#90 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Friday July 16)
Good morning,
THINKING ABOUT RACE (AND CRITICAL RACE THEORY)—ONE OF MANY TOOLS IN THE TOOLBOX
I have been writing for a while that it I necessary for our society to take a good hard look at the racial disparities in this country, including through law enforcement, educational disadvantages, and historic racism. These conditions have all contributed to high crime rates, social immobility, educational inequities, a sense of hopelessness, and mass incarceration.
Some argue that the problems in underserved communities lie within these communities and are the result of individual decisions. Some will argue that some of the structural unfairness I describe is just a convenient excuse. I disagree; although I take as a fair comment that, although the plight of communities is in large measure the product of past racism, some agency must exist as well. One can allow these two seemingly competing constructs to occupy our minds at the same time. Attacking the results of racial inequities is a project that requires everyone’s participation—including the victims of such inequities. Frederick Douglass notably maintained that it was the decisions that he made for himself that contributed most to his success. He cited that his choice to read and then reading voraciously made all the difference in his life.
At the risk of offending different people in different ways, here are a few thoughts on racism in our society, including as pertains to immigration:
There is a myth that America embraces all who come to its shores, as expressed by the optimism penned by Emma Lazarus and emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty. Certainly this is aspirational and certainly many of us parrot these ideals, even if we have fallen short of them. One need only look at the quotas imposed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, designed at various times to keep out Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, and Asians. Three of my grandparents came to this country through the portal of Ellis Island. The other got here through more creative means. But even though we have fallen short of our aspirations, a myth is not a lie; it is a foundational story from which a people derive purpose and meaning.
It is incontrovertible that America has not always welcomed immigrants and, indeed, forcibly kidnapped people from across the globe to enslave them. There is racism that has continued through our history, just as it exists in every society and in every country. While most of us are not the descendants of those who enslaved others, we have benefited from the results of that crime, directly and indirectly.
Work needs to be done to address these vestiges of racism. Critical race theory is an interesting theory but it is not the only prism through which to view the world. It can only be one of many helpful tools in our bag of tricks as we seek to understand our history and our current societal challenges. But just as a singular world-view of Marxism, or unfettered capitalism cannot be the only way to view the world, we cannot allow the politics of the moment to view all forms of unequal results as necessarily racist at their core. Calling an economic or political idea a theory does not entitle it to the same weight as the theory of relativity or the theory of evolution.
The right attacks critical race theory as a form of indoctrination to viewing America through a tarnished lens. I think we cannot shy away from harsh analysis but, as Bret Stephens noted on a recent edition of Bill Maher, we all went to school to learn about Marxism—not to be made into Marxists. It is possible to study something without having to adopt an ideology. I fear our universities are not teaching critical race theory merely as one way to think about the world but to transform young scholars into critical race theorists, at the expense of other important ways of looking at society—including economics, means and supply of production, tribalism, geopolitics, allocation and use of resources, political movements, issue-based politics, etc.
Not every issue we face today, or have faced in our history, is a product of systemic racism. Critical race theory would suggest that everything must be viewed in this context—namely, any system that results in disproportionality is necessarily racist. But I think there are plenty of justifications for various different policies, some based in economics, some based in class, some based in geographic biases, and some on industry lobbying. I actually believe it detracts from the very legitimate places where work in this area needs to be done when one maintains there is only one lens from which to view the world.
Not every decision made by a person in an underserved community is solely the result of racism or their lot in life. People make decisions for themselves—good and bad. I will stipulate, however, that often decisions are made through necessity, rather than desire.
I say this as a supporter of coming to grips with our racist history. I say it as someone who believes that there is such a thing as racial injustice and systemic racism (or at least unequal results to which racially biased systems skewed those results).
The disparities among members of our society are the result of class distinctions, economic power, hard work, luck, and race, and often some combination of these factors. And while I accept that actions seemingly race-neutral nonetheless can have negative impact on those who experience discrimination (and, therefore, require careful analysis as to potentially unintended racially disparate results), they are not the only factors to consider. Results do not necessarily reflect intent, nor unfairness. They do, however, demand that further analysis must be conducted and shifts in policy need considered.
IT’S NOT ALL BAD
I am troubled with the seemingly nonstop effort in education and from many in the “woke left” to diminish the great accomplishments democracy, capitalism and this nation. The entirety of our nation’s history is not simply a story of oppression, as some would like us to believe. The attempts to recharacterize it as such is dishonest and overstated. I say this as someone whose parents and grandparents were discriminated against.
It also is true that our nation has, with notable exceptions, been a beacon of light in a damaged world. We defeated the twin scourges of fascism and communism in the 20th century, have achieved monumental successes in the sciences and technology, pioneered the idea of conservation of natural resources and beauty, and expanded the rights of free people to an extent previously inconceivable. It is not all bad! A view of our history that is so skewed as to fail to acknowledge our freedoms, our economic health, and the myriad other benefits of living in a free society (as imperfect as it may be) is a form of rewriting of history in the interest of political objective and control of the narrative.
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Within all of this is the question of agency and personal choice. I am perplexed with how one goes “all in” on critical race theory and denies that those discriminated against have any agency (and should not be accorded the respect that comes with recognition of responsibility). While it is true that growing up in the projects in a one-parent environment with limited educational options creates added burdens (burdens I can’t fully appreciate), it also is true that different people in the same circumstances make different decisions. I think it important to recognize that we all have agency. We all are accountable for our actions—at least as much as we are responsible for the actions of the society to which we belong.
IT TAKES EVERYONE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS
This is hardly the place for a deeper discussion and I’m speaking in shorthand here, but I just think we are in a partnership with each other. That is, after all, what our society is all about—a social contract. We are all participants in our collective enterprise and all have our duties and responsibilities. It is wrong for the right to maintain that all outcomes coming from underserved communities are responsible for their decisions and, therefore, for their condition. People do not choose their parents, the discrimination based upon their color, their income level, or their family makeup. That said, it is wrong for the left to take agency away for these people. They are just like us. They make good decisions and bad ones. They cannot be unaccountable for these decisions, even as we acknowledge that their menu of decisions is more limited as a result of economic conditions and the restrictions imposed by society.
CAN WE DEBATE AS RESPECTFUL ADULTS?
Much of this debate is so heated and fraught with absolutes that the very debate itself is a threat to free speech and open discourse. The lines have been drawn and it is not pretty:
Many on the right seems to view critical race theory as something unworthy of discussion. They want to exclude its study in the classroom and its debate at colleges. The fact is that theories that are controversial—even those with which one may disagree—provide challenging observations and topics for discussion, regardless of how one ends up.
Critical race theory seems to brook no compromise. Either you are racist or anti-racist. There is no room for considering that there may be multiple factors at play to explain results. There is an aspect of this coming from the left that is anti-free speech and resists the free exchange of ideas. Alternate views often are characterized as racist or unworthy of discussion. Henry Louis Gates recognized this problem over 20 years ago: “To remove the very formation of our identities from the messy realm of contestation and debate is an elemental, not incidental, truncation of the idea of public discourse.”
As Michelle Goldberg said in the New York Times, “Disagreeing with certain ideas…is very different from anathematizing the collective work of a host of paradigm-shifting thinkers.” These words should be heeded by people on all sides of the debate for how we address society’s woes.
We have work to do. We must resist the temptation to view our current views to color how we look at any other view espoused by other people of good intent. There is no one solution to all things—nor is there only one way to view our problems and the menu of potential solutions. Other views are welcome. This is stream of consciousness and I’m thinking out loud. My thoughts in this area continue to evolve.
Happy weekend,
Glenn
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