Nicholas Kristof makes an interesting point this morning:
Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed "racism without racists."This is a fascinating phenomena. Kristof and his scholars define it as follows:
For decades, experiments have shown that even many whites who earnestly believe in equal rights will recommend hiring a white job candidate more often than a person with identical credentials who is black. In the experiments, the applicant's folder sometimes presents the person as white, sometimes as black, but everything else is the same. The white person thinks that he or she is selecting on the basis of nonracial factors like experience.Here's a more likely explanation--they're fucking lying.
Before I go forward I want to be clear about a couple things. Kristof's column is puzzling because by the end he concedes that, in fact, these people are racists (averse racists, one scholar calls them). But more importantly, there is this: too much has been made about the effects of white racism on the presidential contest. I'm tired of hearing about it. If It's not some guy telling us that Obama that he has to woo racists, it's some other guy telling us he's going to lose because of them. I thought that the Yahoo story Kristof pillories was bunk. As I've said before, I have no idea how many votes Barack Obama will lose because he's black, or gain because he's black. And at this point, I just don't care.
But there is a certain strain of argument that seeks to make excuses for the bigots among us. Somehow the civil rights struggle has been defined down to getting white people to have a beer with us. So if you profess to "earnestly believe in equal rights," you aren't a racist--even as you actively discriminate against black people. This is civil rights reduced to some sort of citizenship pledge. David Duke doesn't think he's racist. Michael Richards ranted "he's a nigger" on stage, but was shocked to be called a racist.
Really though, this is easy for me--If I profess to "earnestly believe in equal rights" and yet discriminate against women, I'm a sexist. Moreover, I'm a sexist in the worst sort of way. I talk a good game while actively working against the power of women. Why do we care about what people profess? This whole line of thinking proceeds from this idea that the worst thing about racism was Bull Connor and police dogs. It's been encouraged by the NAACP holding funerals for the word nigger, and by discussions over whether McCain's refusal to look at Obama was racist.
But really racism was always at its worst because it was invisible and insidious. The worst thing about housing segregation wasn't that blacks couldn't live around whites--it was that whites actively sought to rob black communities of wealth. The worst thing about school segregation wasn't that black children didn't go to school with white children--it was that whites defunded black schools. This is what led Malcolm to denigrate integration as the right to sit next to white people on the toilet.
That is not entirely fair, but part of me empathizes with it. For me, this was never about whether we were liked, or not. This isn't about whether we can have tea together. This is about power and the right of black people to go get there's. As long as we live in a country where whites actively seek to restrict the wealth and power of blacks, then the fight goes on. Making excuses does not help.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
It's always blown my mind that Hillary Clinton and now John McCain are able to get the votes of people who simply won't vote for Barack Obama solely because he's black without ever being asked to reject the support of these voters. Has John McCain ever been asked directly, "What do you think about people who support your candidacy who say they're uncomfortable with the prospect of having a black President?"
Or how about... people are complex and contradictory and irrational, and did I mention extremely complex? I didn't see every detail of the study. But I think it's more likely there is a very detailed, variable answer here, rather than just "f'in racist liars"
I haven't paid attention to the blog lately but the last couple posts I looked at have me wondering if I'm reading the same blog I did a month or more ago.
Same blog Sam. But being a fucking liar is not the opposite of being complex, nor is being a racist the opposite of being complex. Both can be true.
"It's always blown my mind that Hillary Clinton and now John McCain are able to get the votes of people who simply won't vote for Barack Obama solely because he's black without ever being asked to reject the support of these voters."
I think John Edwards was the only candidate to do this. And frankly, he didn't get much credit for it. I can't remember his exact quote, but it was pretty good...
I try to take the attitude of "condemn the offense, not the perpetrator." It avoids mind-reading, which I think is a problem.
Why would you deny the possibility of unconcious biases? Or "implicit associations" as the Harvard Implicit Association Test calls it.
I get why someone would be angry if his or her chance of getting a job dropped from 75 percent to 45 percent because of skin color. That sucks.
But I could well imagine people being affected without realizing it. That doesn't excuse it, don't get me wrong. That doesn't say, "You don't have to change." But it does suggest, I think, a different approach to getting people to change.
An approach, for example, that has them take the Harvard test I linked to, and discover what their biases are.
That's how I did it.
RE: Liars
People don't always know why they do what they do. I'm quite sure that includes me; I'm pretty sure that includes you, Mr. Coates.
I don't think Kristof was making excuses for anyone. I think he was trying to coax his white readers to confront something most of them are desperate not to confront.
Most of the whites who view white job applicants more positively than they would an identical black applicant aren't fucking lying when they call themselves non-racist. They're fucking deluded. They think that racism starts and ends with hating black people, with believing as a matter of conscious ideology that blacks are inferior. Because they don't hold those beliefs in that way, they honestly believe they're not racist.
Nobody is ever going to convince such whites that they're racist as those whites understand the term. Never. Because as they understand the term, they're not racist.
What Kristof is saying is that you can believe you're a non-racist and still be a racist. You can believe you're an anti-racist and still be a racist. You can even -- and here's the part that's going to blow a lot of people's minds -- be an anti-racist and still be a racist. That may seem obvious to you, but it's incomprehensible to a lot of white Americans. And until they manage to wrap their brains around that idea, they're not going to be able to confront the racism that surrounds them.
The take away for me from the Kristof column was that the word "racist" has become more toxic in people's minds than actual discriminatory behavior. The thinking seems to be that "subconsciously" preferring white candidates or job applicants over black candidates, well, hey, that's natural. That's not the same thing as thinking all black people are inferior (which is bad). We just happen to prefer white people.
I suspect that there are very few people out there anymore who would actually point to some sort of biological inferiority of black people as the basis for their preference of white people. But that is still what many people want "racist" to mean, because that way they can define their way out of being something bad. Not that being called an "averse racist" sounds much better, but it is a way remove the agency from the prejudice.
I think the problem is that, in so many minds, racist=evil sociopath. If only it were really that easy. It could still be unconscious--but that doesn't make it better. And it doesn't make them not racist. It's true it does mean that they may not be lying. But they also may not be telling the truth.
Ta-Nehisi, I definitely had a much less negative response to the Kristof column than you did. I think it's likely that if you think about you'll recognize that there are a lot of people who would be less inclined to vote for Hillary or any other woman, but who wouldn't realize that the reasons they believed led them to vote against her had much to do with her being a woman. And that to say such people were "lying" when they said they were voting against her not because she was a woman but because she was "cheerless" or "resentful" or something would be false. In fact, ascribing intentionality to those kinds of subconscious biases has a whiff of totalitarianism about it.
Look, I'm not a racist. I'm just not. Any definition of racism that includes me as a member is a crappy definition. But I have said things in my life that make me wilt with shame, in retrospect, because of the subconscious racial assumptions they revealed. And I think that, first, everyone should go through a process of recognizing they have such subconscious assumptions, and, second, everybody should then move on and say "damn, guess I'm pretty stupid!" and not obsess over such things, because there's not much you can do about them for the most part, and the spectacle of people spending their adult political lives obsequiously apologizing for their racism/sexism/humanism/anti-semitism etc. is just pathetic and doesn't get anyone anywhere. But as such, I think it's absolutely true that people hold racial assumptions, that holding such assumptions can affect their voting behavior (and other behavior), and yet that in many cases of subtle bias it would be wrong to call the people who harbor such biases "racist".
Yeah, calling them "fucking liars" is letting anger make you stupid. I'm sure there are some people who take that test and think "uh oh, a black guy, better actively deny him wealth and power!" But most of them, without even consciously thinking about it, just bring up all the associations with blackness that come from the cultural ether, and lean away from the "risk."
As for "the fight goes on", if you're going to prosecute it like this have fun. You'll feel vigorously righteous while marching in circles.
I've met plenty of anti-racists who were actually racists. They see the world in terms of racism, jump on everyone else accusing them of racism, assume that anyone who disagrees with them is motivated by racism, and so on. And then they do absolutely nothing for the benefit of the people they are claiming to defend when they strike their anti-racist poses. It's all a big "gotcha" game to make themselves feel important.
Note that I'm talking about white "anti-racists" and anti-black racism here. The dynamics are different for different groups. But there are plenty of white people who go around invoking black people to score points for themselves, without doing anything for the benefit of black people at all. This is so common as to be a stereotype of its own.
Although I would note that, for this purpose, invoking poor people in developing countries is even better. They are less likely to turn up in places like this, speaking for themselves.
I didnt't call them fucking lying--I said they were "fucking lying." Big difference, sir. And for the record it's as least as plausible as the "racism without racists" hokum.
Bless Obama's campaign for forcing white people to talk amongst themselves about racism. This has been a long time coming. Or, as the squirming Democratic canvassers in Virginia remarked while going door-to-door, "you can vote for a black friend or a white enemy."(LA Times 10/5/08)
It is truly a complex issue and it's about time that people of color weren't the only ones talking about it. Let's work it out, Americans... ALL OF US. The familiar white-people's refrain "But I'm not a racist!"... is such a cop-out given the complicated feelings/justifications/voting patterns stated above.
That probably made me sound more flippant about the issue than I'd like--
Basically, I think we never really "beat" bigotry. I don't just mean we didn't get to the end of the race--I mean we didn't start. The advances of the civil rights era and post-civil rights era have not been damage done to bigotry and prejudice themselves. Instead, we've shifted our taboos around and vowed to defend their new, to our minds more just, positions. Unconsciously or semi-unconsciously discriminating in subtle ways (or ways that take place alone, in a human resources room somewhere in an anonymous building) is impossible to take on because we're only set up to nail people for what they APPEAR to be doing--for visibly breaking the taboos.
Anyway, if we want to actually take on bigotry and prejudice--if we want to go beyond cordoning certain areas off--it's going to take more subtly and equanimity than the stark moral blacks and whites of this post. And fumblingly overgeneral statements like "whites" (who?) inflicting damage on "blacks" (who?) are a bad first start.
I usually think you're right on point, but I think you missed it here. The point is not that everyone is a "liar," the point is that there are subconscious views towards race that are operating -- in most of us, if not all of us -- and that these subconscious views are in many ways are more dangerous, because they're never confronted. They're just there.
Studies have done measuring physiological responses to pictures of people of same and opposite races, and they measure things like a generalized fear/distrust of members of other races. The good news? It can be overcome. Among other things, fear is lessened with familiarity (thus, white people don't register physiological fear when they see a picture of Bill Cosby).
If you aren't already familiar with it, I'd recommend John L. Jackson's book Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness. It explores much of what is being discussed here. Note the book is not an attack on either political correctness or the "paranoia" of the title, but an exploration of how these work and what obstacles they present to honest dialogue and productive action. Jackson's blog is here
No, I'm sorry, I don't agree. Being wrong about your own motivations is not the same as lying. And if you don't recognize that evil can exist -- indeed MOSTLY exists -- in people who are not evil people, then you misunderstand the nature of evil.
"It could still be unconscious--but that doesn't make it better."
Wrong; and the reason it's wrong is that this wrongly assumes that all racism is equal; in intent, and more importantly, in effect.
Consider the changes in racial attitudes from my grandfather to my father to myself. None of us were or are evil sociopaths, but each of us were or are men of our times and products of our upbringing and environments.
My grandfather never had black or brown people in his home, and openly saw them as an (inferior) breed apart. As an officer in the Marine Corp, my father stoop up for the rights of the negros (that was the word back then) under his command, but was easy prey for Regan's "welfare queen" trope. My closest creative collaborators are black and brown, but I know that deep in my psyche, I am more comfortable with white people than with black people.
My father was less racist than his grandfather. I am less racist than my father. My children will be less racist than I am, perhaps to the point of their racism being entirely subconscious. Perhaps my grandchildren will be free from racism all together.
One more thought on this. There's an element of the study that Kristof cites that I think needs to be emphasized.
The people who did the study didn't give subjects comparable applications from a white applicant and a black applicant and ask them to choose one. If the study had been constructed that way, the subjects would have recognized that race was one of the differences between the two candidates, and brought their conscious attitudes about racial preference to bear on the decision.
Instead, the study presented subjects with a single application, from a candidate who was a marginally acceptable fit for the job. Some subjects were given an application that made it clear that the candidate was white, others that the candidate was black. But race was not emphasized in the application, or as central to the decision-making process.
Given all that, I don't think it's proper to describe the study's subjects as whites who "actively seek to restrict the wealth and power of blacks." They may do it, they may even actively do it, but the study doesn't suggest that they actively seek to do it.
A big chunk of the racial oppression that takes place in America today is perpetrated by people who don't have any sense that they're doing it. Kristof's article was intended to be part of the process of opening such people's eyes, and I think it took an excellent approach.
I'm a different Daniel btw; sorry for confusion.
Note also that this phenomenon is not just present in white people; it's present in everyone.
A while back, the NYT had a ‘Modern Love’ piece in which the author Kim McLarin, a black woman, described her reluctant rejection of a white suitor because of his racial blindness.
She wrote that ‘a black person who grapples with race cannot be with a white person who doesn't. ... There was an...innocence born of being white. An innocence I could neither share nor abide. It costs me too much.’
It calls to mind a book whose author got a lot of meaning into his title - ‘Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States’ by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. He says it’s not enough to be non-racist, one must be anti-racist.
I’d suggest that the problem with white anti-racists is not that some of them are racist, but that that there are too few of them.
This is MY turf!
brooksfoe,
So, if you subconsciously hold anti-Semitic, racist, or sexist tendencies you should shrug your shoulders because its too late to unlearn? Or should we say too hard? Really, if my father can get over ingrained homophobia, if my good friend can unlearn his racial prejudices then anyone can.
My point is that these things aren't innate (in many ways at least) and being proactive in not being "biased" shouldn't be described as "obsequiously apologizing." Such two faced language is not going to lead to progress. Frankly, many people of color don't want your apologizes they want your kids to treat theirs fairly, and they want you to give their kid a fair shake when you're evaluating them, they want you to man up and be a better person. Action, not apologies.
Further, bias is defined as prejudice in favor or against one thing, person, or group when compared with another. Racist is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed at someone of a different race...
When did we define racism as not to include prejudice? We live in a country that has a strong historical basis in such prejudice, why is it such a novel idea that it could have leeched into the very core of our society in a way that would take only 50 years to correct?
Tim Wise has a great piece in which he discusses opinion polls of whites during the 1950's and 60's compared to the late 90's. In 1963 2/3 of whites felt that blacks were treated fairly (The Gallup Organization, Gallup Poll Social Audit, 2001. Black-White Relations in the United States, 2001 Update, July 10: 7-9).
So, I'll have to support Mr. Coates on this one. That "bias" is racism. The sooner we really get that, the sooner the next generation will not be burdened by it. But, luckily it seems that subsequent generations are attempting to fight their own battles against such generational bias.
I would also add that trying to nail down who is and who isn’t a racist is a waste of time. We all have our prejudices to work on. Seeing people as people and treating them respectfully on an individual basis is a constant struggle that no one gets a pass from.
Rather than being a binary condition (racist or not racist), racism, prejudice, and discrimination should be considered a continuum. Very few people, if any, are on the farthest end of either side. We can all point to someone more or less bigoted than us – we can do the same with wealth such that we can all define ourselves as middleclass. Rather than saying “don’t be racist,” which allows people to say, “What are you talking to me for, I’m not racist,” we should start with the assumption that we all have pre-conceptions and focus on making people challenge their own assumptions. Take the accusations and defensiveness out of it and get down to the real work.
Frankly, many people of color don't want your apologizes they want your kids to treat theirs fairly, and they want you to give their kid a fair shake when you're evaluating them, they want you to man up and be a better person. Action, not apologies.
Exactly.
Brooklynite makes a very important distinction: the hypothetical recruiters are NOT consciously making a racist decision and then lying about it; they genuinely see themselves as unbiased. There's another study - I really wish could remember who did it so I cite it - but the gist was that even people who have devoted their lives to civil rights work are unknowingly prejudiced.
Ta-Neishi, you seem to contradict yourself, tell me if I'm wrong. I read this:
"As long as we live in a country where whites actively seek to restrict the wealth and power of blacks, then the fight goes on."
but then I circle back and read this:
"But more importantly, there is this: too much has been made about the effects of white racism on the presidential contest."
How can you say you don't care about the effects of white racism on the presidential contest at the same time white racism in this election is an obvious attempt to "restrict the power" of a black man? Shouldn't "the fight go on?"
Maybe I'm dense. Help me understand.
Sorry, "Ta-Nehisi" I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet.
Tony,
Respectfully, I'd say you miss my point. For a lot of black people, the war was never over whether your grandfather wanted to have black people over to lunch. It was over would he (if he were a business owner) treat their applications fairly. If he were a real estate agent or a government bureaucrat, would he try to devalue homes in black neighborhoods--strictly on color. Were he on a school board, would he attempt to defund black schools. And were he simply a voter and a citizen, would he identify with people who practiced such things. It never was about overt prejudice--it was always about the right to be in the race.
Thus the idea that you profess to believe in equal rights--and still discriminate against blacks is horrifying to black people. Think about it: You have two worlds--one in which people try to deny your rights while claiming to have no beef with you. In the other people try to deny your rights--but are very clear that they have a beef with you. Frankly, I'd take the second.
This isn't about who gets the right to go to a tea party. It's about who's going to get a bank loan.
Maybe some of your commentators have already said this:
1) I think that most people's idea of racism is self-referential: Whites would tend to look at their own motivations or feelings -- "I don't hate black people, I don't feel animosity towards them, so I'm not a racist." What they "do" doesn't come into the equation. (This is like, as you say, the racist=evil sociopath approach.) Blacks, I would say, tend to look at the effects on themselves of white peoples' actions -- "What you just did, chosing the white candidate over the equally qualified black, is racist because the effect is to deny the black candidate the job. Your 'feelings' about blacks don't matter."
2)For most people, the reality of "being a racist" (or substitue your own "-ist") isn't an either/or. Simone Weil wrote something to that effect about democracy and freedom. As long as 'reality' is posed as a simple either/or -- democracy/dictatorship or racist/not racist -- all sorts of shit can be allowed. But the reality is "democratic insofar as" or "not racist insofar as." As in, this country, always a democracy, became more so with the Civil Rights Movement, and becomes less so when people are harassed while trying to vote. And people are more racist or less racist in so far as, as brooksfoe says in his comment, they act on or consciously resist racially-tinged assumptions, subconsious or otherwise. As brooksfoe says, correct yourself and move on, but also realize this, you are what you "do" just as much as you are what you "feel."
Reason's blog has a post about a study done here:
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp954918.pdf
Apparently, the refusal to bring up race is interpreted as racism.
A study was done where folks were given pictures of people and then they played a game a lot like 20 questions. When the person sitting at the other end of the table from the study participants were black, the study participants (who were white) did not bring up race most of the time (like 90% of the time) unless the (black) person across the table brought it up first.
It's an interesting study.
Tessa,
I don't like singular explanations of Obama's prospects, and I strongly suspect that any predictions of how much he stands to lose--vote-wise--are flawed. I haven't read a good piece of journalism that's really demonstrated to me what bad--or good--effects come from Obama's race.
I'm also not very worried about him. He knew what he was up against going in. I'm concerned about the fact that a black dude going to app for job in New York city has the roughly the same chance as a white dude with a criminal record. That fight goes on.
Citation below:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S11/23/70K64/index.xml?section=newsreleases
Kristof should have explained this study better. The point of it is that people make these judgments unknowingly. The situation is this: Some participants in the study are given info about a job candidate w/ certain qualifications who happens to be white. Other participants are given info about an applicant w/ the same qualifications who happens to be black. The results indicate that, on average, white applicants are rated more favorably or are more likely to get hired.
The research participants aren't making comparative judgments. There's no question of lying because they're only making judgments about one applicant. They don't know the ratings they've assigned to the applicant are lower than those that are, on average, assigned to a similarly situated black applicant.
Quite simply, the research participants don't know they're making judgments based, in part, on race. Kristof is right in calling this "racism without racists". The people do not consciously bear any ill will toward blacks, but their prejudice influence their judgments nonetheless.
I'm pretty sure that Ta-Nehisi's argument, and it's one that I agree with, is that such people are racists. If you're prejudiced against blacks, and that prejudice influences your judgments, you're racist.
Having said that, though, I do think that Kristof's rhetorical tack was an appropriate one. The title of the column indicates that he's talking about "racism without [what a lot of my readers probably think of when they think of] racists," but the body of the piece makes the argument, strongly, that aversive racists are in fact racists.
I didn't get what you got from the article. It wasn't about excusing racists, or really about what the proper label for racists should be. That was really a side bar. It was a description of the phenomenon, the pathology of "averse racists."
It was more a discussion of, these people are out there and here's why we think they do what they do. And really that is a big part of what academics do. They seek to essentially define and understand why the world at large works as it does. And although there is a sometimes frustrating degree of inaction associated with what seems like abstract opining on the where's, why's, and how's without much do, that more abstract legwork is an esential tool for those people who do actually do.
I mean isn't that the beef with Palin's "I dont think it's important to understand the why's and how's of climate change" mess?
With regard to Obama, you're right in that I dont personally much care nor worry about how much racism will affect the outcome of the race, but I do recognize that because of the "newsworthiness" of the issue at this time, there are a number of people who otherwise wouldn't have given race much thought that, to some degree, have. That's not a bad thing. So I just take it for what it is. Come November, whatever the outcome, the conversation will pass from the nations consciousness once again.
Being white, this is easy for me to say, but how much of the hidden racism(for lack of a better term) will dissipate over time as people evolve? I remember that even in the 80's, there were far more heads turning when a mixed-race couple walked through town than now. By asking this, I am not condoning this type behavior or telling anyone they should just wait it out until white people decide to act right.
I don't know if there is a large element of how people behave that is instinctual and based upon a large dose of tribalism in that someone will be more drawn to those most like themselves. Even if the differences are artificial, like when I was in college and these frat boys would pressure people with benefits of membership. Telling guys that you walk into an interview and tell your fellow Sig Ep that you are fraternity brothers, you are half way to the job.
Perhaps the hardest part of addressing this type of racism is that it is easy for the offender to deny its existance. The previously mentioned Bull Connor wasn't about to deny his racism or hatred of blacks, yet the guy who hires at IBM and picks his white peers over a black candidate may have black friends or even a black spouse. So he will be less likely to even accept that there is something wrong with his actions.
I'd call 'em all racists, but the difference between self-aware and unaware still matters.
The ones who know they're doing it won't change. You only get change if they get stupid and say out loud what they're doing, or if they get old and go away.
The ones who don't know it can sometimes realize what's been happening if they're confronted the right way.
Or, without quite admitting what they used to do, they can get used to successful African-American colleagues and quit avoiding "risk" that was never there to begin with.
Or, on occasion, faced with candidates who actually aren't equal, they'll go with the better-qualified black applicant. (For example, this group includes people who started this year saying "Obama's risky," "he's inexperienced" and "I just don't know," and then after a while noticed that he was the best damned candidate they'd ever seen.)
They're all guilty, but the struggle is different depending on whether they're doing it consciously.
In any case, never underestimate the ability of a privileged group to be oblivious to how their privilege works.
"Think about it: You have two worlds - one in which..."
This is reductionist.
There aren't two worlds. There is one, complex world; and in that complex world, a black man is more likely to get a fair(er) shake from my father than from my grandfather; and more likely to get a still fair(er) shake from me.
If you'd prefer the certainty that my grandfather wouldn't hire you because you are black over the unknowable possibility that I don't realize that I didn't hire you because you are black, maybe it's time for you to read "What's the Matter with Kansas?" again.
I never liked that book.
I want to pick up Lynn's point, that it's not necessarily just white people who discriminate against or hold negative associations with African-Americans. I think what's really telling is that half the time a completely innocent black man gets taken down by the cops in a hail of bullets, a number of the cops are non-white. Are the black cops racist for assuming that a black man pulling out a cell phone is a dangerous drug dealer reaching for his gun? Honestly, I don't think it matters. Calling someone a racist or not isn't the important issue, it's the structural and institutional forms of racism that go into constructing the black man as drug dealer. And those are so much harder to deal with (partly because there's no easy individual responsibility to affix) in many ways than the racists who refuse to vote for Obama because he's black.
Please fix: "the right of black people to go get there's" should be "the right of black people to go get theirs."
Hope I made myself clear in my previous post.
I take Kristoff's column this way: racism is very, very prevalent, practically ubiquitous, and often manifests itself in ways we don't expect -- even in ourselves. I know this is an exaggeration, but asking an American if s/he's racist is a bit like asking a fish if s/he's wet. We're swimming in the stuff, even if we don't recognize it for what it is.
Point taken about power, and where the rubber hits the road. Still, raising one's own consciousness is a difficult challenge, especially if your societal surroundings push you in the opposite direction.
Although Kristoff doesn't mention any particular political issues, recognizing this fact about racism is crucial to understanding Affirmative Action. AA isn't designed to correct for the deficiencies of women, or African-Americans. It's designed to correct for the deficiencies of men, and whites.
As nice as it is to hear about the racial awareness being gained through the generations one thing is and will always be true for many of us people of color: We want it fair now. And anything else is a nice but unfair concession in the place of true equality. Don't get me wrong, I hope things are better for my kids, but that won't stop me from pointing out things that are wrong and that hurt me now. So, don't be upset by that, just know it as true.
Further, I think the take home from studies like these is: Yes these behaviors are subconscious but modern sociology and psychology tell us they're there. Now, we have no reason not to try and self correct.
One thing that has really corrupted educated people's thinking about race recently has been these stupid 'implicit association' tests. I also think it's unsettling how the tests been embraced so enthusiastically by supposedly well-meaning white writers.
The subtext of these article is always: 'see? we're all racists! I'm enlightened enough to admit it. But our racism is so unconscious and automatic (and imposed by a 'culture' none of us endorses), none of us can be blamed for it!'
It's exculpation by means of vapid, universal accusation. And it's 'scientific'!
The implicit associations test is just not very good. Its like playing an early 90's digitized video game. Since the test is so cartoonish, its hard to derive real conclusions from it (IMHO).
I do believe that Kristof is dead on -- people are afraid of confronting their personal evils. They'll talk the talk, but they won't walk the walk, so to speak.
I'll freely admit that I have my own implicit biases, as does everyone else. This isn't always a bad thing (although rationally unjustified to some extent). When I got off a plane in Fiji, I assumed that all the guys offering to show me around town were hustlers looking to scam me out of my buck.
First off my friend, your blog is excellent and I really think highly of you and your ideas. Lately I've been thinking about this post racial society that everybody is hollering about and something about the milk didn't seem too clean. Maybe we can say that racism has been expunged with the advent of Obama claiming the White House. I don't think that racism has ever really been the problem. The problem is white supremacy. The fact that a black man can be as educated as any white guy but is still seen as some sort of risk is to me the outcome of white supremacist thinking. This type of thinking is inherently ignorant. If that word were used in place of racism I wonder how it would shift the down right silly assed argument about whether or not racism actually exist. (Whenever I hear this as truth I asked for a damn date) In my mind white supremacy defines racism and puts the responsibility of action directly where it has always belonged. Like Toni Morrison said recently when asked yet the fuck again, what the solution to racism was "I can't be the doctor and the patient at the same time".
MM
i was raised by a black family for the first four years of my life. my father was working 2 full time jobs and my mother was ill. the family lived next to us in a quonset hut in quonset hut in a 'veterans' project'. i am white.
since that time, i went college, vietnam, and grad school. i worked for thirty years and sat on many boards of trustees, held senior posts in hospitals and universities. i have seen racism from many different angles and sides: as a combat infantryman, as a night janitor, at the us post office, while teaching at colleges and universities, and in the strange world at the top of the hierarchy of management and labor.
i have come to believe that all americans are racists to some extent. the first question is how willing are we to examine our prejudices, the second, and most important, is how do we act upon our biases? do we recognize them for what they are, and dismiss presumption for what it is? do we accept the acting out of racism and prejudice around us, and remain silent? once each of us has worked that out we can move on to being the person we would like to think we are. sometimes that chasm is so broad that no bridge can withstand the strain and prejudice explodes in our face and anyone within hearing distance.
as for the economic exploitation of black americans by white americans, one only has to read "an economic interpretation of the constitution,' by charles beard or the very recent "slavery by another name," by douglas blackmon.
knowledge is the beginning...
Wow, reading the comments here makes me realize how far we have to go in terms of race relations. If we continue to give people passes for their "misconceptions," "biases," "racism" or whatever term you want to use, we'll never get over the hump that holds all of us back. I don't think racists are loveless people who kick puppies and take candy from babies (I use the reference to Mr. Burns because he's the best cartoonish villain I can think of). But I do think that if we want to live in a country where everyone is granted their humanity, we have to stop making excuses for people who seek to deny said humanity for others. Thinking a group of people is inferior to you based on skin color, or whom they happen to love, or whether they have breasts are all examples of this denial of humanity. Period.
It blows my mind that the NYT gives a numbskull like Kristol a soapbox for his warmongering and hate. It blows my mind that we take small-minded, evil thinkers seriously, that we still let them diminish the value of others because of skin color.
I'm a middle-aged white female. As a girl, my best friend was my cousin, 11 months older, and half latino. Growing up in the white north, that gave me a ring-side seat on white racism and all it's subtleties; for I saw them aimed at my favorite person in the whole world. And what I saw in the world of children hasn't changed a bit in the world of grownups; it's just gotten slightly more subtle.
So if you're one of those folks who thought Obama was groovy but couldn't win because he was black, go look in the mirror. You're part of the problem. Imagine thinking he couldn't win because he was white. Because he was male. Because he was from a broken family. Because he's a lawyer. Because he rode the subway once. Because he's got kids.
Maybe someday, we'll start thinking things like he can win because he's good. Because he's smart. Maybe she'll win because she's got the experience and the ability. Maybe, someday, race, gender, or orientation won't come into our calculations. Instead, ability, intelligence, communication skills, negotiation skills, temperament, diplomacy, management skills, etc. would be considered criteria for the job.
Certainly the ability to drink a six pack and count days to the rapture don't seem high on the list as qualifications.
But it ain't gonna happen while mean-spirited people like Kristol get to praise incompetent people like Palen in the NYT. And somehow, they're two sides of the same coin. If people aren't asked to find their better selves, why should they expect the best in their leaders?
Bingo. This is why even people who are aware that they have racist tendencies, especially white people (because that is the branch of racism which is most often excoriated as sociopathic, in this nation with a deep history of destructive white racism), are forced to deny this truth about themselves - it's simply unacceptable to be branded as a racist. I'm not saying it should be socially acceptable, but neither should it be painted as an unforgivable sin - not only because it's a rather natural (albeit negative) irrational tendency for people in general, but because it prevents people from being able to discuss racism rationally. I'm aware of some of the racist tendencies that I myself have, which is the only reason I'm able to check myself, and imperfectly at that.
Being unable to even discuss racism, for example, impedes realization of the fact that when people do think of racism, they're often thinking about different things - Coates e.g. is talking here about, essentially, truly equal opportunities within society, as well as truly equal protection under the law, the practical aspects of people in a supposedly merit-based society being subject to institutional and endemic disadvantages from birth APART FROM things like poverty, lack of education, lack of family cohesiveness. So one person thinks of police dogs and lynchings and Mississippi 1964, another thinks of white people feeling vaguely unsafe when a group of black men gets onto their subway car at night, and another thinks of how people of very comparable abilities but different races are treated differently in the professional world or by the law or by a bank loan officer, and how that plays out across communities. (A, B, and C.) A is the worst, but C is most pertinent and broadly applicable (to various races in USA, not just whites-and-blacks) and as Coates and others have pointed out, most insidious, because there's no George Wallace-types to blame; it's harder to get at, never mind treat. I'd argue that things like B, which Coates says he doesn't care about because it doesn't have as much practical effect and sort of requires mind-reading and psychotherapy to even detect, are the root cause of C.
Poorly paraphrased from the Vedas: evil is hardest to defeat in this age, because it is within the self.
" "It's always blown my mind that Hillary Clinton and now John McCain are able to get the votes of people who simply won't vote for Barack Obama solely because he's black without ever being asked to reject the support of these voters."
I think John Edwards was the only candidate to do this. And frankly, he didn't get much credit for it. I can't remember his exact quote, but it was pretty good..."
I remember this because it so jumped out at me. He said, "If you won't vote for Obama simply because he is black, or you won't vote for Clinton simply because she is a woman, then I don't want your vote." Simple and eloquent. I really like that guy. Wish he could have kept it in his pants.
Yeah, I agree with some of the other commenters that Kristof wasn't excusing anyone, he was trying to explain the reality, to understand it, in order to do something about it.
I don't necessarily think these people are lying (although some of them may be)...I think someone else said that they're delusional. It's denial, but it's also a society that allows them to be in denial and actively supports that denial, so that they don't have to confront those contradictions. Articles such as Kristof's are helpful, because it forces people to begin to look at the contradictions in their logic, whereas before, no one was pushing them to do that. Now, some people are going to read that article and lie to themselves..."I'm not like that"...but there's going to be other people who read that article and have a lightbulb suddenly go off in their head, and they'll ask themselves, "Is that me? Do I do that?"
And it really extends beyond race...it's a problem in every aspect of our lives. Our society encourages us to not look too closely at the contradictions in our daily lives, it encourages denial...I don't believe in child labor, but I'm sure I've bought things made by a child...I don't want to destroy the environment, but until recently, I never thought too much about alternative energy sources or what effect my purchases had on the environment. You're not encouraged to think too carefully about these things, and that's what allows things like racism and sexism and exploitation to continue...and it's not going to stop until we begin to think more carefully about the things we have been trained not to think too carefully about.
I just want to comment on what Matt and Joel said above about how problematic those "implicit associations" tests are. I strongly disagree - those tests are great!
I'm a 37-year-old white female from Massachusetts, now a permanent resident of Los Angeles. I took several of those Harvard online tests in 2006, and my results told me that while I have *no* measurable implicit black/white or gay/straight bias (apparently pretty unusual for people in my demographic), I am biased against religious people. I've taken that useful piece of knowledge and consciously tried to treat the openly religious people that I encounter in everyday life with greater understanding and acceptance. I can't say that I've overcome my bias, but at least now that I'm aware of it I can try to do something about it.
My dad and older sister, both liberal Democrats like myself, also took the black/white test, and both found that they did have a measurable bias against black people. My dad blames the fact that he grew up in virginia in the 1940's, and my sister... well, who knows? She's three years older than me, and lives in Berkeley.
When it became clear in mid-2007 that Barack Obama was going to be a serious contender for the white house, I (ab)used my knowledge of my father and sister's test scores to urge them to question their immediate fear-based reactions to Obama.
Them: "But he's so inexperienced! What do we know about him?"
Me: "Seriously, read his speeches! And he's a hellova lot more experienced than most of the candidates who've run in your lifetime. Are you sure you're not just scared because he's half black?"
Them: "Er... well, OK I'll read his speeches. Jeez, get off my back!
Of course they're both now die-hard Obama supporters. And who knows, maybe one day they'll work their way past their implicit biases, if they really try.
Personally, I love those implicit bias tests. :)
Ta-Nehisi, thanks for writing this.
I've said this quite a few times. Honestly, I actually take it a bit further. I really don't care if a white person thinks I'm inferior or not worth befriending because I'm black. That causes cognitive dissonance because if a person thinks these things they're not going to give me the job, period. However, I put it that way just to bring home the point that, for me, racism isn't about making whites like me. For me, it's about preventing whites from limiting my access to things that matter like jobs and education based on my skin color. And that's the image that people don't want to be associated with: the image of the white person who is burning with this virulent hate against blacks and other minorities. If they're not the stereotype of that evil person who burns crosses on lawns and yells "ni^%$r go home!" in front of integrated schools they're not racist.
Um, okay...no. Racism is much more subtle than that. This is particularly so in this political correct era where someone who is a racist knows that running around making comments about race is going to get them into a load of trouble. So let's just remove the closeted racists from the equation. I guess what we're talking about here are people who just for some unexplained reason still don't want to hire that qualified black candidate. To me, that simply sounds like they're not admitting to the beliefs or assumptions they have about blacks and that's also racism.
I truly believe that Obama will win in spite of the people who refuse to vote for him because he's a black man. Like you said, he didn't wander into this race unaware. I care about racism when it impacts the ability of a black person to get a job, buy a home or get access to education and health care. We know that this still happens and that's the problem.
Carry on.
(For the sake of discussion, I've reduced my comment here to white/black but we all know it's more complex than that.)
Racism may be widespread, but it's increasingly thinly spread.
When guys like Kristol start talking about "racism without racists.", that's just a demonstration of how racism is declining, IMO. It's another way of saying it's not socially acceptable to be a bigot.
Barack Obama is going to win big, and this English WASP is very happy indeed about it.
90% of African Americans say they are voting for Obama because he is black.
What is wrong with European Americans (i.e. whites) voting for someone because he is also European American?
It is natural for someone to support someone else of his own tribe.
Blacks have the NAACP to promote their interests.
Mestizos have La Raza to promote their interests.
Asians have the 80-20 Initiative to promote their interests.
WHAT DO WHITES HAVE?
Everything else?
I exaggerate, and I actually think it's great when white people show some cultural pride, as the rest of us do, but I think your sense of grievance is too great. Your culture and rights are not in danger of disappearing. This colony grown into a superpower is not "your" country alone. And I'm not here to take anything away from you. It IS dumb to support someone solely because of his or her race. Be joyous in the fact that no one has seen the need for a little special-interest group for white people! (And by the way, there are plenty of groups which seem to fit that bill - sometimes I wonder if the entire Republican Party is trying to. You're just mad because political correctness prevents it from being said openly. I too wish it could be. BTW I'd be a Republican if they were half as conservative as they say they are.)
Relax.
"90% of African Americans say they are voting for Obama because he is black."
Um, okay...as an African American who has been involved in voter registration and other Democrats Abroad activities since about May and who has a blog and who has talked to quite a few other African American voters, I'd have to disagree with you on that.
Where did you pull this stat from? Thin air?
I'd say that if 90% of black Americans are voting for Obama it's because 1) black Americans are traditionally aligned with the Democratic Party and Obama is the Democratic Party's nominee and 2) Obama's policies definitely seem to be a better match that McCain's with black concerns (health care, the economy, taxes, etc.)
Also, why is it that whites always come in crying that they don't have an equivalent of the NAACP? American society is pretty much focused on white culture and white values. It's when society ignores and diminishes your culture that groups like the NAACP are needed. In fact, you see such subgroups within white culture. I have white friends who are members of the Celtic Club or similar organizations. They do that as a way to celebrate their specific heritage, for support, as a way to spend time with people with similar backgrounds or for a range of other reasons.
Some whites are so singularly focused on what organizations or alliances that minorities pull together for themselves that they fail to recognize what is obvious: whites are in the majority. If you're in the majority, the culture that you live in is a celebration of who you are.
I live abroad. I can't imagine why the natives of this country would start a support group here where they are the majority. However, it's perfectly clear why they would do exactly that if they found themselves in a foreign country with only a few people like themselves.
That simply can't be rocket science to anyone.
No society in the history of humankind has ever 'defeated' racism. Bias exists in each of our heads, as George Orwell (and some of his statements were fairly racist) said in his essay "Notes on Nationalism", an essay I find myself quoting more and more nowadays:
"As for the nationalistic loves and hatreds that I have spoken of, they are part of the make-up of most of us, whether we like it or not. Whether it is possible to get rid of them I do not know, but I do believe that it is possible to struggle against them, and that this is essentially a moral effort. It is a question first of all of discovering what one really is, what one's own feelings really are, and then of making allowance for the inevitable bias. If you hate and fear Russia, if you are jealous of the wealth and power of America, if you despise Jews, if you have a sentiment of inferiority towards the British ruling class, you cannot get rid of those feelings simply by taking thought. But you can at least recognise that you have them, and prevent them from contaminating your mental processes."
Being aware of bias is step one in defeating racism in yourself, but no-one can help you do it. TNC is quite right to point out that the externalising of racism (i.e., "Only red-neck neo-fascists are racists and I am not a red-neck neo-facist") does not help.
Of course, there are some biases which are impossible to rid yourself of. Many people are explicitly racist in their choice of lovers, for example. The specific area of the employment and promotion in the workplace is something only on a slightly less emotional level. I'm sure you've all heard the one about how recruiters make up their mines as to whether to hire you within the first 30 seconds of meeting you - they basically take one look at you, try out your hand shake, listen to the way you talk, and make up their minds based on that impression. If your outward appearance, name, and accent put you in a minority, you bet that's a strike against you. Is this racism? Hell yes, but how to fight it when you are the one trying to get the job? Call the recruiter a racist right there in the interview when you see that look come over their face which tells you you haven't got the job? How are you going to prove it? Even if the company slants its recruitment away from minorities, they'll always be able to point to the token few that they do recruit.
All the same, I do not think that government-mandated affirmative action is the answer, it is bound to lead to resentment against those who are seen to benefit from it. Voluntary quotas would be better, better still would be simply making sure that those recruiters who do slant against minorities get a good talking to from their superiors.
There should be no anger directed toward Kristof. He addressed an important topic fairly.
Somewhere -- I've hunted around on the Internets and haven't found it yet -- I found a hierarchy of racial oppression, ranging from minor stereotyping to aversive racism to dominative racism up to the point of genocide. (There were maybe 6 levels to it.)
There's no question that the more brutal forms are worse than aversive racism. No question. The angering quality of aversive racism is because it is widespread, difficult to quantify, and largely unacknowledged. Classic example -- Bill O'Reilly visited a restaurant in Harlem and reported with amazement "they are just like you and me." He doesn't see himself as a racist, supposedly. Or Eisenhower -- he strongly believed in equal rights but was resistent to miscegenation.
Dave Chappelle talks about this (or did) in his standup. I remember him saying that he's almost a connoisseur of racial prejudice, and that he could really savor those who were openly prejudiced and OWNED that prejudice.
My thoughts -- racial bigotry is still way too common and corrupting in modern society. I worked with a young guy who had black "friends" yet could say some of the most vile racial epithets. He was the son and grandson of KKK members from Georgia and the infection of that kind of thought had continued through him.
As it reaches lower levels though, it enters the realm of other forms of more modest prejudice. For example I wear glasses. There are some people out there (and a rare few who openly express it) who judge me as less athletic or less capable or whatever while I have glasses on, who would feel differently if they had only seen me with contacts in.
Likewise I will openly admit I am prejudiced against rednecks. I would compare myself to Sen. Joe Kennedy, who had Jewish friends but had some nasty things to say about Jews. (So does David Cross, who is ethnically Jewish himself.) Not to the point of accepting criminality against them, but feeling that a majority have been tainted by a corrosive culture.
Prejudice can only be tapered off and made individual instead of institutional.
Just a point of correction for some the commentors above.
Nicholas KRISTOF is the author of the piece in question. He is not the same person as William KRISTOL.
Kristof is, IMO, a rather thought-provoking columnist; and certainly one of the most worldly and well-travelled fellows in American journalism.
Bill Kristol, OTOH, is a clownish right-wing gasbag.
PLEASE, folks, don't confuse the two.
The best excuse for racists - "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I like turning out to have been correct."
If we take the sane, Jerry Seinfeld approach to racism ("not that there's anything wrong with that!") it becomes impossible to smash anyone to your Right into silence by calling them a racist. Do you believe that the racial makeup of the NBA is dictated by the league making itself a model of extreme affirmative action? If not, you're a racist.
Racism became a fully legitimate factor to consider in the presidential election when Barack Obama started drawing black primary votes in the 90% range.
It shouldn't hurt to be racist.