstuy you wouldn't be benefiting from the low rents of an economically depressed minority neighborhood just ripe for gentrification now would you? But I digress...
This is an interesting discussion on AA, but like so many such discussions it focuses on what is JUST rather than simply what IS. We can talk about justice and equity till the cows come home but the reality is that some people are going to feel slighted and resentful about real or perceived injustices. Apply for the NYPD and find out you missed on your test by 5 points? If you are black someone might tell you that the test is slanted to favor people from white schools, and you will resent that advantage cheated you out of a well paying job that lets you retire in 20 years with an incredible pension rather than scraping by. If you are white someone may tell you that blacks automatically get ten extra points on their test scores, and you will resent the guy who got that great job in your place. The truth of either of these things, although an interesting debate, doesn't really get us very far, because, true or not, people will believe them and spread their resentment around. The really interesting debate is that, given the reality on the ground, how much resentment can we live with as a society, and how can we systemically mitigate the resentment down to a level we can live with.
I feel in my bones that AA is another form of white paternalism. Much like the Indian Boarding schools run by well-meaning people who beat the Indians for speaking their own language (as a side note I personally know people who were beaten for speaking crow) the whole debate over affirmative action smells wrong to me, and not because I resent any group of people being promoted over any other. Some people have advantages and some don't that's life.
However I do think that Affirmative Action allows institutions to get a way with a token amount of support for non-white communities instead of adressing the issues that would raise the bar high enough so that everyone could compete without such programs.
In short AA to my nose has always seemed like a once a year Christmass fundraisers done on behalf of poor kids by the priveledged while the rest of the year the priveledged ignore and look down upon the poor.
Karl,
The spitting and such has to do with white resentment not affirmative action. Please read more carefully. I never said that affirmative action led to the spitting or is part of it. I said it adds to the white resentment.
Second, yes, gentrification is happening in Bed-stuy, at a much slower pace because of the downturn in the economy, but it's happening and you know what, it's a good thing. (Plus the gentrification is being fuled by middle and upper class african americans as much as it is by white or asian americans.) There are more goods and services, more capital flowing in for investment, more police, better food at the grocery stores.
Anyways, my point is that not everyone who harbors white resenment is a bigot or a racist and that some of them just feel that there are too many programs welfare and such that are benefiting one particular group at the expensive of the others and all they hear is how racists and how more needs to be done.
I love how Fred assumes he would have gotten in but for affirmative action. Here's is a math problem:
2,000 will be accepted to a school
10,000 applicants
20% acceptance rate
0 minorities who apply are rejected
Assume 400 of the accepted students (20%) are affirmative action admits.
Now take them away and admit 400 "deserving applicants." So of the 8,000 that were originally denied, 400 will now be admitted. But in Fred's world, he was obviously one of the lucky 5% of the original people denied that will now be accepted. What a great increase in opportunity for Fred! - instead of a 16% chance of getting in, now its a 20% chance.
Fast forward 4 years - if test scores, class rank and GPA translates in a 1:1 ratio with how well the student will do in school, then congrats Fred, you graduated in the bottom 20% of your class. Next stop, Harvard Business School and a eight figure Wall Street gig five years later. Oh wait, you mean paper accomplishments don't translate directly to academic performance?
If I've learned anything from reading Ta-Nehisi's blog over the past few months it is that white people and black people define racism differently. I think this difference is part of what begets the AA resentment in whites.
To white people, racism is blatant and tangible. It's disliking a black person simply because of the color of his skin. It's denying a job to a person solely because she's black. It's using racial epithets. It's thinking that someone black is genetically less intelligent than someone white. The vast majority of white people don't do this anymore. So most of them therefore believe they are not racist. So if we're not a racist society anymore, why do we need AA?
But to black people, racism is not just this. Racism is the assumption that the a white kid in the suburbs and a black kid in the inner city start out on the same plane, with the same opportunities, and the black kid doesn't succeed because he "didn't apply himself". Racism is not giving a second thought to why the majority of the prison population is black. To black people, racism isn't just tangible discrimination in the classic sense. It's also indifference, ignorance and myopia.
In any case, I don't claim to speak for whites or blacks. But I don't think that perceptions of racism between blacks and whites are congruent. White people think racism is over and wonder why black people still complain about it. Black people experience racism everyday due to this very assumption.
Pesto may have made the best explanation of skin privilege that I've read in a while.
It really is the assumption that as a white guy, you're "normal", that truly is the extra thumb on the scale.
I also call bullshit on Fred. School admissions is not "let's see, we have two slots left, and here are our final two applicants, one white, one black. I guess we have to take the black person." School admissions do not work that way, and strict racial quotas are unconstitutional.
Law school admissions work more like, in very simplified form:
"Here is a pool of applicants. Here are the requirements. Here is a group of people that meet the requirements. They're in. Here's another group are not close to meeting the requirements. Bye-bye. Now, let's look at the remaining applicants."
Many of those would be the so-called affirmative action applicants.
The point is, Fred, is that even if affirmative action was not in place, you still would not have been accepted. AA re-opens the applicant pool, so to speak, and allows second looks. It sucks that because you aren't black, you didn't get a second look, but if there were no affirmative action, you still wouldn't get in.
Case in point. A fellow associate's cousin didn't get into UCLA. I heard, ad nauseum, it was all because of AA, and the reasons given were almost exactly Fred's bullshit reasons. So just before the very next admissions period, California got rid of AA. Cousin re-applies to UCLA. Still doesn't get in.
My problem with AA is that it allows people like my fellow associate and his cousin to shift the blame from themselves to the "other." Cousin just didn't have the game. Instead it was because of AA. And still, after California gets rid of AA in public school admissions, fellow associate and Cousin are still in denial, believing in some kind of insidious "shadow AA" program.
I don't have a problem with you deleting someone like Juan - though prefer him being attacked and humiliated by other comments - but can you let us know if that's now the policy.
Shine:
The irony of course is that guys like Fred love to blame everyone but themselves, which is exactly what guys like Fred accuse the intended beneficiaries of AA of doing.
I don't like race based AA -- would much rather have socio-econ AA. Poor white kids need AA more than a middle class black kid IMO. But like the cousin you mentioned, it is much easier to blame someone else than look in the mirror.
Yes, James. It's the policy, for now. I'm sorry. I don't like it. But I don't know any other way. I greatly value the community around this blog. Obviously, it's harder to manage now. But I'm going to do my best to keep this an enclave--albeit a disagreeable one--in the big city.
The last response was from Blue Moon to Shine.
Fair enough -
I don't mind being deleted now and again if racist morons are being clipped frequently.
And I appreciate you being so quick to respond and open about it. BIG difference from the other bloggers on here.
Thanks
Word, son. As someone who doesn't believe in race-based affirmative action either, I am still down with basically everything else you have said here.
If you go back 46 years, to 1972, when I entered college, there as another shift being played out. Many of the colleges and universities that many bloggers here know as co-ed, were ALL MALE, and just starting to make the shift.....I applied to Colgate in 1972, and watched 5 male friends with lower grades and SATs get in ahead of me, while I sat on the waiting list.....I never did get in......
I can't imagine how an african-american person feels in a similar situation, over and over.....and I am sure it still happens....
Shine,
Maybe Fred still wouldn't have gotten in even if there were no AA. But if AA is effective at increasing the representation of the preferred group, then SOMEONE outside that group who would otherwise have gotten in will be rejected because of AA.
That doesn't mean AA is necessarily wrong. But the idea that it has no real costs for members of the disfavored group is simply false. More places for blacks (or women, or whatever the favored group is) means less places for whites (or men, etc.). It's a zero-sum game.
Anon:
"I've known people who have been spit on and called cracker for no reason in a black neighborhood just for being white."
People being spit on and racist behavior are wrong and unacceptable no matter the place but what that have to do with affirmative Action?
"It is a combo of welfare programs and affirmative action that stokes resentment and it's not just white people who feel that way."
Wow, conflating welfare programs and affirmative action. Why didn't I see it, there almost the same thing! Maybe if black people where made to made to make an articulate, passionate plea to prove that they are really worthy of these programs that would be enough. Black people you say you are thinking humans well prove it! Then maybe, just maybe.
By the way, living in Bedstuy you wouldn't be benefiting from the low rents of an economically depressed minority neighborhood just ripe for gentrification now would you? But I digress...
BlueMoon, you are being very generous to Fred. The Undergrad Ivy acceptance rate is in the neighborhood of 8-10%, and the number of applicant is way higher.
For Harvard, almost 2k students of 27k applicants were accepted. Taking the same 20% minority "free admissions (and again assuming that none of those candidates were actually more worthy on merit), that means that 400 of the 25,000 other applicants "had a chance taken away." That would be a 1.5% chance for a remaining candidate. Hardly earth shattering. Even taking the bottom half of the candidate pool away puts us back closer to where you started, but not quite.
And what happens to that 400 "unlucky"? Well, being that they truly are edge cases at an Ivy, they probably went somewhere else pretty darn good.
And, in fact, I was one of those edge-cases. I was wait-listed at Harvard, and told that I was one of 50-100 spots that might get in (I have no insight into the veracity of this statement, but I'm not sure why anyone would make it up).
I didn't make it in, and cried all the way to Georgetown, where I worked my butt off and have done pretty well. It wasn't until reading these blogs that it even dawned on me that I should have any enmity towards a) minority candidates or b) legacy admissions. I had enough of the structural advantages growing up and going in that the slight discrepancy between one school and another doesn't seem like a big deal to me. In fact, it barely seems like a small deal, to this day.
Of course, Fred was talking about Grad school, and those results are largely untracked. Maybe he has different info, or works in a field where there are only a couple of good Grad studies facilities. But it just boggles my imagination that the difference in going to a school one peg lower on the chain couldn't be made up with some extra effort on his part. If he really does think it made a substantial material difference in his life, well, my respect for him falls.
[Incidentally, I generally find there is a profound disconnect between the AA-sensitive and their other views. When looking at the poor and in things like crime stats, they are likely to say things like: 'It may be a little harder for them, but they still have a choice. They can work hard, and get somewhere. Life isn't always fair, but individuals still have the responsibility to... etc etc.' And much of this is true - things are harder, and personal responsibility still matters. Expecting others to overcome adversity is apparently easier said than done, though - when the system seems tilted in the wrong direction, even in slight ways, woe be to anyone in earshot.]
Damn, dude...save a little bit....you can't show all the goods in the first week!
Nice post.
Awesome post. I agree with every word of it.
But the idea that it has no real costs for members of the disfavored group is simply false.
There's been enough beating up on Fred to note: this is a fair point.
But (as above), I think that actual cost is usually so far overstated as to be comical. For most people, it's not either Yale or flipping burgers at McD's. The difference in quality of opportunity is smaller than most people readily seem to admit.
Would you please sit Andrew Sullivan down and give him list of African American History books he can read? I find him for the most part fairly educated and enlightening but he just can't see the trees or the forest when it comes to race in America(I have posted and argued w/ him since 2000). I have come to the conclusion that he thinks its a class problem as if he was back in England.
This is the e-mail I sent him when he responded to Publius:
Affirmative Action is poisonous fruit of a poisonous policy but racism both de
jure and de facto isn't? Please say why?
For over 300 years in this country we have lived w/ a form of social engineering
called racism, which is the real poisonous policy. It starts w/ slavery, becomes
embodied in the Constitution at its inception, comes to the fore front w/ the
Civil War and taken out of the Constitution at the end of the Civil War,
reinstated w/ the Compromise of 1976, reinvigorates itself in series of Supreme
Court rulings ending in Plessy vs Ferguson legalizing segregation in all aspects
of life, solidified actively on the economic front w/ the National Housing Act
of 1934 and then 20 years segregation begins to be repealed w/ Brown vs the
Board of Education in 1954. Yet Affirmative Action is poisonous fruit.
How do you correct the situation? You will not even answer this question because
it means white people have to suffer and you aren't prepared to acknowledge it.
White people can resent all they want, they looked the other way and benefited regardless of how able they were to
compete. Can you even square your comment w/ your own concept of contrition w/
your professed Catholic upbringing?
And yes I went after his Catholicism as he moans so much about what that upbringing meant to him.
Society as a whole benefits from AA. Racial, ethnic, gender, and class diversity in educational institutions and the workplace are beneficial to everyone.
Anon:
"Anyways, my point is that not everyone who harbors white resenment is a bigot or a racist and that some of them just feel that there are too many programs welfare and such that are benefiting one particular group at the expensive of the others and all they hear is how racists and how more needs to be done."
Again, where is the suffering, the disenfranchisement that merits the resentment? I want to see an example of that White person who has really lost out in society because of the actions of black people or more spacifically because of affirmative action. I know I could point to countless examples of the reverse. If it's matter of only achieving middle class instead of upper-middle class or lower rich status I can't really sympathize.
As far as reading more carefully goes, this discussion of resentment is framed mostly by AA as most of the posts from others show and with that in mind I think my reading was fair.With respect to gentrification, unless you are a demographer with real figures to back up your assertions I will take egalitarian examples of who is moving in and up in bedstuy with a grain of salt.
The multiple definitions of racism... is a problem. Also, there is no way to level to playing field. This is a pipe dream. You have poor people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to dig their way out. You have rich people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to benefit from the good old boy network, and many that barely are and barely do.
We've got women who graduated from the same college with the same degree as a man, and make 80% of his salary in their first year.
How can this all level out? Should we have reparations for women and gay people? My family snuck across the border from Canada four generations ago, was poor then, is poor now. Who should they pay reparations to?
There is no way to level the field. We have to focus on how to improve our foot speed.
I have a question for those who want to help me better understand. Because I grew up a very poor white dude in an area with few white people I undertstand the necessity of social programs to benefit those who have historically been disadvantaged. However I would like to know, to what extent does the broader debate over Afirmative Action take the focus away from where it belongs which is improving the educational standards in areas where it is abysmally low?
Yes, Sullivan's position is a bit curious. If and when gay marriage is fully legalized in this country, I doubt very highly that he would ever claim the religious right's aversion or resentment of homosexuals is a result of the public policy allowing gays to marry. He would obviously understand that these people resented and discriminated against gays long before that time. I understand this isn't the perfect analogy, but I can't really figure out where Sullivan is coming with this one...
But (as above), I think that actual cost is usually so far overstated as to be comical. For most people, it's not either Yale or flipping burgers at McD's. The difference in quality of opportunity is smaller than most people readily seem to admit.
The cost in reduced opportunities to members of the disfavored group is proportional to the benefit in increased opportunities to members of the favored one. If AA doesn't reduce employment or educational opportunities for whites by very much, then it doesn't increase those opportunities for blacks by very much, either. And it gives every white who was rejected a ready excuse to blame his rejection on something other than his own failings.
I'm not against racial preferences on principle, but in general I think they're bad policy. Race is a very crude proxy for disadvantage. Any policy of explicit racial preferences for job or educational opportunities is likely to be widely viewed as arbitrary and unfair and to incite a lot of resentment and anger.
The multiple definitions of racism... is a problem. Also, there is no way to level to playing field. This is a pipe dream. You have poor people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to dig their way out. You have rich people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to benefit from the good old boy network, and many that barely are and barely do.
We've got women who graduated from the same college with the same degree as a man, and make 80% of his salary in their first year.
How can this all level out? Should we have reparations for women and gay people? My family snuck across the border from Canada four generations ago, was poor then, is poor now. Who should they pay reparations to?
There is no way to level the field. We have to focus on how to improve our foot speed.
The multiple definitions of racism... is a problem. Also, there is no way to level to playing field. This is a pipe dream. You have poor people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to dig their way out. You have rich people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to benefit from the good old boy network, and many that barely are and barely do.
We've got women who graduated from the same college with the same degree as a man, and make 80% of his salary in their first year.
How can this all level out? Should we have reparations for women and gay people? My family snuck across the border from Canada four generations ago, was poor then, is poor now. Who should they pay reparations to?
There is no way to level the field. We have to focus on how to improve our foot speed.
AA is a quota system, but there have always been quotas. The most pernicious and enduring one made it possible for a lot of dumb white men to live well. This one is the first to require inclusion instead of exclusion. And that point-counterpoint about most whites not having owned slaves and most blacks not befitting from AA is also spot on.
I'll add this: As a 56 year-old white male, my prospects are not the best. And some of that may be attributable to AA, but so far, I have not tasted discrimination, and so far AA is the only simple, effective mechanism for redressing centuries of discrimination. Merely decreeing that employers and landlords and banks cannot discriminate has been about as effective as the Emancipation Proclamation.
Besides, if I do get the wrong end of discrimination, it's more likely to be because of my age than my gender or race.
Here's a point that MLK grasped and began to address when he was murdered: We are all at sea, at the same time on the same water. The Bush legacy is one of an ebbing tide that lowers all boats. We are all getting hosed. So maybe Bush can claim some sort of twisted victory in the name of equality.
But the beefing about AA is a distraction, just like family values, flag burning, and gay marriage.
As it happened, there were brief, shining moments when poor whites and poor blacks realized how much they had in common, and who their real enemies were. But the landowners were always very skilled at distracting and dividing them.
And let's dump the argument about immigrants who had no investment in slavery and therefore no due bill for affirmative action. If they were white, they stepped into a system that automatically favored them, whether they came in 1780 or 1880 or 1980. At the same time, the progeny of slavery are due a hell of a lot of compound interest on a whole lot of missing mules and 40-acre parcels, regardless of who came here when.
Nobody has seized my land to pay that debt. If my quality of life has eroded, its because of a dumb white guy who has mismanaged a once-healthy economy, started a paraphrase of Vietnam, virtually suspended the Constitution and empowered a partisan Justice Department that is entirely too interested in prosecuting Democrats and reverse discrimination.
Let's worry about the quota system that made that possible.
I want to see an example of that White person who has really lost out in society because of the actions of black people or more spacifically because of affirmative action.
Points-based racial preferences award additional points to members of the preferred race on account of their race. You could identify the particular individuals who were denied a job or a place in college because of their race as a result of the preference by comparing the scores of the candidates with and without the additional points awarded to members of the preferred race. If the races are "white" and "black," and the preference is effective at increasing the representation of blacks, it can only be because some number of white candidates who would otherwise have gotten the job or the place in college were rejected in favor of black candidates as a result of the preference.
I know I could point to countless examples of the reverse.
I seriously doubt that.
Mixner:
So what happened to those whites that where rejected is my point? Where they condemned to a life of poverty? Did they get banned from ever attending college? Where they run out of the state for daring to challenge the black privilege system?
Without going into detail for personal reasons my mother and aunt have both dealt with racial bias that was employed to hold them back in the work place and that ended in litigation. Check the EEOC stats for the number of complaints lodged against employers every year for proof, and that's just in the working world! Come on now! Things have gotten much better no doubt but don't come with facts on one end and feign ignorance of the realities of the other.
As Fred's post illustrates, claiming the right to racial resentment depends on an assumption that affirmative action means someone else getting something that you otherwise "would have gotten." This assumption is objectionable on a couple of levels beyond the ones others have already pointed out.
In the case of school admissions, the idea of a white/minority zero sum game is preposterous. Racial minorities sometimes get preference. So do people from Wyoming, unless a lot of Wyomans apply one year, in which case some are discriminated against. If a lot of men apply one year, women get a leg up, and vice versa. Legacies and athletes, of course, benefit from affirmative action all the time. It's laughable to talk as if you can ever have any idea who took "your" spot, or why. Schools attempt to achieve all sorts of balance in each class (this balance, by the way, is the only legally admissible goal of affirmative action in admissions; redressing past wrongs has nothing to do with it). If you're so convinced that a black person took your spot, you should go ahead and thank affirmative action for allowing you to keep your sense of self-worth intact by not forcing you to ask yourself if maybe you just wouldn't have made the cut in any event.
Others have argued that affirmative action has a "cost" for whites. I think this idea demands some examination. Affirmative action programs are essentially redistributive; they attempt to turn a world in which many opportunities that used to be reserved for white males into one in which those opportunities are more widely available to other groups of people. The world in which an admissions slot or a job "would have been" yours is the first one. You are "deprived" only in that world. In the new one, you're just competing against more people, and now there's a handicap system to attempt to compensate for the fact that generations of white male opportunity have placed you in a stronger competing position. This is a "cost" only in the sense that it "costs" scratch golfers to play against those with handicaps. Sure, they would win a lot more often if there were no handicaps, but they like a good round of golf more than they do a string of wins over players who, because they lack talent or practice or upper-body strength or undamaged knees, wouldn't have a shot otherwise. It's not a "cost" so much as the rules of the game, unfair only according to another set of rules that aren't the ones we're using and are therefore irrelevant.
This whole affirmative action complaint is way out of control. How many of us white people actually have suffered as a result of affirmative action? HOw many of us have failed to rise up the rungs of the professional ladder because of affirmative action rather than lack of talent or hard work?
Gimme a break. The whole resentment excuse is hogwash. Just another bogus excuse for bigotry.
This whole affirmative action complaint is way out of control. How many of us white people actually have suffered as a result of affirmative action? HOw many of us have failed to rise up the rungs of the professional ladder because of affirmative action rather than lack of talent or hard work?
Gimme a break. The whole resentment excuse is hogwash. Just another bogus excuse for bigotry.
So what happened to those whites that where rejected is my point? Where they condemned to a life of poverty? Did they get banned from ever attending college? Where they run out of the state for daring to challenge the black privilege system?
No, of course not. But by the same token, eliminating racial preferences wouldn't condemn the potential beneficiaries of those policies to poverty or ban them from attending college, either. If Harvard and Yale eliminated all racial preferences in their admissions policies, one result would probably be a reduced representation of racial minorities at those institutions. But it is highly unlikely that the displaced minority candidates would fail to get a college education at all. They'd most likely just get their education at some less prestigious college instead.
Without going into detail for personal reasons my mother and aunt have both dealt with racial bias that was employed to hold them back in the work place and that ended in litigation. Check the EEOC stats for the number of complaints lodged against employers every year for proof, and that's just in the working world!
A complaint of racial discrimination is not the same thing as actual racial discrimination. I have no doubt that racial discrimination against black people in the workplace still exists. But I do very strongly doubt that you could "point to countless examples" of it. Absent an admission of guilt or "smoking gun"-type evidence it would be very difficult in any particular case to establish that racial discrimination was in fact the real cause of whatever the plaintiff is complaining about.
I love the whole "im not responsible for the sins of my fathers" angle....
So are you willing to give up the spoils of your fathers legacies as well? Even if those spoils are directly or indirectly linked to his sins?
Secondly, can someone post a coherent argument against diversity both in the workplace and definitely in college, where most people come of age?
Ta-Nehisi,
The Atlantic acquired a big hitter when you joined the team. I can't remember the last time i read through a full 70+ comment thread, but youve brought perceptive readers along with your perceptive posts.
I already spent too much time on this topic at the old site, so I'll just say that as a born and bred southerner who's lived in California and Boston, I hope/believe racial reconciliation will start in the south.
I love the whole "im not responsible for the sins of my fathers" angle....
So are you willing to give up the spoils of your fathers legacies as well? Even if those spoils are directly or indirectly linked to his sins?
Secondly, can someone post a coherent argument against diversity both in the workplace and definitely in college, where most people come of age?
Mixner:
"Absent an admission of guilt or "smoking gun"-type evidence it would be very difficult in any particular case to establish that racial discrimination was in fact the real cause of whatever the plaintiff is complaining about."
This fits in neatly with seems to be your notion that discrimination is either imagined or rare. Once again, black people prove that your not lying, oversensitive or lazy and we will believe you, maybe. Sounds like Jim Crow jr. to me. or maybe it's just in my mind.
Mixner:
"Absent an admission of guilt or "smoking gun"-type evidence it would be very difficult in any particular case to establish that racial discrimination was in fact the real cause of whatever the plaintiff is complaining about."
This fits in neatly with seems to be your notion that discrimination is either imagined or rare. Once again, black people prove that your not lying, oversensitive or lazy and we will believe you, maybe. Sounds like Jim Crow jr. to me or maybe it's just in my mind.
"And let's dump the argument about immigrants who had no investment in slavery and therefore no due bill for affirmative action. If they were white, they stepped into a system that automatically favored them, whether they came in 1780 or 1880 or 1980."
True. In addition, taking part in anti-black racism was a way for European immigrants, especially from outside the WASP nations, to become white, such as Slavic immigrants taking part in anti-black pogroms down South.
In addition, since this is a discussion stemming from a comment on racism in the South (publius's comment), it should also be pointed out that Southern Appalachia (basically those states Clinton won in the primary like Kentucky) has had the most static demographics in the US of any region. It has seen the least immigration of any region. People who are born there tend to stay there.
Privilege cuts in so many ways. Some of the dumbest white kids I went to prep school with ended up going to Ivies because of their athletic skills, but these were honed via having expensive private teachers. Meanwhile, smarter kids of all races in my school didn't get into those same Ivies despite applying. What might have been the second-dumbest girl in my graduating class got into an Ivy as a legacy while many smarter kids of all races in my class didn't get in. Blaming the reason someone took "your spot" all on AA is just an excuse to hate on black people.
It should also be pointed out that there is a lot of segregation in the online discourse on this. A lot of people have mentioned white people being attacked for being white by black people. However, the reverse does happen, but since the discourse is so segregated, chances are the stories a person will hear will all be about someone from their race being jumped by someone of another race.
Same asshole troll, same dumb tactics, different blog author, different people to get sucked in. Yawn.
The 'Appalachian' thing kicks in here to some extent, given that those areas were too poor even for slaves, in the sense that the land wasn't fit for plantations. And there's a definite sense in the upcountry, which mostly fought on the Union side, that the blacks cut into the line ahead of poor whites.
Something else that is weird is how people who stand up for white resentment hate it when they see black resentment. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that black people have it worse in America than white people and that it has always been this way. Why is white resentment on AA (which is mostly a misfire anyway) justified but black resentment on continuing racism in things like hiring and police brutality somehow unjustified?
The multiple definitions of racism... is a problem. Also, there is no way to level to playing field. This is a pipe dream. You have poor people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to dig their way out. You have rich people of every race creed and color who aren't smart enough to benefit from the good old boy network, and many that barely are and barely do.
We've got women who graduated from the same college with the same degree as a man, and make 80% of his salary in their first year.
How can this all level out? Should we have reparations for women and gay people? My family snuck across the border from Canada four generations ago, was poor then, is poor now. Who should they pay reparations to?
There is no way to level the field. We have to focus on how to improve our foot speed.
This fits in neatly with seems to be your notion that discrimination is either imagined or rare.
I don't know how common racial discrimination is in America today, although I do believe it's much less common now than it was in the past. I doubt anyone else has a good idea how common it is now, either. As I said, it's hard to prove.
"I don't know how common racial discrimination is in America today, although I do believe it's much less common now than it was in the past."
Fair enough, but I think that understandings of racial discrimination in America especially with respect to African-Americans does have a current and legacy component that is indivisible. Whether that truth is acknowledged or not comes down to just how honest ones agenda is.
i'm still waiting for someone to get all rightous and indignant about gender preferences.
gender preferences are far more pervasive and ongoing and unrestrained.
title IX has had, and still has, an enormous impact on college athletics and is probably the biggest, most pervasive, affirmative action program in existence in this country.
athletic programs all over the country have been impacted, programs cancelled, male athletes denied opportunities because of the impact of title IX.
why no controversy?
why no clamor for the ending of this insidious form of gender preference?
why no resentment towards the women who benefit from title IX?
could it possibly be that the beneficiaries of this very entrenched form of preference are predominantly white?
and we haven't even started talking about the impact of legacy admissions at elite colleges....
i'm still waiting for someone to get all rightous and indignant about gender preferences.
gender preferences are far more pervasive and ongoing and unrestrained.
title IX has had, and still has, an enormous impact on college athletics and is probably the biggest, most pervasive, affirmative action program in existence in this country.
athletic programs all over the country have been impacted, programs cancelled, male athletes denied opportunities because of the impact of title IX.
why no controversy?
why no clamor for the ending of this insidious form of gender preference?
why no resentment towards the women who benefit from title IX?
could it possibly be that the beneficiaries of this very entrenched form of preference are predominantly white?
and we haven't even started talking about the impact of legacy admissions at elite colleges....
Brad,
I know the numbers at work at the schools I applied to (those schools provided detailed info), and your percentages are way off. I didn't apply as an undergrad at Harvard; I applied to grad school at non-Harvard Ivies. My scores had to be higher than at least 99% of the female and minority applicants (since they were higher than 96% of the overall applicants). It's true that I might not have gotten in even if there weren't affirmative action at play, but there's also a better chance that I would have.
One lesson others should take from this is that there is zero benefit from putting your kids in mostly-minority K-12 schools. Since I know of universities' fondness for diversity, I pointed this out in response to essay questions about background, writing about how my upbringing gave me exposure to different cultures, etc. No dice. They'd rather accept a black guy whose parents made more money than mine and sent him to private schools than a working class white guy who probably has more experience with, and knowledge of, black culture than he does.
As for the impact on me, I'm not in poverty, to be sure, but I'm also not working. Time will tell how things develop, but one thing is certain: my life will be a lot harder than it would have been had I got accepted to one of those schools.
frankie d:
I hope you are just reaching for Swifitan irony.
You are right about one thing: Title IX is an affirmative action program. But it is one that works quite well, to the extent that woman have as much right to decent athletic facilites as men.
But "male athletes denied opportunities?"
Speaking as a college educated white male I have to laugh. Major college varsity players remain a priviledged anomaly, a pampered uber class with little raison de'tre and no meaningful connection to the institutions they represent -- kinda like the House of Lords.
An education is supposed to be the only opportunity that college bestows. But some of these Division 1A programs have nothing to do with education and everything to do with a guerrilla farm system for the NBA and NFL, and profit center for TV.
Last time I looked the major college athletic departments still appeared to be run by men for men.
If you want athletics to take a hand in education -- and level that playing field at the same time -- how about doing away with commercialzed varsity sports? Go back to the intra-mural concept that gave everyone an opportunity to participate.
No character building takes place in the bleachers, spectator sports as major business have no place on college campuses and contribute nothing of value.
The fact that these institutions -- athletic departments -- continue to be male power centers only makes the case that Title IX is not stringent enough.
And onto the larger issue of gender preferences, we are now talking about a much larger portion of the population than African Americans, but like African Americans, American women have yet to achieve true and total equity.
As to legacy admissions, we have one in the White House. Res ipso loquitor and all that ...
Jacobin,
Male athletes in non-revenue producing sports due suffer, since colleges cut back on these often as part of their efforts to comply with Title IX.
Fred:
I have no reason to doubt that. But a college of any size does not exist for the purpose of providing sports facilities. But if they are going to provide facilties, then they should do so for all. If the only way they can balance what they provide is to cut back on some of the boys' games so the girls can play, too, I think that's great.
jacobin,
i thought the irony was fairly obvious.
and you make my point for me.
your main point concerning title IX could be said about affirmative action programs based on race.
even the point about the need for more, rather than less, title IX - and/or race-based affirmative action.
what is telling is that your view concerning title IX is not controversial at all. while any race-based affirmative action is under constant attack, even though its scope and impact will probably be miniscule, compared to the gender-based program.
the conclusion is this: opposition to affirmative action is primarily based on racism, rather than on some exhalted notion of maintaining some idealized version of a meritocracy.
The cost in reduced opportunities to members of the disfavored group is proportional to the benefit in increased opportunities to members of the favored one.
This is only true if there is not a general, systemic bias against certain candidates. In other words, if some (less enlightened) schools either actively discourage, set higher standards for, or otherwise discount a group at large.
At that point, AA offers a different opportunity -- some candidate who "belongs" at a certain level of school but has difficulty getting accepted at one school might actually get a bump up instead of a bump down, creating a gap of two levels, not one.
(In my case, if a student that "belonged" at a sub-Ivy, but could not get in, went to Harvard, he may have done that instead of going to UMd or something. The gap in his gain would actually be greater than the gap in my loss. And yes, this is theoretical. Please feel free to judge my hypothesis as just that, because I can not statistically prove everything I say. It's just a case where the values would not be proportional - a proof of concept, if you will.)
It also helps to create a socially reinforcing bias amongst the schools that fair entry is valued, and unfair practices are scorned.
Of course, the less common a systemic bias is, the more true your statement becomes - at some point, a system like AA which presents problems should become obsolete. How useful AA is today is largely a function of how prevalent discrimination is, in ways obvious or subtle.
All of this, btw, treats AA as a remedy for previous and possibly ongoing institutional bias at entry. There is another, more difficult aspect to tangle with: AA as an effort to correct for lack of equality in earlier schooling.
And finally, this cost-benefit analysis utterly disregards any value the school itself places on diversity for its own sake. That is, it may very well make sense for them to want a more heterogeneous student body with the idea that this would bring the students a greater wealth of viewpoints or even social networking opportunity.
So, all in all, yeah, AA is problematic. I do think the values can outweigh the costs even on the individual student level - they aren't necessarily directly proportional. If you add in the University's preference for diversity, the equation tilts even further.
jacobin,
i thought the irony was fairly obvious.
and you make my point for me.
your main point concerning title IX could be said about affirmative action programs based on race.
even the point about the need for more, rather than less, title IX - and/or race-based affirmative action.
what is telling is that your view concerning title IX is not controversial at all. while any race-based affirmative action is under constant attack, even though its scope and impact will probably be miniscule, compared to the gender-based program.
the conclusion is this: opposition to affirmative action is primarily based on racism, rather than on some exhalted notion of maintaining some idealized version of a meritocracy.
frankie d:
Touche.
I fully agree with you about the root of the opposition to AA.
I've had similar feelings whenever I hear white fans complain about the heavy African American presence in the NBA, but seem yawningly indifferent to apparent imbalances that go against African Americans.
Brad,
I know the numbers at work at the schools I applied to (those schools provided detailed info), and your percentages are way off. ... My scores had to be higher than at least 99% of the female and minority applicants (since they were higher than 96% of the overall applicants).
Ok. That was the caveat of my post - you might have more/better info than we do, and your case might really be an edge case. I... am surprised that the school(s) gave you that level of detail into who they accepted and didn't accept. Did they really give average scores for female and minority applicants?
Even so, looking more generally, I don't think the logic behind anti-AA sentiment applies that directly, that often, to most people.
This may be touchy, and I apologize if it is overly personal: are you in a field that, by missing on those opportunities (and I didn't realize there were more than one school that declined you - it sounded like one at first read), you don't have "next step down" options?
Ta-Nehisi,
First of all, a belated welcome. I was not familiar with your blog prior to the switch, however I greatly enjoyed your piece on Bill Cosby in the Atlantic a few months back, and I look forward to reading regularly now.
One can have a principled case against Affirmative Action. But to resent black people--as a group--because of Affirmative Action is, really, the essence of racial prejudice. It's a judgment passed on a whole group, based on a minority of that group.
I agree. To infer any sort of generalization in this manner is to use the problems of affirmative action as an excuse for feelings that likely have a deeper source. I've occasionally seen this sort of thing, not only in affirmative action, but in general, passing cases where a white coworker would point to a less-than-classy black customer and make some sort of a universal inference on race. They were few and far between, and usually in coworkers because the people I chose to hang out with typically don't operate like that, but yeah - people can be damn ignorant sometimes.
But I'm wondering what your take is on individual cases of resentment.
It seems to me that the existence of affirmative action "justifies" resentment on an individual level, technically speaking, insofar as it alters the landscape explicitly based on the color of one's skin. So in cases of racially biased hiring, one cannot help but view the hired minority through the scope of race, at least to some degree. Similarly, I can't imagine thinking "I'm here because of the color of my skin" is great for one's esteem, but I honestly can't comment in good faith on that side of it. Its not a simple issue, obviously.
I generally try to go through life not caring what the color of someone else's skin is when it comes to forming opinions about them - okay, okay: unless its that glowing orange from hours of fake tan - I'll admit a prejudice there. I can't imagine that affirmative action helps on the individual, person-to-person level, which is arguably the most important way to understand and harmonize racial differences. Of course, this is only one aspect of it, but it is still important.
Again, welcome! I'll definitely be reading.
-Brandon
White Resentment.
I am a white owner of a manufacturing company with 40 employees in Washington State. I have seen my share of racial problems in the workplace over the years, and I hear enough grumbling from whites that I know white resentment is real. To place this story demographically, our company is 1/3 degreed engineers, 1/3 non-degreed or associate degree white collar, and 1/3 non-degreed blue collar shop workers.
People at work have positions about affirmative action, but no one I've heard tells a personal story where they didn't get the job or the acceptance to a college because they are white. Affirmative is more of a proxy issue that follows other political attitudes. From what I can tell the group at work is not unusual and affirmative action is not that common, limited largely to college admissions and public sector hiring. As a private employer no quotas or affirmative action programs apply to my company.
The white resentment I see comes from another source not covered in the news or in mainstream political speech. The comments I hear are all about preferential treatment of blacks on the job. This is not unfounded, blacks are treated preferentially in some ways, but for reasons that are not sinister.
I have to be much more careful when firing a black. I have to keep better documentation. I have to give more warnings. I have to make more efforts to work with an underperforming black employee rather than calling it quits and firing him or her. I have to do this because there is a significant chance that if I do not I might be sued for racial discrimination.
I do not have to take these steps with a white employee because Washington State is an “at will” state, where employees can be dismissed without cause (provided discrimination isn’t the reason). Therefore I run very little risk letting a white employee go. There simply are no causes of action available for white employees who might feel they were fired for sucky reasons.
You might think I am complaining about my lot and justifying white resentment. Not so. I do not mind the greater care I have to take employing blacks. I proudly support the Civil Rights Act, which established racial discrimination as a cause of action for racial discrimination suits. If race is a cause of action for a suit some people will use it wrongly. Fired employees often feel wronged and want to get revenge. People self-justify and blame the racist boss rather than their own screwups. People in the weaker position (I'm the boss, I'm always in the power position) want to turn the tables, and will use any tool at hand.
Yet.... Without the Civil Rights Act some whites would discriminate with impunity. Laws against racial discrimination are necessary in America because of our history. Racial discrimination is rightly a cause of action, and all legal causes of action will be abused. Life is complicated. Get over it.
I am in the minority as far as I can tell. My business partner rails about the unfairness of the pains we have to take with black employees. Our general manager complains. I hear bitter words from the shop about how X and so is being given second and third chances that a white would not get. They are right. The legal need to keep an extensive paper trail means that some offences by a white count where they might be ‘overlooked’ if committed by a black. I do not actually overlook anything, but I can safely fire based on white misconduct even if we didn’t take and file good contemporaneous notes. I do not do the same with a black. If after the fact I determine we did not document an incident well enough to hold up in court we let it go. This unpleasant reality is inevitable. People are not great at documentation. They do not like confrontation, like telling someone they need to change their act and their job is at risk. The easy way is to get fed up without keeping a paper trail, and when the employee does the same thing one time to many to fire them. In Washington State the easy way is wrong, but it is legal. I try to run a tight ship, but we slack off. Because blacks(rightfully) have a cause of action not available to whites I do not have the luxury of being lazy. This means sometimes sometimes a black employee is given leeway a white would not see. Self-protection and the unadmirable muddle of everyday life. That is how racial discrimination law can play out in real life, and it engenders white resentment among stupid whites.
It gets worse. Blacks know that accusing racial discrimination is a power play that works. I know this because a black friend once told me it is a power play no one ever admits to but everyone knows exists. I know this because I have seen it in action. It isn’t only politicians who can play the race card. I have seen it played, and I have watched people jump when it is played. It is a raw assertion of power and as such it is hard to resist.
The expression ‘race card’ implies it is used intentionally, and sometimes it is. Other times I am not so sure. A black employee I know fairly well is blaming his failure on the job on racism, and I believe his sincerity even as I believe he would be better served improving his skills rather than blaming white people. Blacks and whites both self-deceive, but whites do not have a ready-made actionable scapegoat. And racial discrimination is not just a scapegoat; I have little doubt that many blacks who blame whites too quickly have seen real discrimination in their past. We all respond to experience. A wound is a wound.
This is why I think Andrew Sullivan and others who think AA is a prime cause of white resentment are wrong. I suspect AA is a part of very few lives, and I expect diffential treatment on the job is a fact of life for many. The difference is that AA is easy to rail against while the Civil Rights Act is not, and most people do not connect the dots or look at the bigger picture. I guess I will now reveal my true liberal colors and say what some will use to dismiss me:
It is easy to resent when you do not mentally try to walk a mile in the other guy's shoes, and if the other guy is other because of his color, even a little bit, there is a little bit of racism burning in your soul. Racism is not binary. Like race it comes in all shades. We seem to have a need to separate our group from the other group built into our DNA, just as are emotionally drawn to form wider communities spanning more difference. Why should it surprise that racism is subtle, and refuses to fall into clear categories of black and white? That it may hide but hasn't quite yet died?
Now for politics.
Race preferences in the workplace and the academy have to be eliminated, but not because they are unfair. They need to be abolished because they fuel white resentment among stupid whites. My response to a black who says ‘we need a thumb on the scale just to make it even, because whites are still prejudiced’ is not to disagree, but to argue the cost of white resentment makes AA no longer the smart play. AA is now so shrunken due to court decisions and new laws that it no longer benefits enough blacks to be worth the easy political points it gives to the Republicans. It is as crass as that. The costs exceed the gains. A consequentialist argument.
When I was young I thought Social Security should be means-based. What was the point of sending 13% of the waitress' paycheck to a group that was by and larger richer? Now I have seen the world a bit, and I see that the only reason that Social Security has survived is because it benefits so many people. It doesn't rely on altruism. Selfishness is the better play, and FDR knew it from the start.
AA is the same. Make AA all about money and crummy schools and never about race. Why should good colleges only be for people who went to snazzy suburban high schools? Your kids are good enough to get a fair shake that takes into account that you couldn't afford tutors and piano lessons. Race-based preferences? Never ever. Take into account that the boss' daughter did better on her SAT not because she is smarter but because she did the Princeton Review twice? That is the smart play now.
Am I contradicting myself arguing that white resentment is fed more by the Civil Rights Act than by AA, so we should get rid of AA because it feeds white resentment? A little, but consider the following:
1. AA doesn't feed white resentment as much as is purported, but it gives political cover to politicians who want to exploit white resentment to get votes. Attacking the Civil Rights Act is not politically acceptable because, after all, racial discrimination should be illegal. Everyone knows that. Take away racial preferences and the Republicans has one fewer hook to grab the resentful white vote. I am not calling all Republicans racist. I am observing that since the Democratic Party is overwhelmingly the party of choice for blacks Democratic voters cannot usually get votes by appealing to white resentment. An appeal to white resentment can work for Republicans because there are few Republican blacks to piss off.
2. AA may isn't the main cause of white resentment, but it's next in line.