Race and the Social Contract

A very interesting contribution to the discussion on race spawned by Senator Obama's speech on race here by the NYT. The editorial makes the argument that diversity itself, erodes support for public goods, whether it be roads, schools, parks, whatever.

This is not a new argument. Some of Robert Putnam's recent work (I think this attribution is correct) has suggested that people's sense of community and commnity engagement declines as diversity increases.

As a sociologist I am both interested in such a phenomenon and "sympathetic" to such an argument.

However, I do not think it goes far enough. Diversity is one thing. Inequality is quite another. And what I do not see is whether it is the more privileged status groups who are bailing on public goods and community or if the effect is the same across all racial, ethnic, and class groups

The NYT editorial for instance cites evidence:

While this tension manifests mainly along racial lines, it has broader
ethnic, religious and even linguistic dimensions. A 2003 study by Julian Betts
of the University of California, San Diego, and Robert Fairlie of the University
of California, Santa Cruz, found that for every four immigrants who arrived in
public high schools, one native student switched to a private school.

Now, I'd want to know what is the breakdown of those native students who go private? Are those overwhelmingly white students? Are they equal, across the board, of all groups represented in the local community?

The suggestive evidence that it is not just diversity but old fashions racism is found here:

Mr. Glaeser’s and Mr. Alesina’s work suggests that white Europeans support
a big welfare state because they believe the money will probably go to other
white Europeans. In America, the Harvard economist Erzo F. P. Luttmer found that
support for social spending among respondents to General Social Survey polls
increased in tandem with the share of welfare recipients in the area who were in
their own racial group. A study of charity by Daniel Hungerman, a Notre Dame
economist, found that all-white congregations become less charitably active as
the share of black residents in the local community grows.

I applaud the writer, Mr. Porter, for his willingness to bring such patterns to light, but, are blacks less likely to support "welfare" because they sense that most of their money is going to white recipients, while that seems indeed to be the case for whites? How about other groups? And what role does the flavor of religion play? Are catholics the same as methodists, the same as southern baptists?

I'd love to see some data on how democrats and republicans play out on views of the social good.

Discussing Race

There is a remarkable discussion at this blog. It starts with an incediary comment by Pat Buchanan which I reproduce below:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here
that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a
community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the
greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright
ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no
people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold
trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent
supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services,
Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the
African-American community into the mainstream.
...We hear the grievances.
Where is the gratitude?

A reader of this blog then added this comment on the developing discussion that was on how to even discuss race in America today:

I am a white guy. Raised in Virginia and South Carolina ... old enough to
remember "white only" water fountains and bathrooms and schools and churches. I
now live in California after a sojourn in Alaska. So let's talk about race, Pam.
I get you that the righties just don't get it and Sen Obama does. I think the
Clintons "get it" too. But that is not really the discussion that needs to take
place, is it.
It is one thing to describe the problem and another to
describe the proposed solutions to date (as Buchanan attempted - really tacky
that he termed "race" as a poverty issue in my book) But let's narrow the
discussion from "race" to white and blacks in the USA in 2008 and beyond. Let's
leave Asians and Latino's to another discussion.
How do we even talk about
black and white in the USA in 2008?
I was on a bus in San Francisco a couple
of years ago. The driver was a black man. He stopped the bus and three black
women got on aged approximately 19 to 21 or so. They had boxes of chicken
dinners in their hands. The first two women got on and immediately proceeded
down the aisle to the very rear of the bus, where they took a seat. They were
talking very loudly. Sitting in the front of the bus, I could hear every word
they said. They were really loud.
The third woman stopped at the pay kiosk
at the front of the bus. She proceeded to put change into the kiosk. She only
put a few nickles into the kiosk. The driver informed her she had not put enough
change into the kiosk for herself, much less the three of them. She said she did
not have any more money and asked him to let it slide. He refused. He said they
had money for chicken, they should have saved money for the bus. The woman
called, yelled, to the back of the bus to her friends for money for the fare.
They screamed back that they were broke and for her to just join them in the
back of the bus. They proceeded to yell back and forth for a good minute or two.
The driver was getting angry. He insisted that the three women get off the
bus. They refused unless they got their fifteen cents out of the kiosk. It is
impossible to retrieve money from the kiosk, as everyone in San Francisco knows.
They started yelling at the driver ... the one woman from the front of the bus
and the two women from the rear of the bus. It was getting nasty.
A black
man came forward. He was irritated. Asked the driver how much the women owed.
The driver answered and the man put that amount in the kiosk. the man and woman
proceeded down the aisle; the man to his seat, the woman to her friends in the
rear of the bus. The driver finally drove the bus. Howevr, the driver kept
looking in his mirror at the three women and yelled at them that there was no
eating allowed on the bus. They yelled back that they weren't eating on his damn
bus. Actually, they were.
The driver turned to the Asian woman seted next to
me in the front of the bus and informed her that in the City there were Black
people and there were niggers. Those three were nothing but niggers and gave all
black people a bad name. His comments shocked and offended me. The three women's
ploy for a free bus ride shocked and offended me. But I said nothing. I am not
sure I should have. Just not sure.
The fact that a racial discussion brings
this story to mind shocks me too. But it does.
I must balance it somewhat
with the incredible black man about 18 years old who organized the bus stop of
about a dozen folks of various races to allow a disabled white woman to board a
bus first even though she was the last to arrive at the bus stop ... a thing
just not done! He spoke up and moved us all until we all just stood aside,
allowing this woman free space and all the time in the world to board the bus.
He was quite the speaker and organizer. I tried to enroll him in labor organizer
school, he was so good.
I really don't know what I am talking about, do I?
LOL If you think someone ought to do something, that someone is probably you.

As someone who tries to provide a forum as well as a way to discuss race in America in my classes, I found this to be very interesting. As well as reflective of the difficulties folks have, both white and black. (and others as well).

I've had some of my most racist statements made by black students....about blacks. Part of the problem is that folks confuse racism, prejudice, and then discriminatory behavior. Certain words are incendiary, like "nigger" but a discriminatory policy all dressed in neutral language hardly gets a pass.

I think that white liberals are more afraid of being called racist than trying to work through the difficulties. Therein lies the problem. the very idea that some individuals are not racist. We live in a racist society, where the dominant belief system contains considerable racism. Without the tools to tease that stuff out, without a more theoretical understanding, we are ridiculously left pointing fingers at each other.

Buchanan's comments sound like the old planatation owner. "I give you a place to sleep, I feed you, I clothe you, your ingratitude is stunning." Affirmative Action helps everyone (I'm sure if anyone read this that will be eye popping).

The entire conversation is grounded in racist thought; that the individuals of racial groups are good representations of the entire group and that the minority group, especially, is monolithic. White folks make such a big deal out of African American folk being "loud" for instance. You should try flying 8 hours with a bunch of Swedes. Trying to scam a bus ride. I used to tape a string to a quarter, it would fall through, then I'd pull it back out again. Didn't work all the time, but maybe a third of the time. Until well intentioned whites admit their negative feelings, confront them and then begin to intellectually struggle against them (not wrap up their feelings in poitical correctness, because inevitably you get twisted statements like Geraldine Ferraro's).

Senator Obama's Speech on Race in America

The full text of Senator Obama's speech can be found here If you have not read it, I urge you to. I have not heard the speech. apparently too many folks trying to download it, I couldn't get any videos to load.

For the record, I have not decided who I might vote for in the Indiana Dem Primary. I've always like Senator Clinton, even before she was controversial, divisive, all the crud that the pundits and her opponents like to say about her.

Anyway, this speech is eloquent. I have no doubt he wrote it. I cannot imagine someone writing this for him. It is authentic, which is supposedly something everyone is looking for (until they find it in the wrong color).

As someone who has read more research on race than most, his speech is factually and sociologically accurate. Senator Obama displays not only an experiential understanding of race relations that is far beyond most, but also a theoretical understanding that is exceeding rare, in my experience, for sitting politicians. Politics and complex theory don't mix well in a sound byte driven media. I'm surprised the NYT would publish the entire text of his speech.

I'm impressed. Will it stanch the blood of this gash at his candidacy? Not on the far right, not among ideologues. Among regular people who don't understand race relations beyond the simplistic zero sum perspective that most view it through? Maybe half will get it.

I do expect that when he quietly suggested that social class is the real inequality in the US, that many, if they can pick up the subtlety, will berate him for that. But not Mike Huckabee....hmm.

Anyway, what does anyone else think about his speech, either its substance or the political gamesmanship of it all.