by publius
I’ve been torn on whether – and how – to respond to Bruce Bartlett’s op-ed, which previews his book on racism and the Democratic Party. Some of his sentences are so blatantly disingenuous that it’s clear he’s fishing for outrage. (See, e.g., “[I]f a single mention of states’ rights 27 years ago is sufficient to damn the Republican Party for racism ever afterwards . . .”). What’s maddening is that he – Coulter-esquely – wants me to be outraged so that he can sell more books.
Maybe I’m playing the fool, but his argument requires a response because it’s outrageous and deeply, callously offensive. Smiling at those words, eh Brucey? It’s actually offensive on two levels – one obvious way and one way that is less obvious but more insidious.
First, to the extent that Bartlett is attempting to make a logical argument (personally, I don’t think logic is the goal) Yglesias pretty much rips the argument to shreds here and here. As Bartlett surely knows, the American political parties – while keeping the same labels – have shifted dramatically over the past 200 years. As every seventh-grade American history student knows, the white supremacist coalition (largely but by no means exclusively Southern) voted Democratic until the civil rights era when it moved to the GOP with helpful nudges from Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan.
It would be great of course if Bartlett were sincerely concerned about America’s historical racial legacy. But he’s not. That’s not the point of his book. The point is to win modern political points for the GOP and smear the Democrats. If he can get the question aired, he largely wins. (Chris Matthews: Tonight’s panel will discuss if the Democrats are racist. Joining us are …”
The first level of outrage here is that he’s smearing the modern Democratic Party for the actions of the same racist white supremacists that the party institutionally repudiated in the civil rights era (at great political cost). During this same time period, Bartlett’s own party – whose rank-and-file are largely non-racist – institutionally adopted this grotesque bloc of Bull Connor voters. Since then, at the institutional level, the GOP has intentionally fanned racial flames through opposition and/or indifference to civil rights legislation, through inflammatory code words, and through turning a blind eye to institutional actions by the GOP in southern states (e.g., Georgia Confederate flag controversy).
Admittedly, the Democratic Party is guilty of taking the black vote for granted. And they are also guilty of not pushing as hard as they could for fear of white backlash. But that said, they’ve been the only ones who have even been trying for the past 40 years. The Democrats are the ones fighting for the programs and laws that disproportionately help poor and urban African-Americans. The Democrats are the ones fighting against race-based voter disenfranchisement efforts (e.g., “voter ID”). The Democrats the ones fighting against judges who are hostile to civil rights achievements.
The parties’ record on race over the past 40 years illustrates all too clearly just how dishonest Bartlett is being. That’s bad, but it’s not the worst part. The more outrageous part of Bartlett’s argument is not the dishonesty, but the callous indifference to historical discrimination. He treats the whole thing like a chess pawn in a silly DC talk show game.
To back up for a second, I must admit that Bartlett caught me a bad time. I just finished Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man (1952), and it jarred me at times (I’d recommend it to everyone, though it needed some more editing). One striking aspect of the book is that it shows just how completely and thoroughly the racial caste system dominated those who suffered under it. It’s not so much the public discrimination, but the inner mental domination that stands out. Like the author, Ellison’s narrator comes of age in the pre-Brown v. Board South, ultimately moving to New York. There, the old Southern discrimination follows him – not so much externally, but internally. For instance, Ellison’s narrator walks mechanically to the back of the bus. He panics in fear after bumping into a white person on the subway. He is overcome with paranoia and inferiority, etc.
That’s the part we forget – or never understand in the first place. We know about Jim Crow, but we don’t know about it. We read the history in the books, we see the trite movies. But we don’t understand the horrific and total devastation that institutionalized racism wrought – not merely physically, but mentally and spiritually. In peering into Ellison’s time capsule, I realized that I was simply unable to grasp the enormity of it. Just like my mind can’t truly conceptualize things like infinity or four-dimensional space, so too is it incapable of understanding the reality of centuries of historical racism. You can see a movie, or attend a lecture. But it’s the small glimpses into this particular negative infinity (glimpses Ellison provides) that makes you at least begin to understand how little you actually know.
The first step then isn’t so much to adopt this or that remedial policy, but to simply step back and acknowledge it. Show it the respect it deserves. I won’t pretend to speak for African-Americans. But I suspect many crave a sincere acknowledgment of reality more than a particular set of remedial policies. That’s because if you know enough (or, perhaps, forgotten enough) to acknowledge this reality, then the policies will work themselves out. For instance, it’s impossible to believe that someone who has truly acknowledged the gravity of the historical crimes could ever bring themselves to oppose voting rights legislation. These same people could never bring themselves to speak in code, and so on.
In a perverse way, Bull Connor is almost reassuring. That’s because his very existence at least validates the historical reality. We know the history is real because Bull Connor exists – because he unleashes the dogs. And as long as he is the enemy, he will lose in the end.
But the second wave – the post-Connors (Nixon, Atwater, Rehnquist, etc.) – are far more clever and insidious. That’s because they do something worse than unleashing dogs – they deny the historical reality. Their preferred tactic is to convince people to ignore it, or to pretend like it’s been magically fixed. To them, the consequences of racism aren’t the problem anymore. The problem is that you, white person, are being discriminated against. It’s this latter argument that has been so ingeniously effective. It allows people (non-racist people) to ignore historical reality – “The Reality” – and to oppose civil rights legislation not for racist reasons, but for reasons of perceived self-interest.
Our friend Bartlett – while well short of people like Nixon and the vile Rehnquist – falls squarely into Camp #2. I’m not accusing him of racism. It’s far more banal than that. He just thinks he’s found a rhetorically clever way to bash the hated Democrats. His sin here is not racism, but indifference. The problem is not so much the dishonestly itself, but that this particular dishonesty shows a callous indifference to “The Reality.” Bartlett pretends to care, but isn’t really acknowledging the problem. Otherwise, he wouldn’t strain logic to (1) score points for the party with the wretched racial record and (2) wound the party who’s actually been trying to make these things better.
I’m sure Bartlett got his seventh-grade history lesson, and has seen Glory and all that. But the history hasn’t penetrated him – he hasn’t had the visceral road-to-Damascus moment in which he sees that this history is far more than a political football to be kicked around thoughtlessly and carelessly. Otherwise, he’d take his dishonestly elsewhere – to economics maybe.
To be clear, I’m not claiming I understand all this either. But I hope that I at least understand that I don’t understand it – and in doing so, that I in some way acknowledge it and respect it.
I think Bruce Bartlett is just arguing for racism in general.
An easy line for Republican “economists” to take these days to avoid talking about…economics.
Very good post. I have a theory that the South is about to become a whole lot less important in electoral politics than it has been. Politics is all about contested groups, groups who are up for grabs. Part of the problem with the black vote is that any group that is going to vote 90% for one party is going to lose concessions, is going to be taken for granted, it’s just the way things are. The Democrats are guilty of that, but they have also been losing elections. It’s irrational to forfeit good political positioning for a group that is already voting for you.
Contested groups. White working-class males who might or might not be in a union were such a group in the 1980s. “Swing voters” after that. The South was interesting because it was strongly Democratic and heading for strongly Republican, which made it volatile. I can remember talking to an older female Arkansas voter in 1993, who told me, “Honey, we’re all Democrats down there.” (I’m from NYC.) It struck me as wrong at the time, of course, but she had a point. But it was changing rapidly.
To some extent, the South is about to become the “blacks” of the Republican Party. And if some clever political leader can figure out a way to get 40% of black voters to consistently vote for the Republicans, it’d be bad news for the Democrats — but possibly awesome news for African Americans.
Clever meaning having an IQ over room temperature….
But agreed….(And 90% Democratic because the Republicans have been making little or no effort…)
Invisible Man had very much the same effect on me. You just wonder how the world can just keep moving along after you’ve been hit so viscerally.
And you’re right that by far the more serious problem in the modern world is those who attempt to make racism invisible, not those who are blatantly racist.
In response to Charles, I think that, unfortunately, the real problem is that if you’re a white male, you really just don’t realize the extent of the privileges you enjoy. To a white man, it’s pretty normal to think that he can go for a walk at most times in most places and never have to worry about being raped. When he sees flashing lights in his mirror, he can probably safely assume that while he may have been exceeding the speed limit or have a taillight out, the police officer hasn’t stopped him because he matches a vague description of a criminal. Those don’t seem like privileges, until you don’t have them any more. And so it can be very hard for even the best-intentioned white male to understand what challenges minorities still face.
The over/under on the words “Robert Byrd” is 15. The over/under on someone arguing that Democratic programs don’t help blacks anyway is 27.
Let me correct my above comment by amending that the question of misunderstanding, as noted by publius, is not the ‘real’ problem as I said, but is, I think, a major contributor to the problem because so many people who are honestly of good faith simply cannot see the degree to which the problem still exists.
One of your, IMHO, best posts, publius. G’Kar, great comments.
As one of those white males, the argument has often been made to me, particularly in relation to affirmative action, that this is a form of discrimination against whites and two wrongs don’t make a right.
If one is talking about purely economic issues, there might be some merit to that.
However, racism goes way beyond that as both publius and G’Kar have pointed out. The victims of racism have more than just material, economic consequences on display. There are strong psychological issues at play.
Granted, racism does cut both ways, and there are African American racists and Asian racists and so on and so on.
But the target of the claims I talked about at the beginning of this comment are those who, like G’Kar said, fall into the “best-intentioned” category.
Bennett makes the mistake (undoubtedly intentionally) of saying that those who focus on Reagan’s speech use it to say that Republicans are racist. Based on a thread here not too long ago, there are some who do believe that. However, that speech is used most often not to say that Republicans are racist, but rather to show how the Republican Party deliberately and knowingly went after the votes of those who have a strong racist bent.
But many reading his comments will just assume that his statement is accurate.
Let me correct my above comment by amending that the question of misunderstanding, as noted by publius, is not the ‘real’ problem as I said, but is, I think, a major contributor to the problem because so many people who are honestly of good faith simply cannot see the degree to which the problem still exists.
I think it is the real problem in the sense that if it’s not dealt with, then all other measures will only be stopgaps that don’t solve the problem in any real way. I really liked the way you discussed privilege, G’Kar, because it’s at the heart of what I think of as unconscious racism–those thoughtless statements or actions that I and a lot of my fellow white males say and do that have no malice in the, but are callous and sexist and racist all the same. And I’m talking about the people of good faith here–there’s also a large portion of the population who see their privilege and think it is somehow deserved.
this just in: lying to your base about the evils of the opposition helps your cause and carries no penalty.
sure, it’s unfortunate that The Big Lie seems to be the chief tactic of professional Republicans these days. but, at the same time at least some of the problem must lie with those who are so easily led.
What the GOP has done in the last 40 years is – I repeat – ethically worse than what the Dems did before. Notice I didn’t absolve the Democratic Party for its decades of racism, cynicism and political advantage-taking vis a vis racism. Simply, what the GOP did is even more cynical; it’s morally null. To put it in understandable terms, you could call the Southern Strategy an insidious social-engineering. And as a bonus, over and above racisim itself, moral nullity became normative. (“If you can’t be good, be careful’. Or, as W Bush would say, ‘It’s just politics, John [McCain].’) Anyway, a grateful nation thanks you for renewing the cesspool when it was in danger of starting to shrink away.
There is a completely normal yearning in the country to ‘get past’ racism – a yearning most people of whatever background (or foreground) share. It’s all so shameful. One of the problems people like Ellison remind you of is that not only are the psychological problems bad in themselves, but describing them, admitting to them, is deeply humiliating – but of course you have to admit to them to get anywhere.
BTW, I notice we needs must never forget to hasten to add that black people, and asians and any other group can be racist or biggoted. It’s especially important for you white folks who might feel you stripped off your ethnic indentities and jumped into the Melting Pot sometime in the 50s or 60s (or 40s); you worked your ass off your whole life and didn’t end up with all that much to show for it. You didn’t get any special favors. The Republicans (and George Wallace) feel your pain.
Honestly, when I hear a Republican like Bartlett suggest or imply the need for racial reconcilliation, I think of Bush’s second inaugural – so unlike the First Republican’s – extolling liberty and democracy around the world. Pure opportunistic bull____.
Publius,
I have been a huge fan of yours since your early L&P days, but I must say that this is one of your best posts (along with the series of Reagan race-baiting analysis). As an African-American, I was moved particularly by this sentence:
But I suspect many crave a sincere acknowledgment of reality more than a particular set of remedial policies.
That is EXACTLY right. Very well said. However, this is difficult for whites, because as you have acknowledged, they don’t want to feel like bad people. Nobody does….
I appreciate your work.
I seriously doubt most 7th-graders learn ANYTHING about shifts in American political party demographics, especially post-Vietnam. IIRC, most K-12 history textbooks still don’t get much past WWII, because anything after that is too controversial (i.e., apt to get the school district and/or the textbook distributor sued). I would be truly surprised if most kids even learn that the Democratic Party was the Jim Crow party, much less that the Republicans were the successors to that movement.
I do wonder who Bartlett’s audience is — I would think that anyone paying enough attention to read it would also be interested enough in politics to know the history. But hey, maybe he wants to change the history. If 5 or 6 more books along these lines follow, and another 20 or so books pick up the factoids therein and take them for granted, we’ll be well on our way to rewriting history. Bartlett can’t do it all by himself with just one book, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and you have to start somewhere. It can happen just that easily –look how the Daughters of the Confederacy, the Klan (then a potent nationwide political force), and fellow travelers rewrote the history of the Civil War into the War of Northern Agression in the fin de siecle period, just by repeating Big Lies until they became Current Wisdom.
Beyond not wanting to feel like bad people, I think a lot of white people, after acknowledging the reality, worry that they can’t do something about the problem without seeming to be patronizing.
Conservatives often say that theirs is the morally superior position, because by not acknowledging the reality, they are the ones who are truly treating African-Americans as equals. It’s hard not to see this as a bad faith position, but it plays to the discomfort of seeming patronizing.
“I do wonder who Bartlett’s audience is”
People who want to believe him.
This is an excellent post, especially the part that talks about the total impact of racism.
It will stun no one to learn that I am not African-American, but I did live in the Jim Crow south when I was young. I was a high school student in Birmingham in the early 60’s. It doesn’t get much stronger than that. (Was I a civil rights activist? No, I was not.)
So I have some sense of how things looked from the other side, and I can vouch for the fact that white attitudes, in general, were exactly those which would produce the results Publius describes. It was not only a question of water coolers and waiting rooms and miserably underfunded schools and so on. Blacks were seen as not quite fully human – not entitled to any sort of personal dignity whatsoever. The assumption of black inferiority was ingrained.
That’s what makes so many discussions of Jim Crow that I see on blogs unreal. It was not just rules to be followed, not just a set of laws. It was a social and psychological structure that needed to be broken. Bruce Bartlett notwithstanding, it is to the Democrats’ credit (as Yglesias has said) that the party, at the national level, was willing to take on that task, even at the cost of breaking up its governing coalition. It is to the Republicans’ discredit that their leadership saw this decision as an opportunity for political gain. (There were certainly Republican supporters of civil rights. But those who ended up controlling the party at the national level were not in that category).
Nothing is So Surely Written In the Good Book Than That My People Shall Be Free
We dont choose our holidays as well as we should:
Americans love to celebrate. We commemorate historic events (Thanksgiving, Independence Day) and people (Presidents Day, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). But few are aware of the significance of…
Bruce Bartlett notwithstanding, it is to the Democrats’ credit (as Yglesias has said) that the party, at the national level, was willing to take on that task, even at the cost of breaking up its governing coalition. It is to the Republicans’ discredit that their leadership saw this decision as an opportunity for political gain.
It’s the same thing the Republicans did when the Dems raised taxes to a level that was both affordable and could sustain the gov’t. Now they want credit for cutting taxes … while ignoring the astronomical amount of debt they’re responsible for.
Expect the GOP to try to blame the eventual failure of Iraq on Dems if the Dems get control of both the White House and Congress. (They’ve already tried blaming it on the Dems … and the “MSM”.)
Power is a compelling force.
Racism is one way to consolidate power for generations. Sexism and homophobia are other aspects of manipulating fear and consolidating power.
Excellent post. I just read Native Son a couple months ago. I’ll read Invisible Man next. The part about this that I found so funny was the way Bartlett defended himself on Yglesias’ blog. His arguments in his own defense were really piss-poor, even immature.
The part about this that I found so funny was the way Bartlett defended himself on Yglesias’ blog. His arguments in his own defense were really piss-poor, even immature.
Well, they had to be, since there is no mature defense for Bartlett’s book or his statements in defense of it. Trilobite is correct above when s/he (sorry, don’t know) says that this is probably an attempt to rewrite history a la the Klan, the DoC (and the Southern Baptist Convention, though trilobite didn’t mention them) did the Civil War. Bartlett has to know that the Republican party is anathema to the average African-American now, especially after the Katrina response, but that if the Republican party is to remain viale long term, it can’t stay the party of wealthy white men and poor conservative racists. It has to be more inclusive. He can’t completely alienate the base, so instead he changes the storyline. I’ll bet money that over the next few years you’ll see more books echoing this notion that the Republicans are the traditional home of civil rights legislation.
I think South Park made this same general point when Stan (a white kid) said to Token (a black kid), regarding what it is like to be black in America, “I get it: I don’t get it!.”
He arrived at this conclusion after trying in vain to “get it.”
I’m less impressed with this post, with it’s uncomplicated view of the present reality of racism in both major parties. Yes, the Democratic party did something great in largely breaking free of it’s racist past. And the current Republican party isn’t nearly as free of racism as it ought to be, as a result of taking on racists alienated from the Democratic party by that shift.
But to a large extent the current non-racism of the Democratic party is less real than definitional; The Democratic party IS, after all, the party advocating public policies which explicitly discriminate on the basis of race. No, not on the basis of being disadvantaged by a history of racism, on the basis of race itself: Under policies cheerfully defended by Democrats, the white immigrant is harmed to benefit the black immigrant, neither having even the theoretical link to American racism which the native born actually only contingently have.
That’s not reparations, that’s racism, pure and simple.
One of those posts I had to think about a little. I tend to side with Brett, as I usually do in these arguments.
OTOH, this hit a nerve:
The first step then isn’t so much to adopt this or that remedial policy, but to simply step back and acknowledge it.
OK, I acknowledge it. And I feel some generational guilt, my forefathers held other people as common property. It was wrong and disgraceful with no if’s, and’s or but’s…
Now what? I’m fine with the acknowledgment part. I mean it happened, its part of history. Not acknowledging it is rewriting history. But now what?
Not snark – an honest question. As a privileged white man with some amount of guilt for this I really want to know.
For my part, I try not to discriminate against anyone, gay, Asian, Hispanic, whatever. I thought that was the best way to directly address the issue. But it seems that is not enough.
I’m less impressed still with arguments that devolve to “It’s racism, it’s wrong” without acknowledging that WHATEVER we do is wrong—it’s a matter of doing the least amount of harm.
I’d like to wait for better solutions to work, but that inflicts hard as well—the seeming failure to acknowledge that is maddening and frustrating.
OCSteve, exactly what do you perceive yourself as acknowledging? No criticism or snark intended.
You talk about guilt related to forefathers owning slaves. That is not an issue related to racism, atleast not in terms of what publius is talking about.
I think what needs to be acknowledged is not the physical, economic impact of racism, although it is important as well, but the psychological impact, which is something that as fairly well off white males you and I would have extreme difficulty relating to.
Intellectually we can find the words, but emotionally we almost necessarily have to remain distant.
I undrestand where Brett, and to some degree yourself, are coming from. But I don’t think racism is the word that applies. Discrimination I can accept as a definition, but not racism.
There is a big difference. And for the person on the receiving end of racism, particularly when s/he has next to no real power, the psychological impact is even more devastating.
Can people overcome it? Sure and many have.
As to remedy, I am almost as up in the air as you are. Your personal solution is part of the answer, but it needs to be present among even more people than it currently is. The problem is that racism is not something that can logically be argued away.
A very good friend of mine from childhood served in Vietnam. Prior to that, he was about as racist a person as I knew. He came back with a totally different opinion of African Americans, mainly due to daily interaction at a level that required effective cooperation and interdependency.
Most of us don’t have that opportunity. Being with people of a different race in the work place doesn’t really provide that. And even if it did, many would not change.
This is indeed a good question. Ergo, it is hard to answer.
Part of that is that institutional remedies are almost always blunt instruments—they cause almost more problems than they solve, and attempts to fine tune them create a jury-rigged monster that is impossible to administer.
But the key is that it’s “almost more” and not “definitely more.” And to look carefully at solutions and not reject them out of hand because they are not perfect, nor to get wedded to them because it seems that they may work best in limited sets of situations, for limited sets of time. (And that possibly these solutions are one-offs, tailored to specific situations, and they have to be repeatedly tailored anew for each situation).
Under policies cheerfully defended by Democrats, the white immigrant is harmed to benefit the black immigrant, neither having even the theoretical link to American racism which the native born actually only contingently have.
Hey, did you know that white immigrants are less likely to be discriminated against and more likely to get better jobs than even better-educated black immigrants? Don’t answer, because you clearly didn’t.
Nice weasel words, too — “theoretical,” “contingently.” You’re a real piece of work, Brett. This, folks, is actually the paradigm case of someone not getting it. When there’s a whole cottage industry dedicated to proving that, by virtue of your skin color and your ancestors’ DNA, you are inherently less intelligent than people of another skin color, you get back to me about theoretical contingencies, son.
For my part, I try not to discriminate against anyone, gay, Asian, Hispanic, whatever. I thought that was the best way to directly address the issue. But it seems that is not enough.
The Wal-Mart up the street from my house, where I shop often, has one of those guys checking receipts as you exit the store. Not only have I never been stopped and asked to have my receipt checked, I’ve never seen a white person stopped there, period. Every person I see get stopped is black.
Imagine living under that kind of mistrust and paranoia everyplace you go, just because of your skin color, more than a century and a half after this was all supposedly fixed. Or, imagine how what I alluded to above feels: Having not just crackpot Klansmen, but Nobel prize winners and writers at major publications debating whether your skin color makes you genetically dumber than people with a different skin color.
It’s great that you — or I, or anyone here — doesn’t personally discriminate on the basis of skin color or ethnic heritage. But as a country and a culture we have a long way to go on this stuff.
“That’s not reparations, that’s racism, pure and simple.”
Brett, could you please correlate this for us with the huge support of self-identified “black” people for the Democratic Party?
Also, I gather that you find racism to be an evil. Might I ask what you’d regard as useful action people should engage in to fight it?
“You’re a real piece of work, Brett.”
Phil, old son. Have you ever heard of the stiletto versus the bludgeon?
“Hey, did you know that white immigrants are less likely to be discriminated against and more likely to get better jobs than even better-educated black immigrants? Don’t answer, because you clearly didn’t.”
Hey, did you know that “diversity” policies at many universities discriminate against white immigrants to make room for black immigrants, neither of whom have any relationship at all to America’s history of racism, purely on the basis of their skin color? Don’t answer, because you clearly didn’t.
“When there’s a whole cottage industry dedicated to proving that, by virtue of your skin color and your ancestors’ DNA, you are inherently less intelligent than people of another skin color, you get back to me about theoretical contingencies, son.”
Since that cottage industry puts asians at the top of that particular ranking, and I’m not asian, I guess I can get back to you right now, can’t I?
“But I don’t think racism is the word that applies. Discrimination I can accept as a definition, but not racism.”
Discrimination is the action, racism is the viewpoint that justifies the action. Without a belief in collective racial guilt, the whole edifice of racially discriminatory policy as it exists in the real world, with all it’s indifference to actual individual stories, and even family history, makes no sense.
OCSteve may acknowledge some generational guilt, but MY ancestors all moved to this country after the civil war, and moved to a state that was on the union side of that fight, and never a slave state. It’s stupid enough to attribute guilt to people for what their distant ancestors did, but to attribute guilt to somebody for what somebody else’s freaking ancestors did, just because they had similar complexions to your’s is stark insanity.
In fact, what it is is RACISM.
John: exactly what do you perceive yourself as acknowledging?
Racism is still with us after all these years. Decades of racism has undoubtedly had an effect on the basic psyche of minorities. Things are better, but by no means perfect. As a white privileged male I admit that by virtue of my position in society I have likely benefited from this. I did not come up with it; I am not directly responsible for it. But I have benefited from it, and at times I have downplayed its importance in today’s society. I bear some guilt for it. I agree with Brett that true color blindness is the best way to go.
Gwangung: And to look carefully at solutions and not reject them out of hand because they are not perfect, nor to get wedded to them because it seems that they may work best in limited sets of situations, for limited sets of time. (And that possibly these solutions are one-offs, tailored to specific situations, and they have to be repeatedly tailored anew for each situation).
I’m with you in spirit… But in actuality once anything is put into practice it has no “sell by” date. You can’t roll back something that worked decades ago without charges of… whatever.
Phil: It’s great that you — or I, or anyone here — doesn’t personally discriminate on the basis of skin color or ethnic heritage. But as a country and a culture we have a long way to go on this stuff.
OK. But again – tell me what I should be doing at a personal level to fix this. I do it in my personal life. But it seems clear that I should be doing something else…
“”That’s not reparations, that’s racism, pure and simple.”
Brett, could you please correlate this for us with the huge support of self-identified “black” people for the Democratic Party?”
Gladly: You think blacks can’t be racist, or favor racist policies that benefit them? That it’s only racism if it’s against blacks? What a joke!
Again, what do you (anyone) want me to do? This type of post, and countless articles, politician’s speeches, etc. are all meant to elicit this very guilt. And it is there.
OK – you got me. Now what? If it is meant as a bludgeon to get me to agree with social engineering policies I would not otherwise agree with then that will not work. I do what I can at the personal level. Politicians don’t get my vote by reminding me of this guilt and using it as the basis for why I should vote for them or their policies… Not if I don’t agree with the policies.
“You think blacks can’t be racist, or favor racist policies that benefit them? That it’s only racism if it’s against blacks?”
Um, gosh. That’s quite a derivation. Can you also tell me what color I’m thinking of, now, and then what fingers I am holding up?
Also, name the capital of the state I’m thinking of.
And can we put five bucks on each answer you get correct?
Because, on the basis of your lunatic non-sequiturs, I’d enjoy the results.
Gary, if you don’t believe such nonsense, why would you think there’s any disconnect between,
1. The Democratic party favoring racist policies.
and,
2. The Democratic party having a huge level of support from self-identified blacks?
The racist policies are intended to favor blacks, why would they drive blacks away?
Steve – it’s a good question. I think the answer is less that it means X and Y — it’s more of an attempt to color one’s perspective on these various issues. But I’ll take a stab.
The first bucket of stuff is that it should you make you angrier to see the various offensive things that, say, state GOPs do (confederate flag pins on lapel by Haley Barbour, etc.). It also hopefully gives you less tolerance for bartlett’s arguments.
Second, it should make you more sympathetic to civil rights policies – while not requiring you to agree with all of them. For instance, if you see that racism was more than what was written on law books, you can begin to see the symbolic (but substantive) importance of public measures like affirmative action. But aff action is tough. The more pressing issues, to me, are eliminating things like voter ID laws and bs voter fraud prosecutions, which are transparent attempts to limit black votes.
But perhaps the most substantive policy that I would like to see happen is a greater emphasis on – and sympathy for – urban funding and poverty more generally. Katrina was a big eye-opener — and a reminder of how this effects linger on. More than linger actually. YOu can’t look at teh Superdome without seeing the shadow of slavery and Jim Crow behind it.
There is systemic, structural poverty within the urban black community — and a big part of that was caused by the very things Ralph Ellison was writing about.
So that’s the substance. But to me, politics is often about rationalizing the subjective sympathies one has on a visceral level (e.g., gay marriage). To truly persuade someone, you often require far more than logic. You somehow have to shift emotional loyalities — emotion-based perspectives.
“Acknowledging it”, even if doesn’t lead to any direct policies, should hopefully shift this “first principle” – the initial emotional disposition. Once in place, other policy preferences will inevitably shift.
let me know though if that doesn’t make sense
Without a belief in collective racial guilt, the whole edifice of racially discriminatory policy as it exists in the real world, with all it’s indifference to actual individual stories, and even family history, makes no sense.
FWIW, I disagree.
Affirmative action, which is what you appear to be worked up about, does not require a belief in “collective racial guilt”. It’s a remedial policy that’s intended to address longstanding institutional prejudice. It says nothing about, and needs to say nothing about, the guilt or innocence of anyone in the here and now.
The historical prejudice is real, as are its effects. Whether affirmative action is, or is not, an effective remedy is a question worth asking. But “collective racial guilt” is really not part of the equation.
In reference to the original post, I’ll also point out that the kind of “racism” Brett alludes to here has nothing whatsoever to do with what Bartlett is talking about.
Thanks –
OCSteve may acknowledge some generational guilt, but MY ancestors all moved to this country after the civil war, and moved to a state that was on the union side of that fight, and never a slave state. It’s stupid enough to attribute guilt to people for what their distant ancestors did, but to attribute guilt to somebody for what somebody else’s freaking ancestors did, just because they had similar complexions to your’s is stark insanity.
In fact, what it is is RACISM.
Have you benefited from the system put in place by those others? Don’t bother answering–if you’re white, you have, no questions asked. So please get off your high horse–whether or not your ancestors personally owned slaves, you’ve gotten the benefits simply because of the color of your skin. Do you need to feel guilt? Not necessarily, but please don’t act like you’re somehow outside the system, or worse, that you’re being put upon by a system that you have benefited from in ways greater than you could ever imagine.
A quick look at Bartlett’s Wikipedia entry
rattles off these associations:
Percy Greaves, Republican counsel to the 1946 committee which investigated the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Bartlett wrote a book about it; Greaves advised.
Ron Paul
Jack Kemp
Jude Wanniski
Gary Bauer
Heritage
Cato
Reagan, Bush II, of course.
Bartlett’s a bag man for the Right, attracted to every freak the right vomits up; he’s trotted out once again as an election approaches.
Just for the record, my grandfather thought blacks (hey, Johnnie! Look at the nigger!)were getting the best of whites and were guilty of racism and were gaming the system back in the early 1960s.
I loved the man, but this fucking shit will never stop from whites who know fucking nothing about the position they achieve by mere birth.
Then they (we) call it achievement and victimhood at the same time.
It is nothing new that the Democratic Party was the home for racists in America. Anyone who continues to throw it in the face of today’s Democrats merely acknowledges the universal enormity of racism in America.
Ya wanna mention Sen Byrd? May the shade of Nixon rise from the grave and take him home to the Republican Party. I don’t mind if West Virginia receives my pork dollars from the other side of the aisle. Neither do West Virginians.
Happy New Year.
“The Democrats are the ones fighting for the programs and laws that disproportionately help poor and urban African-Americans.”
There are deep character differences between the Central American blacks I work with and the North American blacks I’ve worked with in the past (pardon the generalization). The Central Americans I know are deeply proud of their culture, but not in a stand-offish way, and have strong families. Married, nice wives, polite well-dressed kids. Every time I try to find something wrong with their work, they make me look silly. Schoolchildren wear uniforms to school and the great majority graduate.
Please don’t confuse ‘giving money to’ with ‘helping’. Giving money away has largely destroyed the black family in the United States. It has also destroyed their pride in a lot of ways.
The power structure recognizes that there are different standards for black Harvard graduates and white Harvard graduates; for black military officers and white military officers. The dumb ones are called ‘diversity specials’ behind closed doors. The average American sees right through the unqualified Rice’s and Gonzalez’s of the world, observes poor performance, and has his prejudices reinforced.
It is terrible what the pandering left (and right) has done to qualified minorities in this Country. It is also terrible what pandering has done to otherwise good people who are thrust into positions that they are unprepared for. That point gets driven home if you’ve ever had to console a father who is crying at work. The real world is not academia; you have to perform and there are goals and milestones. You have to keep up.
Life isn’t fair. Some people are smart, some people are dumb, some people are in between. We need to lose our race-based guilt on this subject as we are making things worse. Meritocracy is the best any society will ever be able to do.
And yes, Bartlett is one of the dumb ones.
You think blacks can’t be racist, or favor racist policies that benefit them? That it’s only racism if it’s against blacks?
Have you read this post or any of the comments? Because it sure doesn’t seem like it? Reread the post, especially the parts about Invisible Man (hint, it’s not a novel by HG Wells) and maybe you’ll be qualified to contribute to this dialog.
Bill:
You’re growing on me.
But …..
“The average American sees right through the unqualified Rice’s and Gonzalez’s of the world, observes poor performance, and has his prejudices reinforced.”
True.
Bur deeply false. The average American is a lunkhead. When I look at Rice (not so much) and Gonzalez (very much), I see poor performing individuals, not examples from which I generalize to racial categories as a whole.
Let’s put it this way. George W. Bush is a dumb, underperforming white guy, but probably a decent dancer in his younger more entertaining days. Given his performance, you, me, DaveC., Sebastian, Von, Phil, Hilzoy, and Brett ought to be getting some generalizing blowback regarding our racial dumbitude.
But we’re not. We get a gimme. It’s golf for cheaters, speaking only for myself.
The poor schmuck applying for a job when driving swarthy reminds the rancid white underachiever at the auto parts store of Condaleeza and Alberto.
We, the pale, remind him of him, the aggrieved competent white guy.
Incompetent, dumbass Bush is granted the privilege of achieving his incompetence all by himself, the lucky small guy.
This is all within the context of things improving racially in America over the past 50 years.
Two years ago I was talking with my Dad about a Rice Presidency at Thanksgiving. We were both excited about it.
Since then she came up with the ‘no Jews allowed through this door’ at Annapolis, culminating a run that included comparing the Palestinian Jizya-seeking pressure groups with our Founding Fathers. And I’ve become more jaded. Maybe she’ll get a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts.
If I were a black man, I wouldn’t want to live in the US (unless I had a part-time DBE and was sending money back to Belize or Costa Rica or the Bahamas). My quality of life would be better somewhere else. I put a lot of the blame on the unintended consequences of well-intentioned individuals.
As always, I enjoy the debate.
I put a lot of the blame on the unintended consequences of well-intentioned individuals.
What percentage of the blame do you assign to the intended consequences of mal-intentioned individuals.
With regard to the reasons for the difference between the families down there and the ‘families’ up here, I’d put the pandering/resentment ratio at 65/35.
I’d like introduce another variable though- religion. I’m not an organized religion type of guy, but faith is a big deal in Central America. One of my black friends (maybe he likes me for the money, but I consider him a friend) sent me the third post in the link. You’ll have to wade through two of my posts from one of my heros (the wine level is dropping).
But I attribute much of the civility on the personal level in Central America to Christianity. It’s just a nicer place to live in many ways.
http://www.limes68.blogspot.com/
OCSteve,
I’m glad you are here to ask some difficult questions. Let me take a stab at answering them.
I’d draw an analogy to us being in a marriage of the old fashioned type, where neither side can really divorce, and we have to make do and stay together, cause there is no other option. Suppose the side with the financial/political/social power does something to the other side that is pretty grevious. If, in the aftermath, you (and this is just an analogy, no comment on anyone’s home life here) decide to fall back on logical arguments to defend your position, you are probably missing the point. All of the logical argumentation has the powerful side start off with the broad advantage, and the logic can be used to support things remaining the same. In such a situation, the person on the better side of the power differential needs to just pause and maybe wait a bit before launching into an argument about what is logical. Sometimes, that means just backing off and giving the other side space to develop their own notions and ideas. Other times, it means giving up something that might be defensible as yours as a gesture.
When this gets into difficulty is individual cases, but any public organization that deals with the public good (and in this, I include goverment, universities, schools) providing that space and those gestures are essential if we want to get over the problems that are currently faced. This may overly compensate some who do not deserve it and it may injure some who may not deserve to be pushed back. But if the goal is to reach a society that is something equivalent to a happy marriage, it is necessary.
I wish I could find it, but a native American writer described the situation as one where someone from down the street takes your bicycle and rides it everyday, using it for their paper route, to get to school, for any number of years, until the person really no longer needs it. After all this, the person comes up to you and says well, there’s always been this problem between us but isn’t it just time to let bygones be bygones. You reply but what about my bike, and the other person shrugs and says well, I guess you haven’t matured enough to get over it. That attitude is what Publius is addressing, what might be needed is not for you to do something, but for those who speak from a position of power (and again, this is not a request for you to stop writing, this is just a general notion) to hold their tongue and forgo complaining.
Interestingly, when I searched for the stolen bicycle story, I found this
October 8, 2004
Thomas Williams is in Soledad State Prison sentenced for buying a stolen bicycle under the Three-Strikes-Law. He says, “My prior serious felony convictions were non-violent burglary offenses from the early 1980’s. I have no violence in my background. The most recent offenses were less serious property theft offenses.” Thomas is a black man serving 25 years to life under three strikes.
Gary:Phil, old son. Have you ever heard of the stiletto versus the bludgeon?
Some people just need a good bludgeoning, Gary. Hell, I’m probably one of them.
Brett:“Hey, did you know that white immigrants are less likely to be discriminated against and more likely to get better jobs than even better-educated black immigrants? Don’t answer, because you clearly didn’t.”
Hey, did you know that “diversity” policies at many universities discriminate against white immigrants to make room for black immigrants, neither of whom have any relationship at all to America’s history of racism, purely on the basis of their skin color? Don’t answer, because you clearly didn’t.
Newflash, kid: If, as I mentioned, white immigrants are benefitting from the existing cultural and power structure at the expense of black immigrants — which they are — then they don’t need a historical connection to American racism. They benefit from it in the here and now. Just like you and I do, despite your or my family’s personal history and who moved where when. Unless you think that, in 1865, or in 1964, somebody pressed a giant RESET button on history. Is that what you think?
Same with you, OCSteve, with I agree with Brett that true color blindness is the best way to go.. Black people only got some real guarantees of their civil rights a century after a bloody war supposedly decided the issue, and that war came after two centuries of enslavement. Those guarantees came about in my parents’ lifetime, and only missed coming about in my lifetime by 5 years, and we’re supposed to pretend that everything’s all equal now and we can all just be “color-blind?”
OK, great, let’s be color-blind. But to do that we’re going to have to fix a lot of things in our culture — like not encouraging, or at least now allowing government imprimatur of, the flying of the flag of the losing side in that selfsame war, for starters — that are going to make a lot of people uncomfortable and may drive Bellmore into sheer apoplexy. You ready for that?
By the way, those who chose the “over” for “Democrats don’t really help black people anyway,” Bill’s 11:42 was the 40th comment in the thread. See my guy to collect. Also, someone explain to Bill the role of churches in the black communities in America, if you believe he’s educatable.
Phil, you’re demonstrating my point: You see a black guy, maybe the son of a wealthy businessman, or a recent immigrant from the Caribbean, and think, “Victim, needs compensation.” You see a white guy, perhaps the child of a poor Appalachian coal miner, and think, “Oppressor, needs to make restitution.”
What is racism, anyway, except the belief that race tells you what you really need to know about people, that you don’t need to treat them as individuals, with their own life stories? That you’re entitled to discriminate against this white guy, because THAT white guy did something wrong?
And, Phil? I haven’t been driven to sheer apoplexy since the time I tried to explain the laws of thermodynamics to a liberal arts major back in college. (“4th law of thermodynamics”, my ass!)
You see . . . and think . . . You see . . . and think
TWEEEEEEEEEEEEET! Mindreading penalty! 15 yards, still first down!
Since I see and think neither of those things, I suggest a new strategy:
Let the Wookiee winTry asking me what I think instead of telling me what I think, Jesurgislac Jr. It’s generally better for advancing things, since the other way is just you talking to yourself.(If, however, you want to argue in favor of class-based affirmative action — which will, of course, disproportionately aid blacks, who are disproportionately poor — I’m right behind you.)
I note that you decided to punt on the question of the reset button, so I’ll take that as a concession that it never happened and society was not automatically made fair, equitable and color-blind just because LBJ signed a bill some 43 years ago.
I do know that, in the case of your wealthy black immigrant and poor white Appalachian posited above, if they were to commit identical crimes, the black man would be some 6 times more likely to be sent to prison than the white man. So let’s start there with our discussion of color-blindness, and work backwards.
. . since the time I tried to explain the laws of thermodynamics to a liberal arts major back in college.
Uh, yeah. “Look at the big brain on Brett!” — Pulp Fiction. Brett got shot in the face by Sam Jackson right after that, btw, so there you have it.
Here are some more things to keep in mind as we continue with our discussion of color-blindiness:
— There are currently 4 black CEOs in the Fortune 500, fewer than 1% of the total.
— There have been 5 black Senators, ever. Three have served in my lifetime. One is serving now, and he’s running for President.
— There has, obviously, never been a black President or Vice-President.
— Being black, all by itself, confers a 4% greater chance of receiving the death penalty for a capital crime.
— Among District Attorneys in states with the death penalty, 97.5% of them are white men. Only 1% are black.
— On average, killing a white victim is 4-5x more likely to get you sentenced to death than killing a black victim.
But by all means, let’s all be color-blind and pretend this stuff isn’t going on. That will solve everything!
publius: Second, it should make you more sympathetic to civil rights policies – while not requiring you to agree with all of them. For instance, if you see that racism was more than what was written on law books, you can begin to see the symbolic (but substantive) importance of public measures like affirmative action.
I can see that. But I don’t necessarily equate civil rights with AA.
“Acknowledging it”, even if doesn’t lead to any direct policies, should hopefully shift this “first principle” – the initial emotional disposition. Once in place, other policy preferences will inevitably shift.
That makes sense. Thanks for the response.
LJ and Phil: I’ll have to think about that a bit before I have a substantial (or not) response.
Phil can cite statistics all he wants, but WE know implicitly that it is WAY MORE important to get our panties in a bunch when some white schleb is denied entrance to the UCLA Law School because (gasp!) he’s white.
Why, it’s a simple matter of priorities!
I put a lot of the blame on the unintended consequences of well-intentioned individuals.
I agree that there was, and is, a strong element of pandering in some of civil rights initiatives of the last 50 years. I also agree that affirmative action, specifically, has been a mixed blessing for folks who have benefited from it. I also have known, personally, folks who achieved positions they were not prepared for through programs like affirmative action, and who ultimately failed because of that.
All of that said, you could multiply the harm caused by the “unintended consequences of well-intentioned individuals” a million fold, and not begin to approach the real harm, both historical and persistent, that is the legacy of the chattel slavery of African blacks in America.
And no, a million is not an exaggeration.
A little perspective goes a long way.
Thanks –
Hasn’t this been said seven or eight times before?
Though, if it helps, I’ll mention it a ninth or tenth time…
(On the third hand, I’ve mentioned this before and some folks dismissed it by saying, “That’s just code for raced based aid!”)
You see a black guy, maybe the son of a wealthy businessman, or a recent immigrant from the Caribbean, and think, “Victim, needs compensation.” You see a white guy, perhaps the child of a poor Appalachian coal miner, and think, “Oppressor, needs to make restitution.”
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | December 27, 2007 at 07:36 AM
Brett are you a Marxists? 😉
Your class critique is still lacking.
(On the third hand, I’ve mentioned this before and some folks dismissed it by saying, “That’s just code for raced based aid!”)
It has to be dismissed that way, otherwise it avoids the reverse-racism critique applied to AA. What then?
Of course, it can only be code for race-based aid if there is an actual economic disparity between the races. Maybe some people think that’s okay, but they should have to admit that.
publius: There is systemic, structural poverty within the urban black community — and a big part of that was caused by the very things Ralph Ellison was writing about.
OK I think this may be your best point. That is, there is something concrete that I as an individual can do here. “Redlining” is responsible for much of this condition and continues to this day in various forms. As an individual I can actively support companies that work to undo this damage. I can take my business to the banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, and retail chains that go out of their way to help these neighborhoods recover from decades of discrimination. And I will look into that.
LJ: That attitude is what Publius is addressing, what might be needed is not for you to do something, but for those who speak from a position of power (and again, this is not a request for you to stop writing, this is just a general notion) to hold their tongue and forgo complaining.
I understand the point you are making here, and I can certainly forgo complaining. It would be absurd anyway. Don’t you think though that this approach is essentially indifference?
Phil: …and we’re supposed to pretend that everything’s all equal now and we can all just be “color-blind?”
I’m not one to hold out for the perfect. But I have to ask myself, is it right to discriminate against Asians today (in favor of Blacks)? Doesn’t that just mean that in 20 years we have to somehow make restitution to Asians? Who will we discriminate against then to give Asians more preference?
Now I’m all for ant-discrimination laws. And my version would be really really simple. No discrimination by any entity (government, private company, individual, etc.) against anyone for reasons of race, gender, or sexual identity. Fewer than 15 words covers it all.
Brett, a question.
Even if we were to uncritically accept your claim that Qualified Student X didn’t get into a certain law school “just because he’s white”, what’s the bigger picture? What happens to this hypothetical qualified white student if he doesn’t make it into one school? It would seem to me if he’s that qualified, he’s pretty likely to get into another school that’s comparable to the one that turned him down. Even (or perhaps especially) if he’s white. It’s not like law schools in general have systematically prevented white men from becoming lawyers or attaining positions of power.
Me: As a white privileged male I admit that by virtue of my position in society I have likely benefited from this.
Having thought about this some more I decided that I have to strike the word likely. Change it to “I have absolutely benefited from this”. In thinking about my career I can pin it down to one specific moment.
In 1990, I knew that IT was going to be big in the coming decade. I knew it with a certainty I had never felt before and I wanted in on it. I had a degree and some experience but I could not get my foot in the door. The companies that could give me the experience I needed just were not hiring.
After months of pounding the pavement I landed an interview at a (then) big IT company. It was a large enough company that you had to get through HR screening before the hiring manager ever saw your resume. The hiring manager only had the time to personally interview around 10 candidates. So the HR department screens hundreds of applications, does initial interviews, and sends on 10 candidates to the hiring manager. They sent him what they likely considered a diverse group. As I recall it was something like 4 whites, 3 blacks, and 3 others (I don’t recall the details, they were non-whites), half men and half women. I know this because we all had to take a technical aptitude test administered by the manager’s department and they gave it to all of us at the same time.
I did well on the test and wowed him in my interviews. I got the job. At the time I was pretty proud that I had beaten out 9 other people to get it.
Over the next 7 years I worked either for this man or in close proximity to him on a daily basis. As time went on I slowly came to the realization that he was one of the worst racists I had ever encountered. In both words and actions he was blatantly racist and sexist. As I looked around the company I realized that out of 2,000+ employees it was at least 90% lily-white.
I hadn’t beaten out 9 other people for the job. 6 of them never had a shot at all. I was chosen as the best candidate out of 4 white people.
That opportunity positioned me to take advantage of the dot-com bubble and made my career – so yes, I absolutely benefited from institutionalized racism. I feel more actual guilt over that than anything my forefathers may have done.
MY ancestors all moved to this country after the civil war, and moved to a state that was on the union side of that fight,
Brett
Well, good for you. I suppose you and your ancestors didn’t benefit from discrimination against blacks in education, housing or employment? You and your ancestors certainly didn’t benefit from the disenfranchisement of blacks? Your competition in the job market was eased by the discrimination against those you were competing with. Your competition for an education was eased by the discrimination against those you were competing with.
And I’m going to part with Publius on one point, there are a lot more racists out there than he admits. Those like you who accepted the fruits of discrimination and never spoke out against it when it was practiced against blacks, but who now bleat incessantly that affirmative action discriminates against THEM are as racist as Bull Connor ever was.
Sometimes the white student just is not as spectacular as s/he thinks s/he is.
Brett, a question.
Even if we were to uncritically accept your claim that Qualified Student X didn’t get into a certain law school “just because he’s white”, what’s the bigger picture?
Sometimes the white student just is not as spectacular as s/he thinks s/he is.
I hadn’t beaten out 9 other people for the job. 6 of them never had a shot at all. I was chosen as the best candidate out of 4 white people.
I work in the IT field myself, and judging by what you’ve said, unless the other three whites were also male, in the 90s the field was probably really just the white [i]men[/i].
IT’s still a pretty sexist field in general (the problems one of our — female — technical leads wades through with other departments are legendary), but it was a lot worse 10 years ago.
Don’t you think though that this approach is essentially indifference?
No, cause look what you say to Phil:
But I have to ask myself, is it right to discriminate against Asians today (in favor of Blacks)? Doesn’t that just mean that in 20 years we have to somehow make restitution to Asians? Who will we discriminate against then to give Asians more preference?
I’m Asian, and I’m not asking you to stand up for me. To place that out there as something to debate seems to be actively trying to hinder change (this doesn’t mean that I think you are the source of the problem, again, just in a general sense) Sure, I’m sure there are Asians who feel that they are getting the short end of the stick, but most, in my experience, don’t think about the unfairness as flowing from some sense of malice, and so, accept it as part of a process. I’m not as plugged into Asian-American communities, not growing up on the West Coast and living here, where I’m not considered Asian, I’m considered white, so I may be wrong, but there has been no mass movement to right the wrongs against Asians in university admissions that I know of.
BTW, there were a few Race-IQ debates on Crooked Timber in the past month or two; in those, Brett was so obnoxiously on the Bell Curve side that he was finally restricted to one post/day. On any topic. It’s hard to get banned or restricted on CT unless one is a blatant troll. This should be taken into account when judging the sincerity of Brett’s arguments.
“This should be taken into account when judging the sincerity of Brett’s arguments.”
Perhaps. Or not.
With due respect to whomever at CT was reacting to Brett’s comments there, Brett’s comments somewhere else are, in fact, irrelevant to his comments here.
I’m not, myself, interested in someone else’s opinion of Brett’s (or anyone else’s) comments in some discussion I haven’t read.
I’m interested in my own judgments on Brett’s comments that I have read, which, as it turns out, I’m perfectly capable of passing judgment upon myself, in context. Without needing to know what someone else somewhere else at some other time thought of something else Brett said.
And, after all, people can have good days and bad days, good months and bad months, be more sensible and easy-going at one time, and less sensible and more obnoxious another, and can also evolve and change opinions.
I also don’t see that Brett’s “sincerity” can be judged by the fact that Brett wrote “so obnoxiously.” That doesn’t even make any sense. At worst it would demonstrate that he was obnoxious. As it happens, people can be utterly sincere and obnoxious, or utterly pleasant and insincere. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
Just for the record, Charles Murray, co-author of “The Bell Curve”, recently found one individual on the unfortunate end of the curve who he thinks exceptionally gifted:
Jonah Goldberg.
Murray loved Goldberg’s latest exercise in low I.Q. nosepicking.
Meritocracy, my a##!
Murray’s remarks on Goldberg’s book (which I believe I read at Kevin Drum’s blog; sorry, Gary, I’m on the unfortunate end of the citation bell curve), are an exercise in politically correct self-esteem inflation for the incorrigibly dumb.
The two of them make the liberal in me want to visit the unfortunate end of the fascism bell curve.
Incidentally, if Murray’s thesis, the plural of which rhymes with “feces”, is legitimate, civilization might last as long as Benazir Bhutto’s latest term in office.
Gary Farber: “Brett’s comments somewhere else are, in fact, irrelevant to his comments here. ”
Riiiiiiight.
Did you have an argument, Barry?
Because of an absence of one tends to reveal an absence of one.
A few thoughts:
First: Any white person (like me) owes it to society in general and African Americans specifically to acknowledge that we have all received some benefit from being white in this country. Maybe it is simply going through the door and avoiding the receipt check as mentioned above. Maybe it is the job offer over a minority. The acknowledgment must be more than simply that there has been racism in the past.
In this regard, Publius’ post mentioning the invisible man hits the nail on the head. I remember inviting a friend over for dinner when my two oldest daughters were quite young. Being from Alaska, I had not been exposed to overt racism against African Americans nor had my daughters. Although we knew many African Americans, this friend had truly ebony skin. My daughters were quite taken by his appearance and thought his skin was beautiful and made the sort of comments only children can make. It took him a couple of moments to realize that they were entirely sincere in their childish innocence and were being complimentary.
He shared that with us after the fact (we had been in the kitchen finishing dinner and hadn’t heard). His explanation to us of his first reaction before realizing that my kids were being accepting and loving hit me hard. He was suffering the internal discrimination Publius’ notes.
Second, we need to acknowledge that many of us come from areas of the country that were never anywhere near the sort of discrimination that occurred in the south. Our only tie to racism is being white and the privilege that fact still connotes in today’s society. LJ’s “marriage” metaphor exemplifies the attitude that is a bit offensive to those whites who have not been racist and sincerely want a world with no racism. In that metaphor, the “bad” spouse includes all whites. “Our side” did something wrong to the “other side.” I did NOTHING wrong to the “other side” nor do I consider my fellow Americans the “other side.” I was not riding the bike of my fellow African American citizen; it was the OTHER white kid on the block. Sure, I should be understanding of why the African American kid understandably doesn’t want to let “bygones be bygones” vis a vis the other white kid. But should I be understanding of why he is mad at me?
Obviously the second acknowledgment is less important than the first. I know whatever offense I feel being lumped in with racist whites pales in comparison to what an African American feels when faced with real discrimination. But the discussion is not complete without both.
Third, the Bruce Bartlett issue is an entirely different matter. The effort to show Reagan to be a racist suffers from more than a little hypocrisy. Barlett was way over the top and lacking historical perspective but at the same time I find the strong reaction from the left funny after the Reagan bash.
bc, I was enjoying and agreeing with your comment, right up until the last paragraph. Only Republicans think of factual references to things Republican politicians unquestionably did as “bashing”. Twenty years down the line, Republicans will doubtless claim that any discussion of how Bush lied the US into war with Iraq is “bashing Bush” – as, come to that, they now refer to any such discussion as an example of “BDS”….
Speaking for the left (which I get to do because we agreed on this at one of our Top-Secret meetings), I think Reagan could stand a little knocking off his pedestal. He was not such a great President, really. He had some great rhetoric, but so what? What were his great achievements? Cutting the marginal tax rate? Whoopee.
Now, if you want to talk about unfair bashing, Bartlett going after Thomas Jefferson was a little much.
Jes:
First, I wasn’t moved by Publius’ Barlett’s comments so that was an unrelated afterthought. My point there wasn’t what someone did. Let’s assume the “Philadelphia” argument is completely true: the GOP overtly appealed to racist voters. Let’s also assume that the Dems institutionally rejected racism as part of the civil rights movement. Given democratic associations in the recent past pre-Reagan, one would expect the Reagan attacks to be a bit tempered. They are not. On the other hand, simply pointing out racist associations on the part of the Dems in that time period seems to bring out a huge hue and cry. One would expect more introspection, given the other point in Publius’ post.
OTOH, going back to Thomas Jefferson to associate the democratic party is a bit absurd.
bc,
great comment and I agree that there is a problem assigning all white people to a singular entity, which is why it gets so tricky when we talk about individual cases. But the dynamic of the two spouses seems to be precisely the situation that we have in our country. A retort to African Americans complaining about things like this is ‘if you don’t like it, why don’t you go back to where you came from’, seems to be precisely what happens is situations like this. OCSteve’s question about what will happen when Asians start to complain (and I’m not picking on him here, it just serves as a good example) is a perfect example of arguing future problems prevent some sort of change in behavior/attitude in the present.
This may be one reason why the attacks on the Repbulican party are not tempered, because the benefit that the Republican party gained (and the damage it caused to the body politic of the US) doesn’t seem to be acknowledged at all by some. Another may be guilt, but when we start looking at the actual state of society, we seem to have a lot to be guilty about, but a final fillup might be anger, because with Republicans moving so far to one end of the spectrum, it gives the Democratic party license to stake out a position that isn’t very impressive, but permits them take the center right and pretend it is the left.
Our only tie to racism is being white and the privilege that fact still connotes in today’s society…. I did NOTHING wrong to the “other side” nor do I consider my fellow Americans the “other side.”
Here’s a thought, just for the hell of it.
Maybe the purpose of affirmative action isn’t to punish white (or other privileged) people. Maybe the point is to help black (or other, less privileged) people.
An analogy: maybe the point of social safety net programs isn’t to punish rich people, but to help poor people.
I don’t hear anyone promoting affirmative action as a means of poking white people in the eye to punish them for being racists. It’s just an attempt to level the playing field.
Whether, and in what cases, the playing field still needs leveling, and whether AA is the best way to achieve that, are questions worth asking. But as far as I can tell, the purpose of AA is not “sticking it to whitey”.
Thanks –
Russell:
The quote from my comment was not intended to say anything about AA. I was responding to the following part of Publius’ post:
The first step then isn’t so much to adopt this or that remedial policy, but to simply step back and acknowledge it.
I was agreeing and adding that the response to the acknowledgment of the “internal discrimination” to which Publius was referring should be a counter acknowledgment that many white’s only tie to racism is the color of their skin.
I do not view the purpose of AA as “sticking it to whitey.” I think it originally was meant to level the playing field. I think it has serious problems as a way to overcome racism but that is another subject and not one I was trying to address.
However, I agree that the playing field is not level and that whether AA is the best way to achieve it is a question worth asking.
I think you are referring to Brett’s comments on collective racial guilt. I think his comment reflects somewhat in my experience. I often feel I am expected to do something to somehow expiate for the sins of other racist whites. The acknowledgment referenced above is not seen as enough. While I personally feel morally compelled to do something more, I’m not sure it should be expected.
It seems that AA is sometimes justified on the “racial guilt” basis that Brett alludes to. Even your comment here has a twinge of the argument:
All of that said, you could multiply the harm caused by the “unintended consequences of well-intentioned individuals” a million fold, and not begin to approach the real harm, both historical and persistent, that is the legacy of the chattel slavery of African blacks in America.
With all due respect, if racial guilt is not a component, why even bring this up as justification for AA’s harm? Any right minded person will acknowledge that nothing can make up for slavery. But brushing aside objections that AA is racist with a “well, it’s not even close to what has been done in the past” implies racial guilt (that you can discriminate against a race for something done by their race because, you know, it’s nowhere close to what’s been done to the other race). I see Brett’s point about the only basis for AA being racial guilt. I’m not sure I completely agree with it, but I am not convinced it should be brushed aside.
I don’t have a perfect solution. We have tried AA for some time now. Why not try being completely color blind in law and act as if at that level and see if society follows? If not, we can always go back. I realize I have now addressed what I was not intending to address earlier. Hope I don’t have to dive for cover . . .
bc: I was agreeing and adding that the response to the acknowledgment of the “internal discrimination” to which Publius was referring should be a counter acknowledgment that many white’s only tie to racism is the color of their skin.
I agree: I think that’s an important acknowledgement to make. White people living in a racist society do have a tie to racism by the color of their skin: the short version of that is “white privilege”. White people need to acknowledge that we have this tie: that we benefit from racism because we are white, even if we ourselves would not dresm of being actively racist.
Affirmative action is one method of redressing white privilege – and, not at all incidentally, in reducing unconscious racism. If (to use OCSteve’s example) you work for a big computer firm and all the software engineers you know are white, you may come to believe that this is because black people are just not smart enough to be software enginers – rather than acknowledging that the racist gatekeeper who refused to hire anyone but a white person is just the final barrier. The white people who got jobs as software engineers had a tie to racism in the color of their skin – and yes, I agree: step back and acknowledge that. (Much as OCSteve did.)
I think you are referring to Brett’s comments on collective racial guilt.
Yes, and also my understanding of your point. My apologies if I misread you.
Even your comment here has a twinge of the argument
No, not really.
Bill commented on the different experiences of US and Central American blacks, and offered the opinion that the relatively worse experience of US blacks was due to unintended consequences from the actions of well-meaning do-gooders. IMO, the legacy of chattel slavery, followed by 100 years of Jim Crow, far outweighs the negative consequences of civil rights legislation, however real those may be. And by “far”, I mean orders of magnitude.
That’s all.
Affirmative action, in any of the forms it’s taken, is not based on a doctrine of collective white guilt, nor is it intended to punish whites for their sins. It is intended to provide a pragmatic remedy for institutional prejudice against blacks (and other groups who are demonstrably the target of discrimination).
I don’t know if it’s a good program, a bad program, or a total wash. I have yet to see anyone on either side of the argument lay out facts and figures to demonstrate whether it’s useful or not. I’d love to see the data, because we could then make a useful and reasonable decision about the value of the program. Short of that, it devolves into discussions of white guilt, unqualified blacks sneaking into positions they don’t deserve, and other unedifying topics.
My guess on that question is that AA’s success is, at best, mixed. Lots of attempts to change people’s behavior by law are like that. Unfortunately, lots of attempts to change people’s behavior *without* law are also mixed. So, you take your pick of which approach will bring you closest to what you’re trying to achieve, within the limits of what you’re allowed to do.
I would trade AA in a heartbeat for harsh laws against civil rights violations, coupled with aggressive enforcement. Pass someone over for a job based on race, gender, or whatever, you lose yours. Deny someone a mortgage based on race, gender, or whatever, you buy them their house or give them yours. You get the idea. That would clear things up in a hurry, and wouldn’t make non-offenders feel that they were being put out in any way.
In any case, while I agree that it’s good for all of us to acknowledge whatever prejudices we may hold, relying on that kind of personal epiphany to correct larger scale, institutional prejudice is kind of the long way around. It’s good, but it doesn’t always open the door. IMO we either have to try to take it on at a policy level, or just accept it as a legacy of our history. One or the other.
Thanks –
“I don’t know if it’s a good program, a bad program, or a total wash.”
There’s no “it,” of course. It’s not useful to say there is.
There are some — very separate and distinct and different — specific and unique programs at various institutions. Name one, if you wish to discuss it.
But there’s no one “affirmative action program” in America, and it’s meaningless to speak as if there is one, Russell. Worse, it’s saying something exists that doesn’t.
One can’t discuss a generic, non-existent, “affirmative action” that doesn’t exist.
That people, for some inexplicable reason, keep trying to do so, is what keeps everyone so bewildered. I wish everyone would stop.
Discuss any actual, real program, all you like. Imaginary national ones are really not helpful. Discussing someone else’s fantasies is not helpful.
Well, the legal basis for the various affirmative action programs came about BECAUSE the color-blind approach to law was taken and was found to have no difference on the specified programs.
Now, it’s a good point that a few decades have passed, but I’m not sure that legally the underlying situation has changed (and it would probably have to fall to the changers of the status quo to show that it has).
And, as Gary points out, you need to consider actual, existing programs, and not try to argue about affirmative action programs in the abstract.
“Affirmative action, in any of the forms it’s taken, is not based on a doctrine of collective white guilt, nor is it intended to punish whites for their sins. It is intended to provide a pragmatic remedy for institutional prejudice against blacks (and other groups who are demonstrably the target of discrimination).”
I’d say that it’s based on a doctrine of collective racial guilt, in this sense: Without some conception of collective racial guilt, it’s hard to explain why it’s permissible to commit what IS, after all, racial discrimination against a new victim group, as a remedy for racial discrimination which was committed by a quite different set of oppressors.
Also problematic without racial collectivism is the real word practice of completely ignoring whether the beneficiary of racial preferences is actually in any sense a victim of the former racism they’re supposedly a remedy for.
Racial preferences treat both blacks and non-blacks as interchangeable victims and oppressors, with skin color being considered sufficient information to assign benefits and costs. That is racism, pure and simple.
“Did you have an argument, Barry?
Because of an absence of one tends to reveal an absence of one.”
Posted by: Gary Farber
The absence of an argument in that comment is irrelevant to the absence of an argument. Sorry, I’m trying your logic 🙂
Your argument about irrelevancy is, of course, simply incorrect. The behavior of Brett on another forum does have something to do with judging him here. Upon reading the threads, you might have decided that it didn’t, but that’s not a valid or true statement to make beforehand.
It would have been defensible to to say that you’ll refrain from judging Brett based on the judgments of somebody you didn’t know. However, I’ve seen his Brett’s behavior on race-based threads here, and one could make a hard test, trying to distinguish between his attitude here and there.
I agree with you, Barry, I’m behaving basically the same both here and there. Which is to say, I’m calmly advancing arguments liberals don’t like to hear. The real differences between this site and Crooked Timber are,
1. I’m not being met by vicious ad hominems here, but instead countering arguments.
2. The site isn’t run by a censorious control freak who uses said ad hominems as an excuse to bar people who disagree with him.
All in all, Obsidian Wings is the superior site, for all Crooked Timber’s scholarly pretensions.
“Former racism.” The big brain on Brett quickly deflates.
Tell me, Brett, absent current racism, where do you suppose those death penalty discrepancies I outlined above come from? Fantasyland?
Well, hypothetically, and keeping in mind that I don’t have the data to confirm or reject any hypothesis, it could be that,
1. Black on black murders take place mostly where juries will be majority black, and blacks don’t support the death penalty, so black murderers don’t get it.
2. There could be some systematic difference between the circumstances surrounding black on white and white on black murders.
But I’d be willing to accept racism as an explanation for the discrepancy, too.
I say “former” racism, not because I think racism is all in the past, but because the obvious remedy for present racism is to stop racism, it’s only past racism which could require some other remedy to counter.
Brett: but because the obvious remedy for present racism is to stop racism
And one of the ways of doing that is affirmative action programs.
the obvious remedy for present racism is to stop racism
Fabulous. Don’t bother addressing the symptom, go right for the cause. A brilliant insight.
I can think of two ways to do this:
1. magically transform the character of every human on earth
2. criminalize or otherwise harshly penalize discriminatory behavior and rigorously enforce the penalty
Which, in real life, resolves to (2). Are you up for that?
If not, you’re signing up for turning a blind eye to institutional discrimination for the foreseeable future. Period.
Thanks –
No, because “affirmative action”, in it’s most common incarnation as racial preferences and quotas, isn’t a way of stopping racism, it IS racism, with the victims and oppressors swapped around, and an extra helping of self-righteousness.
Gary: But there’s no one “affirmative action program” in America, and it’s meaningless to speak as if there is one, Russell. Worse, it’s saying something exists that doesn’t.
O.k., fine, no Department of Affirmative Action. And getting specific can be helpful. But we were talking about AA in the general sense, as in whether ANY preference is a proper remedy for past wrongs. I don’t think anyone took Russell’s comment as implying there was some sort of national program other than Supreme Court interpretation of permissible preferences in light of the Civil Rights Act. Nor did you. 🙂
gwangung: I’m not sure what “changers of the status quo” means. Could you explain? Are you just using that term for whites? And why should the burden be on any one group? If we’re all in this together, or want to be, minorities should be just as eager to end preferential treatment as soon as possible (as soon as the situation has been remedied sufficiently).
I had this discussion a while back about what point is “enough.” I don’t have the answer but that to me is the problem. It is problematic to say “we’ll know it when we see it” and “it’s not time yet so why worry for now.”
As for getting specific, fine, let’s discuss the UofM’s undergraduate and law school admissions policy (Bolinger). I thought the undergraduate system was way too formulaic and fundamentally unfair even as a remedy for past discrimination. I had less problem with the law school system. However, I’m not sure what a “critical mass” of minority students is and whether that is all that different from a quota. I have no problem with preferring a minority “all things being equal” for a time although I can’t say what that time should be. I even think that something a bit more would be fine with me (although I can’t articulate what that would be) so long as there were some end date so to speak.
My difficulty in giving specifics is, I believe, simply a reflection of the difficulty of the problem. If we don’t just stop, why not simply say “X years of preference” and after that it’s done? I might even support outright quotas with a definitive end date. I might even support a NATIONAL program with an end date.
Just no department of AA. Enough with the government spending already.
russell: Which, in real life, resolves to (2). Are you up for that?
Well, you can also use affirmative action programs to fight against institutional racism.
Brett: in it’s most common incarnation as racial preferences and quotas, isn’t a way of stopping racism, it IS racism, with the victims and oppressors swapped around
As I recall, last time we discussed this, you were unable to show any evidence of your thesis that affirmative action “IS racism”. Going to try again, this time with actual evidence?
Keep repeating the obvious and ignore any alternatives.
The legal basis for affirmative action cases (various cases against both companies and labor unions) is that it is a race-based solution and were acknowledged as being racial in nature, but were accepted as being the least damaging solution (taking into account the status quo as being an alternative).
bc: However, I’m not sure what a “critical mass” of minority students is and whether that is all that different from a quota. I have no problem with preferring a minority “all things being equal” for a time although I can’t say what that time should be.
Well, one mechanism for looking at whether affirmative action is still needed is to look at the proportion of minority students in the law school versus the proportion of minority students in the school’s catchment area, and plan to continue until there’s no significant difference between the two.
As always, always, always, the legal determination is what is the least harmful solution. It is no argument to reject a race based solution if there are no alternatives given, or to maintain the status quo (both of which are really kind of obvious). It is also not a good argument (in my book) to throw out an alternative that MIGHT work, at some time in the future, without some sort of measure of definite progress (because that maintains the harm that is being done without a solid enough measure of alleviation).
Well, your fuzziness may be due in part to my own fuzziness in writing…
But my thinking stems from thinking about groups as a whole (and does not necessarily apply to just one group; much of it is context based, as, for example, I would not want an entire medical class to consist of Asian Americans, despite test scores). Too, it’s a bit of a problem when there’s evidence that the underlying problems of racism has not disappeared, but are still persistent (as you point out).
Yes, it’s a difficult problem; we shouldn’t pretend it’s not.
“Well, one mechanism for looking at whether affirmative action is still needed is to look at the proportion of minority students in the law school versus the proportion of minority students in the school’s catchment area, and plan to continue until there’s no significant difference between the two.”
Which will be never. Has it occurred to you that one of the consequences of cultural diversity is that, even in the utter absence of discrimination, different groups aren’t going to chose particular career paths in the same exact proportions?
Find a stopping rule that would eventually be satisfied in the real world, or admit that you mean for the quotas to last forever.
Well, you can also use affirmative action programs to fight against institutional racism.
Quite so. The options I listed were in response to Brett, who’d prefer to leave affirmative action aside.
Find a stopping rule that would eventually be satisfied in the real world, or admit that you mean for the quotas to last forever.
IMO, a reasonable standard for success for an affirmative action program would be if there was no statistically significant difference in the demographic mix of folks who wanted into a program vs those who actually got in, all other things being equal.
That’s hard to measure in the real world, because of the “all other things being equal” part. But IMO it’s a pretty reasonable standard.
Here’s the deal, Brett.
Nobody is saying affirmative action is a perfect solution. Giving preferential treatment based on race is not the ideal approach.
But the utter absence of discrimination is a fantasy.
Whether it’s bad enough to merit attention at the policy level, whether there is anything you can do about it at the policy level, whether any particular policy is actually effective, and whether the negative effects of any particular policy are acceptable — these are all good questions. And as Gary pointed out, none have meaningful answers in the abstract. They need to be answered in the context of particular programs and situations.
And I really, really do take your point that racial preferments in any direction are not a great thing, and ideally should not exist.
But the ideal isn’t available, so we either have to find other ways to at least try to approximate something like fairness, or else agree to accept unfairness as an unfortunate fact of life.
Pick one.
Thanks –
The admirable Russell: “And I really, really do take your point that racial preferments in any direction are not a great thing, and ideally should not exist.”
Since I feel it would do Brett good to hear it, and it’s still that season in our culture, I’ll repeat that: racial preferments in any direction are not a great thing, and ideally should not exist.
That’s not something most anyone of us, I suspect, disagrees about. It’s not an issue. The question is whether, like democracy in Winston’s words, it might be at times and places, in controlled amounts, the least bad response to evil history.
But that it should be limited, at best, also isn’t a question.
What then is at question is whether any addressing at all by government of “race” issues is valid, proportional, and justified. Not that it should be limited in time, space, and every other aspect.
Brett says “never.” I don’t find it an indefensible position at all. I find it rather ahistoric and questionable and arguable, but not incomprehensible or inherently unreasonable.
But the ideal isn’t available is a point I should have emphatically agreed with. That‘s the point of departure for asking what should be done?
Personally, if we just had a negative income tax that took everyone out of poverty (easily affordable when compared to the expense of the Iraq war), and funded social services that didn’t seek to punish and drive off people from seeking them (yes, while also being structured in a way to avoid encouraging dependency from those not needing to be dependent), I’d be thrilled and happy to dispense with all “race”-based solutions and responses to opportunity, equality, and a good life.
Or what someone once called a Great Society.
But are we all for that sort of non-racial solution to poverty? Or do we think that poverty is eternal, and that governmental response to it is simply damaging and useless?
Gary,
With all due respect, Brett’s position is inherently unreasonable. He does not deny racism exists. He calls AA ‘racist’. That is his whole argument.
He calls this making liberals ‘uncomfortable’. I call it showing another example of the bankruptcy of movement conservativism.
He brings nothing to the discussion, to wit: given institutional and widespread societal racism by whites (who, some keep forgetting here, actually, like, RUN things in this nation), what is an appropriate policy response?
If all Phil’s facts were totally wrong and there were no significant statistical outcome discrepancies due to race, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion, and there would be no AA.
Pretty damnned obvious, if you ask me.
Has it occurred to you that one of the consequences of cultural diversity is that, even in the utter absence of discrimination, different groups aren’t going to chose particular career paths in the same exact proportions?
Someone said upthread that in a discussion on another thread, you’d strongly defended The Bell Curve theory. This does sound like more of the same.
Given that we have no idea what a society will look like in the utter absence of racial discrimination, how on earth could you know that, in such utter absence, people will choose professions based on their color of skin? “Cultural diversity” in my experience does not strongly affect a person’s choice of career: discrimination in education or the workplace does.
“With all due respect, Brett’s position is inherently unreasonable. He does not deny racism exists. He calls AA ‘racist’. That is his whole argument.”
You don’t have to identify erythropoietin as an appropriate treatment to know that bloodletting doesn’t cure anemia. Racial preferences don’t eliminate racism, they reinforce it, by legitimizing treating people according to skin color. So long as racial discrimination is official policy, racism will thrive.
In a nutshell, I believe that the Democratic party, after a period of remission, went back to it’s roots as a provider of racial spoils, with the only real difference being who gets them. It was the path of least resistance, after all, and buying votes is a constant temptation for politicians.
Which is why Democrats are not adverse to a “remedy” which promises to perpetuate the disease, and thus be available as an excuse to buy black votes forever: If you ever stopped getting damned near every black vote, you’d be toast, wouldn’t you? Why would you want to ever stop making those payments?
What is to be done about racism? Step one is already being done in several states, thanks to the successes of Ward Conorly: Racial discrimination [i]by agents of the government[/i] must be banned.
The 14th amendment doesn’t, honestly read, authorize the federal government to demand more, but states are free to go beyond this, and ban private sector racial discrimination, too. I can’t say that as a libertarian I’m enthusiastic about this: Freedom lives in the space between what we should do, and can be compelled to do, between what we shouldn’t do, and can be compelled to refrain from. A world where all that’s not prohibited is mandatory is my nightmare.
But, still, banning private sector racial discrimination would help the cause of extinguishing racism, and would at least present a uniform front on the subject of whether racial discrimination is acceptable.
Third, racism needs to be subject to public shunning.
Above all, if we are to have any hope of abolishing racism, we need an utterly unmixed message that it’s unacceptable. NOT that it’s unacceptable in one direction, and public policy in the other.
But I’d be willing to accept racism as an explanation for the discrepancy, too.
Well, that’s might white of you.
Above all, if we are to have any hope of abolishing racism, we need an utterly unmixed message that it’s unacceptable.
That sounds fine to me, but let’s put some teeth in it, OK? I’m holding out for the eye for an eye approach.
Deny someone a job based on race or gender, you lose your job.
Deny someone a mortgage based on race or gender, you buy them their house or give them yours.
Deny someone a place in school based on race or gender, you pay for their education.
I’m not sure public shunning will do the job. Hit ’em in the pocketbook, that gets folks attention in a hurry.
Thanks –
Brett: . Racial preferences don’t eliminate racism, they reinforce it, by legitimizing treating people according to skin color. So long as racial discrimination is official policy, racism will thrive.
I’m not seeing any recognition from you that, where there are no affirmative action programs consciously making employers and college admins look at people of color, the default is all too often an affirmative action program by which white jobseekers or students get places.
Russell is suggesting that instead of undoing this white-supremacist affirmative action program by putting in place a program that forces employers and colleges to be racially diverse, people are punished severely for racist actions. The problem with that as a strategy is that the more severe a punishment is for what is regarded as culturally normal behavior, the less likely a person is to be convicted of the crime. It has been demonstrated (over and over again) that it’s more effect to change the cultural patterns of behavior – and one means of doing that is affirmative action programs.
By the latter, Brett, I mean:
It’s been demonstrated that when you begin from institutional racism, with people doing the hiring or running admissions, who are – without intending to be racist – “seeing” a white person over a black person, merely having “colorblind” rules isn’t enough.
A good affirmative action program has been demonstrated to be an effective way of getting past that stage – changing the culture of institutional racism.
You reject that, because you think it unfair to white people to have employers or admissions admin required to hire (or to admit) people of color, when they could be accepting white people instead.
So, what’s your strategy for changing a culture of institutional racism? So far all we’ve heard from you is rejection of strategies proven to work: do you have any positive ideas about how to change institutional racism?
Jes: A good affirmative action program has been demonstrated to be an effective way of getting past that stage – changing the culture of institutional racism.
Do you really think it changes it? Or does it just drive it underground where it can be even more insidious? For instance, who to choose is always a very subjective decision. Choosing one person over another can almost always be justified in ways that stay far away from race. What I have in mind here is the manager I mentioned. HR would never catch him at his game. His hiring/promotion decisions always appeared to be well justified. As long as the decision involves an interview process it’s never going to be objective.
Look, Jes, you can’t reasonably penalize people for failing to do the impossible. And, in a society where different ethnic/racial groups have different educational achievement, that means that it’s impossible for a college admissions office or a hiring department to achieve strict racial proportions, unless they throw qualifications out the window, and impose a quota system.
And that’s not abolishing racial discrimination, it’s institutionalizing it. It only “works” if your aim is to create the illusion of a non-racist society, over the reality of racism.
You want to eventually reach a society where different racial groups are going to get admitted to college in proportion to their numbers, without racial discrimination? You won’t do it with quotas and racial preferences. You’ll have to look at root causes, and work your way through the age demographics, fixing out of wedlock birth rates, prenatal nutrition, pre-school nurturing, cultural attitudes towards educational accomplishment. Year by year, step by step, you’ll have to do something liberals are, by virtue of their multi-culturalism, ill equipped to do:
You’ll have to commit cultural genocide, abolish the cultural differences between ethnic/racial groups.
Because those cultural differences are how the legacy of ages of racism work’s it’s ill effect on the present generation.
You’ll have to look at root causes, and work your way through the age demographics, fixing out of wedlock birth rates, prenatal nutrition, pre-school nurturing, cultural attitudes towards educational accomplishment.
Great ideas, Brett. I’m in favor of all of them. In fact, dare I say it, those solutions sound very… liberal. Walk through what you’re suggesting from beginning to end: who’s going to help? It’s not going to be churches or charities–they can only do so much. It’s not going to be their neighbors–they’re just as poor.
It’s going to be the government, Brett. What you’re talking about are government programs. If you think these things are the real solution to a lack of minorities being successful, then I suggest you work within your party to have them stop obstructing your proposed solutions, along with improving the quality of schools in poor urban communities, eliminating draconian laws that are designed to disproportionately incarcerate blacks for longer sentences, universal basic health care that would ensure everyone gets what they /need/ without having to worry about feeding their children that month, and any of the other thousands of things Republicans as a whole routinely fight against.
When you stand behind a party that effectively says government should get out of the way and let everyone sink or swim on their own, rather than trying to figure out how to reduce the number of people who sink as much as possible, you are not part of the solution, and have no place criticizing the proposed solutions of those who are.
You want to eventually reach a society where different racial groups are going to get admitted to college in proportion to their numbers, without racial discrimination? You won’t do it with quotas and racial preferences. You’ll have to look at root causes, and work your way through the age demographics, fixing out of wedlock birth rates, prenatal nutrition, pre-school nurturing, cultural attitudes towards educational accomplishment.
And these things aren’t significantly impacted by the systematic denial of educational opportunity? Of course all these things need to be addressed head-on as well (though I can’t imagine what would improve cultural attitudes toward education better than education itself). But without the educational component, I don’t see how you can succeed in any of these areas.
Year by year, step by step, you’ll have to do something liberals are, by virtue of their multi-culturalism, ill equipped to do:
You’ll have to commit cultural genocide, abolish the cultural differences between ethnic/racial groups.
I think you are mistaken in assuming that changing these sorts of negative aspects of a culture (and the use of “culture” here is really mushy, given the incredible cultural diversity among black Americans) is tantamount to destroying that culture. Of course, your phrasing here — “cultural genocide” — is very loaded, unless you are actually talking about something morally repugnant and unconstitutional, like re-education camps or some such. You could be more clear, I think, about what you see as the more conservative (or illiberal?) solution to these problems.
Or perhaps your point, Brett, is that the conservative solution is no solution at all or, put more succinctly, “sucks to be you”?
To try and return to some examples, I suggest we should consider the example of orchestral musicians discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in _Blink_. Whereas previously, orchestras were a very male dominated preserve, when orchestras went to a blind audition, it resulted in a a much more balanced situation. Here’s a link to Gladwell’s discussion of the conclusion, which includes cites to papers about orchestral auditions. I’d be interested to know how this example is wrong or how it is somehow different from the case of racism being discussed here.
“and the use of “culture” here is really mushy, given the incredible cultural diversity among black Americans”
Yup, as diverse as their success or failure.
“Of course, your phrasing here — “cultural genocide” — is very loaded, unless you are actually talking about something morally repugnant and unconstitutional, like re-education camps or some such.”
Yes, it is pretty much my contention that, short of coercive destruction of cultural diversity, you could never conceivably reach a state where there would just automatically be no statistical disparities in hiring and admissions, even if there were no such thing as racism.
But it is also my contention that curing the damage of past racism is going to inevitably require changing a lot of black culture, because a lot of that culture IS the damage from past racism, and so long as it stays intact, the damage will remain.
But I don’t see how that can be done by government. Government is not the answer to all problems.
OCSteve: Do you really think it changes it?
In the long run, yes. I think it has to be clearly understood that you don’t change anything in the short run.
Or does it just drive it underground where it can be even more insidious?
If you mean that people who are racist will continue to try to be racist even though policies and regulations and laws forbid them to be racist, yes, I’m sure they will. And they will be bitterly resentful of having to hire or work with or study alongside people they see as inferior. And they will claim that these “inferior” people only got the job, or got into the course, because of the color of their skin – and they will try to prove this by pointing out some white candidate who didn’t get in whom they claim was superior to the black candidate who did.
But twenty to forty years down the line, yes, this will make a difference. You have to start somewhere. You want to go take a look at the white reaction to the 1948 Executive Order to integrate the military? It’s educational. But, fifty years on, the US military had become famous worldwide as an example of how forcible integration and affirmative action can change an institution that anyone would have said was locked into institutional racism.
Jes: Solid response. I love that you and I can participate on the same blog.
“A good affirmative action program has been demonstrated to be an effective way of getting past that stage – changing the culture of institutional racism.”
Which institutions do you believe that affirmative action has been a key or an integral part of breaking down institutional racism?
I’m not sure I understand how you equate the integration of the military with this. I could be totally missing the history of it, but I’m unaware of *affirmative action* being a large part of this. The order to integrate wasn’t affirmative action at all. It was an order to stop discriminating against black people.
Liberal_japonicus, “Whereas previously, orchestras were a very male dominated preserve, when orchestras went to a blind audition, it resulted in a a much more balanced situation. Here’s a link to Gladwell’s discussion of the conclusion, which includes cites to papers about orchestral auditions. I’d be interested to know how this example is wrong or how it is somehow different from the case of racism being discussed here.”
I would be 100% unshocked to find that this example is true. But notice that the remedy to the situation was not anything remotely similar to affirmative action. It would analogize to completely race-blind admission processes for example.
That’s a good point, Sebastian, but notice that this would be precisely the nub that Brett would object to if the government instituted completely color-blind hiring procedures, preventing employers from asking about race or havin face to face interviews and dealing out stiff penalties for those that do. And you too, I think, given what I remember as your libertarian leanings, iirc. (And this is what has been done in Japan to deal with the problem of discrimination against Burakumin and we are prohibited from asking for a range of information in any sort of application process)
Also, given that Brett seems to argue that we are close enough to color blind in the US, we do not need AA (I’d note that it’s not clear to me precisely what his stance is, as sometimes he’s suggesting that the playing field is level enough and other times, he is arguing that the cultures represented by minorities in general and African Americans in particular would be lost in permitting them access to jobs reflecting actual demographics), the point of th anecdote is to suggest that he is wrong on this. Interestingly, the Vienna Philharmonic is probably the last major orchestra to have non-blind auditions and the ‘Kultur’ of the Orchestra is held up as a reason to permit this.
At any rate, given that there is no way to intervene in the hiring process in a way similar to that done with orchestras, AA would seem to be the appropriate intervention, at least to me, and if it is not, then what would be appropriate to replace it? Of course, all sorts of draconian impositions could be suggested, (I seem to recall one thread (probably not here) where someone argued for increased police powers of search and arrest, and when questioned about the problems with it, balanced them with proposing a death penalty for cops who commit perjury), but given the state of society, what would you (not you specifically, but a general 2nd person pronoun) propose?
That’s a good point, Sebastian, but notice that this would be precisely the nub that Brett would object to if the government instituted completely color-blind hiring procedures, preventing employers from asking about race or havin face to face interviews and dealing out stiff penalties for those that do. And you too, I think, given what I remember as your libertarian leanings, iirc. (And this is what has been done in Japan to deal with the problem of discrimination against Burakumin and we are prohibited from asking for a range of information in any sort of application process)
Also, given that Brett seems to argue that we are close enough to color blind in the US, we do not need AA (I’d note that it’s not clear to me precisely what his stance is, as sometimes he’s suggesting that the playing field is level enough and other times, he is arguing that the cultures represented by minorities in general and African Americans in particular would be lost in permitting them access to jobs reflecting actual demographics), the point of th anecdote is to suggest that he is wrong on this. Interestingly, the Vienna Philharmonic is probably the last major orchestra to have non-blind auditions and the ‘Kultur’ of the Orchestra is held up as a reason to permit this.
At any rate, given that there is no way to intervene in the hiring process in a way similar to that done with orchestras, AA would seem to be the appropriate intervention, at least to me, and if it is not, then what would be appropriate to replace it? Of course, all sorts of draconian impositions could be suggested, (I seem to recall one thread (probably not here) where someone argued for increased police powers of search and arrest, and when questioned about the problems with it, balanced them with proposing a death penalty for cops who commit perjury), but given the state of society, what would you (not you specifically, but a general 2nd person pronoun) propose?
Just in case anyone was in doubt, Jim Crow reallysucked
Publius at Obsidian Wings gets it:
We know about Jim Crow, but we don’t know about it. We read the history in the books, we see the trite movies. But we don’t understand the horrific and total devastation that institutionalized racism wrought –…
Sebastian: Which institutions do you believe that affirmative action has been a key or an integral part of breaking down institutional racism?
The US military is actually, I think, one of the best examples in the world of how legislation against institutional racism followed by affirmative action will break down the white-supremacist pattern. cite.
But there’s no denying that it takes time.
There’s a famous story in Star Trek fandom, how Whoopi Goldberg saw Nichelle Nichols playing Lieutenant Uhura and went running to tell her family “There’s a black woman on TV and she’s not playing the maid!” Nichols got the part of Uhura – and the part was kept in the show very much against Paramount’s wishes – because Gene Roddenbury was practicing his own personal affirmative action to make sure Nichols wasn’t fired for being black. As Nichols makes clear in her autobiography (worth reading, even if you’re not a Trekkie) open, blatant racism in the movie industry was a major roadblock in her career and the careers of others. Her example made changes, in and of itself. And that was 40 years ago – some of the security guards who used to harass Nichelle Nichols as she was entering the lot are probably still alive, though hopefully retired.
“Gene Roddenbury was practicing his own personal affirmative action to make sure Nichols wasn’t fired for being black.”
That isn’t affirmative action as has been used in this discussion.
From your cite: “The board that handled promotions was ordered to look at the records of eligible black colonels and to determine if they had been given lesser assignments or evaluated negatively by officers who were racially prejudiced. Once race-related blemishes were expunged, black colonels with otherwise sterling records emerged as strong candidates for promotion.”
That isn’t affirmative action either, even though the NYT pretends it is.
You can make the claim that those two examples are affirmative action, but if that is so the race based preferences you are allegedly defending using the term ‘affirmative action’ are propagandistically mislabeled. Both of those examples involve removing anti-black policies to aim for color-blind policies. This is especially true of the military program–as shown in the last sentence of the quoted passage.
That isn’t the same at all as disfavoring much more qualified Asian students for much less qualified Black students, to use the college admissions example.
Both of those examples involve removing anti-black policies to aim for color-blind policies.
If there were a way to establish truly color-blind policies in all of the cases under discussion, I don’t think there would be a discussion. We could all simply apply those color-blind policies and move on.
In almost any real-world case I can think of, there is no practical way to eliminate race from consideration. At some point in almost all hiring, promotion, or other candidate-evaluation decisions, somebody sits across the table from somebody else and talks to them face to face. At that point, the color of their skin, their gender, or perhaps some other undesirable quality is evident.
Symphony orchestras can evaluate candidates purely based on their playing. Perhaps the military can evaluate candidates for promotion purely on the basis of a paper record. But in most other contexts, part of the evaluation process is getting a human gut check on how the candidate will fit in the environment they will have to work in.
That brings us back to the subjective world of the judgement call. In real life, people get passed over for positions for reasons like “too abrasive or arrogant”, “didn’t give clear answers”, “not enough drive”, or “not a big-picture thinker”. Good luck proving that those characterizations are or aren’t really screens for “too dark for my taste”, “female”, or “seemed kind of gay”.
For all of their faults, the advantage of programs like AA is that they objectively measure outcomes, without having to evaluate or legislate individual’s motivations. It’s easier, by far, to require that the ratio of black, female, or gay applicants hired (as examples) be reasonably close to those who apply than it is to evaluate and enforce “color blindness”.
I’m not a fan of preferments and quotas, for many of the reasons raised by Brett and yourself, but I’m far less a fan of further generations of blacks, women, gays, or whatever other group you care to name being excluded from opportunities and positions of responsibility and achievement.
If you can tell me how to design and enforce a color blind evaluation policy that will work in contexts other than the armed forces and symphony orchestras, I’m all ears. Otherwise, I’m afraid we’re left to choose from among less-than-ideal options.
It sucks, but that’s life.
Thanks –
Holsclaw,
That isn’t affirmative action as has been used in this discussion.
Well, yes, specifically it is, unless you can logically convince the peanut gallery that she was “the best candidate” for the part. For the question remains, what are the ‘best’ qualifications. If Roddenberry was specifically ‘reserving’ that part for a black woman, he was engaged in the very act of ‘reverse discrimination’ which you claim is so abhorrent.
As for the editorial, you appear to have missed its essential point:
Once race-related blemishes were expunged, black colonels with otherwise sterling records emerged as strong candidates for promotion.
This included (if you actually read the article) previous ‘lower grade’ assignments which acted to negate future chances for promotion that were deemed to be the result of race based decisions in the past. The very ground rules were changed to enhance promotion of blacks. In effect, the military rigged the rules to get the outcome they chose as a policy goal. For some reason, conservatives cannot grasp this basic fact.
Most black and Latino students are still confined to mediocre schools that place even excellent, hard-working students at a disadvantage in terms of standardized test scores.
The real money quote in the article. I notice you managed to ignore it. What a suprise.
Most black and Latino students are still confined to mediocre schools that place even excellent, hard-working students at a disadvantage in terms of standardized test scores.
An excellent argument for a national voucher program…
What, so even more money can be funnelled away from schools which have a majority black and/or Latino student body, so that they can be even worse off? Which is the first and obvious effect of a “national voucher program”.
It’s a better argument for doing what conservatives hate to do: funnelling more money into public schools, and especially into schools currently tagged “mediocre”.
You can argue that if Nichols and Roddenbury hadn’t already had a close personal relationship, Roddenbury would never have got the idea for having a black woman as a bridge officer. But it’s clear that having a diverse bridge crew was a big part of Roddenbury’s dream: that Nichols, once given the opportunity, won the part on talent: but that because she was black, Uhura wouldn’t have been allowed to remain in Star Trek as a a major character, if not for Roddenbury’s personal intervention. All in all, yes: Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura is a working example of how affirmative action challenges institutional and personal racism.
Jes: What, so even more money can be funnelled away from schools which have a majority black and/or Latino student body, so that they can be even worse off?
I just think that these kids should have the same educational opportunities as kids whose parents can afford to pay for their education twice (once via school taxes, a second time via tuition for a private school). Every child should have the same opportunity for a quality education. Why should a child be trapped in a failing public school because their parents are poor?
And the “first and obvious effect” IMO is that the competition forces public schools to improve benefiting all students in the area.
Just throwing money at the problem certainly is not the answer.
OCSteve: I just think that these kids should have the same educational opportunities as kids whose parents can afford to pay for their education twice (once via school taxes, a second time via tuition for a private school).
Great. So, why not quit being a conservative and campaign for funding for public schools so that they’re better than private schools? That way you’ll be sure that all of those kids get the same educational opportunities, regardless of the income of their parents.
And the “first and obvious effect” IMO is that the competition forces public schools to improve benefiting all students in the area.
Er, you’re citing an article sponsored by a right-wing think-tank to “prove” that taking funding away from Florida public schools “benefits” all the students in the area – and another article by another right-wing think-tank to “prove” that merely paying teachers rather less than most graduate jobs (rather than substantially less) is not going to improve the quality of education in the US?
First of all, “competing” schools is like “competing” hospitals. It’s a nonsense. A child needs an education, and the local school should be able to provide education to a high standard. If the local school isn’t doing well, the voucher system ensures that it will receive less funding next year, which is a pretty good way to ensure that it does less well, which is an excellent way to ensure that the children whose parents take least interest in their education will receive an even worse education than before – even if you assume that all the children whose parents did take an interest were promptly removed from the failing school and sent elsewhere, which supposes that all of those parents were able to find a better school in the area which was willing and able to take their children. (A hypothesis, not a fact.)
Vouchers are a guarantee that the children who most need support in getting the same educational opportunities as the children of wealthy parents – won’t. And that is exactly why the kind of conservatives who sponsor think-tanks like the Hoover Institute love the idea of vouchers – it means they can continue to guarantee a permanent underclass.
Jes: Rather than dismissing the articles due to the source, can you take issue with the data cited? Is it incorrect or manipulated in some way? Do you think I would find support for my viewpoint at the NEA website?
This either is or is not a verifiable fact:
Between 1982-83 and 2001-02, total revenues for public education in New York nearly tripled – and the state’s share of education funding grew even faster in New York City than elsewhere. Counting all sources of revenue (local, state and federal), total public school funding in New York City rose during this period from $3.8 billion to $11.3 billion, while per pupil spending went from $4,165 to $10,842.
As is this:
Nonetheless, city schools did not improve, according to key pupil performance measures. Barely half of city high school students graduate on time; the percentage of students receiving a Regents Diploma in 2001-02 (32 percent) is actually lower than it was in 1982-83 (36 percent); the gap on state test scores between city students and the rest of the state stayed the same or increased; and the number of city students attending failing schools increased dramatically.
I can tell you from experience that “Regents Diploma” line is very important. Colleges won’t even look at applicants from NY who have the standard and not the Regents Diploma.
I’ve shown you a case where a dramatic increase in funding failed to yield any positive results. Can you show me a case supporting your point of view? I promise not to dismiss it out of hand if it comes from the NEA…
OCSteve: I’ve shown you a case where a dramatic increase in funding failed to yield any positive results.
Actually, you haven’t. To show that was a dramatic increase in funding in real terms, you need to show a lot more than merely saying “total public school funding in New York City rose during this period from $3.8 billion to $11.3 billion, while per pupil spending went from $4,165 to $10,842”. The article you cited, I noticed, did not show any background to these figures – and that was by itself enough to raise a red-alert flag. (It also helps that I am familiar with conservative arguments in the UK complaining that services which conservative governments consistently underfunded for nearly 20 years, didn’t magically and instantly get better after a Labour government began to increase funding.)
When a person employed by an organisation dedicated to putting forward a particular political viewpoint, produces an article which supports that political viewpoint, this is really unsurprising.
Now would you care to respond to the argument against defunding public schools by vouchers that I presented?
New Year’s Resolution: to get an education thread up at TiO…
Steve, I’ll sign up to agree that just “throwing money” at schools isn’t magic that will automatically cure problems.
That’s really not a controversial idea. If a school was granted one hundred million dollars, but chose, for some reason, say of incompetence or corruption, to spend every dime on confetti decorations for the school for the next ten years, that wouldn’t help a lot.
So, obviously, it matters how the money is spent, what the nature of the student body is, what their problems are, what the best solutions for their problems are, whether more social services help outside the school system is required, whether other expertise can be found and applied, and so on and so forth.
But money tends to be necessary for most of these things to be done.
To say that money alone isn’t sufficient to cure educational problems is actually entirely anodyne. Having agreed to that point, what can we say about the fact that to do a lot of what we can do to help young ‘uns get educated does require money, as well as that it be well-spent?
Because the fact that money alone isn’t magic, absent paying attention to all those other factors mentioned above (and more), doesn’t actually in the least make the case that spending a lot of money on education can’t help, or won’t help in the right circumstances, and should be dismissed as irrelevant.
Let me also throw in that my mother worked for the NYC Board of Education before I was born (as a social worker) and returned to work for them a couple of years after I was born, first as an “attendence teacher,” and then teaching reading, and eventually being chair of the Reading Department at Erasamus High School in Brooklyn for many years before retiring. My crazy father also worked for the Board of Ed, as a therapist, for many years, until he finally was crazy enough to get fired.
I grew up with the Oceanville-Brownsville strike. I know a little something about dysfunctional school systems. Sure, lack of money isn’t remotely the only problem, and more money alone isn’t a cure.
But calling for more sane management also shouldn’t be cover for union-bashing, which is what it often tends to be. Teachers’ unions aren’t the root of the problem;, it should be said.
I just think that these kids should have the same educational opportunities as kids whose parents can afford to pay for their education twice
This is a topic that deserves its own thread, but I’ll chime in briefly to note that there are also examples (Edison Schools for one) of privately operated schools being more expensive and of lesser quality than their public equivalents, and in fact ultimately failing.
Straight up — schools in poor areas frequently suck, and it’s not just an inner city problem. My niece currently works as a reading trainer under a NCLB grant for a school district near Syracuse NY. Some of the kids she serves don’t get their homework done because there’s no electricity at home. No electricity, no lights. Folks heat their houses with wood.
Schools in poor areas stink quite often because they’re primarily funded through property taxes. No tax base, no money. No money, crappy schools.
You might get a voucher scheme to work in a big city, where there are other institutions that will sponsor a competing school either as a charity (ex Catholic or other parochial school) or as a money-making operation (ex the above-mentioned Edison schools). For poor rural districts, it’s not likely to be a meaningful alternative.
We do spend a lot of money on public schools in this country. I’m not sure how it compares to other, comparable nations, but it is a lot of money. I’m not sure what the money is being spent on, but it is apparently not being spent on the two things that will actually improve the quality of education — teacher salary and class size.
Moving away from the public school model may be attractive for a number of reasons, but there are significant benefits that will be lost if it’s allowed to fail.
Thanks –
russell: We do spend a lot of money on public schools in this country. I’m not sure how it compares to other, comparable nations, but it is a lot of money.
I’m not sure that it’s proper to compare between countries, either. I know that in the UK, you can easily have a school which has much higher funding levels and yet has worse results – which tabloid journalists are fond of using as examples of poor state education, because they won’t use the background to the data that shows why a school received higher funding, if it was really higher funding or still not enough for what is needed, and over what timescale we might expect that funding to show better results.
Granted, “just throwing money” at a problem won’t fix it. But the notion that you don’t need to pay teachers good salaries in order to attract the best graduates is one that has been current in the UK for quite a while, with corresponding bad effects on the number of teachers available and the size of class that teachers are expected to take. (At primary school, my class was 30+ children, consistently, over 7 years: this was considered a large class, but not unusually so. UK classes are still among the largest in the world.)
The problems of problem schools are always far larger than the schools.
They’re the problems of a concentration of poor people living a culture of poverty which produces more poor people.
One of the best recent dramatizatons of this was the fourth season of The Wire. The problems of whole families and neighborhoods and cities need to be addressed to properly begin to deal with the needs of the kids, their families, their neighborhoods, and their city.
Trying to deal with just one area in isolation, like the local school, can only have highly limited effects at best, anyway.
“Invalid email address ‘gary_farber@yahoo.com ‘”
When will it end, Lord?
I always find these discussions of school vouchers to be pretty meaningless without knowing the particulars of the program being proposed.
“Schools in poor areas stink quite often because they’re primarily funded through property taxes. No tax base, no money. No money, crappy schools.”
Not in most of the large states. California–‘serving’ nearly 1/6 of the entire nations school aged children is funded centrally yet it ALSO has some of the very worst inner city and rural schools. Your complaint for the most part is a relic from the 1970s schools battles–it is nearly as relevant in the 2000s school battles.
“As for the editorial, you appear to have missed its essential point:
Once race-related blemishes were expunged, black colonels with otherwise sterling records emerged as strong candidates for promotion.
This included (if you actually read the article) previous ‘lower grade’ assignments which acted to negate future chances for promotion that were deemed to be the result of race based decisions in the past. The very ground rules were changed to enhance promotion of blacks.”
It is rather amazing that you can come up with the a$$_H*** comment ‘if you actually read the article’ when quoting the part of the article that I actually quoted.
The rules were changed to directly address and directly look at the individual assignments which had previously been made on a racist basis. Those individual racist assignments were looked at differently. That has almost no policy implications for defending say an ongoing project of only allowing marginal Asian students into a university at an educational testing standard almost a full standard deviation higher than marginal Black students. (The difference in the Michigan case was almost enough to count for the difference in getting the lowest test score possible and the highest test score possible).
In the army they said: racist commanding officers gave black people bad assignments. We therefore can’t exclude otherwise excellent black officers based on the racist assignments. That was a particularized remedy for actual overt racist action and took place over a very small time frame. It has very little to do with open-ended race-based educational quotas, or with ‘small’ pluses that can overwhelm the difference between the minimum score and maximum score on the SAT. (And no matter how much you might want to claim that the SAT isn’t ‘sensitive’ enough to black culture or some similar argument, it is not so insensitive as to deserve to have the difference between the ‘I got every single freaking question wrong’ score and ‘I got every single question right’ score. )
BTW, I use the university of Michigan policy despite the US Supreme Court outcome, because it is representative of the extreme steps needed to have racially balanced outcomes at the university level. The Supreme Court just said they couldn’t put a specific number on the plus the way they did–that they weren’t allowed to formally systematize it (a very odd result). That is rather willful blindness about how it actually works.
As for the objection that there can’t be race blind procedures like the symphony, that isn’t true in the university setting. The number of schools with much weight attached to the interview is very small–and many schools have dispensed with the personal interview altogether. So unless you send your picture, most people can’t tell if you’re black or white. (The argument about black sounding names is a separate point, but doesn’t apply to the large majority of black people in any event–there are far more Wil Smiths than there are Latishas.)
Not in most of the large states.
Noted. I think we’re still largely property-tax-based here in retro New England.
As for the objection that there can’t be race blind procedures like the symphony, that isn’t true in the university setting.
This could well be true, it’s been a long, long time since I was in school. The face to face interview is, AFAIK, still an essential part of the hiring process for any professional position.
If there are useful, practical color-blind procedures available, IMO they’d be preferable to racial preferments. It remains unclear to me if they are, in fact, available.
Thanks –
Let us suppose – just as a hypothesis – that it’s not particularly good to award places in college purely on the results of SAT scores. Let us further suppose that because black students in Michigan tend to have gone to inferior schools or received inferior teaching. Let us further suppose that students from inferior schools/who received inferior teaching tend to get lower SAT scores than students from higher-quality schools. Finally, let us assume – since no one has mentioned that the quality of graduates from Michigan U went down – that a student with a low SAT score who goes to a good college can in fact do as well at college as a student with a high SAT score.
None of those assumptions sound that freaky and out-there to me, Sebastian: do they to you? If so, which ones?
Going to college is not a prize that should be awarded based on winning a competition. Going to college is a necessary stage in many of the more highly-paid, influential, and socially valuable careers. If the frequency of low SAT scores among black students means that basing admissions purely on SAT scores would result in many good students being rejected in effect purely because of the color of their skin, then why shouldn’t Michigan U decide that it will ensure that at least so me of the good students will be admitted even if they have low SAT scores?
There is of course the Bell Curve option, which argues that the difference between black and white scores on standardized tests is due to the “fact” that the more melanin you have in your skin, the less intelligent you are likely to be. Someone who believed that would absolutely be arguing that a pattern of lower test scores for black students compared to white means that black students are less likely to “deserve” a college place than white students.
Sebastian,
California is not a good example for you to pick. The decline of the California public schools was a direct result of Proposition 13 (the limit on state property taxes). At the time funding was closely tied to local property taxes.
Things have improved recently and in my view it is largely a result of increased spending, especially to reduce class sizes in the lower grades.
I happen to be a charter school supporter, by the way. My two children attended California Charter School #1.
Public school funding in California is a complicated subject and I have to admit that I’m not as up on it as I used to be but back in the mid-1990s the numbers were appalling — per-pupil spending in the $4,500 range.
You aren’t paying attention to magnitude. We aren’t talking about subtle distinctions between SAT scores. We are talking about the difference between scoring the very lowest possible score. And in any case, I had misremembered the facts. In the Michigan case being black was worth 20 points on their scale while the difference between getting the worst possible score and the best possible score was only 12.
Whatever minor flaws may exist in the SAT system, they aren’t so big as to pretend that the difference in educational achievement between a null score and the best possible score is less than the difference between being black and Asian.
And that is the level of affirmative action tipping that we are talking about at the university level.
“The decline of the California public schools was a direct result of Proposition 13 (the limit on state property taxes).”
Per pupil spending as of 2002 was $7,511 and was ranked at 23rd in the nation (so right in the middle). cite. I also note that DC has the highest spending and among many of the worst inner city schools in the nation.
That puts California spending above most European countries. I used to have a nice Mercury News link for that stat, but they’ve apparently reorganized (evil!). But this is the closest I could come up with on short notice (and it still shows US per pupil spending and well above European standards– cite [Note this particular dataset might be inappropriate for direct CA comparison because I’m not sure how ‘primary’ shakes out. But the Mercury News story said the same about CA statistics.]
Holsclaw: “The rules were changed to directly address and directly look at the individual assignments which had previously been made on a racist basis.
Precisely. Previously, promotion to colonel and above would have required (let us make up an example) exhibiting outstanding leadership qualities in an ‘elite’ fighting unit as opposed to ‘merely’ keeping the mess hall running. Demonstrated competence keeping the mess hall running was given more weight for purely racial reasons, i.e., to increase the number of black colonels. Assuming that the number of colonels is (in some meaningful sense)’fixed’, one could argue that other, ‘more qualified’ applicants were denied promotion–a occupational death sentence for a military professional.
They changed the rules to increase the number of black officers. In a heirarchical command social structure, they found a way to make it work, all traditional elements of what constitutes an ‘effective’ officer corps be damnned. I am sure that one could, without much effort, find more than a few (now civillian) captains and majors from that era who are still bitter about being passed over by ‘unqualified’ blacks. Too bad for them.
So yes, this example has a lot to do with “‘open ended’ race-based educational quotas”.
I was involved in the budgeting back in the day (my per-pupil number is from memory). I just downloaded a RAND report showing a statewide K-12 average of around $6,500 in the 1993 time frame (when I was directly involved). Of course that’s an average and we were K-8, not K-12.
The funding formulas for individual districts were not easily comprehensible but I can tell you that making the budget work at the level of funding we had was almost impossible.
“Demonstrated competence keeping the mess hall running was given more weight for purely racial reasons, i.e., to increase the number of black colonels.”
They temporarily changed the rules about how to weight mess hall assignments because the assignment TO MESS HALL had been done on a racial basis. The assignments had been made in a racist way to keep blacks from advancing so the racist intentions of the assigning officers was thwarted. It also was not open-ended.
That isn’t even close to weighting purely on race at 160% of the difference between the lowest and highest possible scores on the SAT. In order to justify that, you have to say that race is a more likely indicator of academic success than the difference between the worst and best possible scores on the SAT.
Sebastian: They temporarily changed the rules about how to weight mess hall assignments because the assignment TO MESS HALL had been done on a racial basis.
And you’re OK with that because it was twenty-odd years ago and demonstrably, it worked.
Why aren’t you okay with temporarily changing the rules on how high a SAT score has to be to get you into college, given that low SAT scores appear to be the result not of inferior intelligence but of racial discrimination?
“And you’re OK with that because it was twenty-odd years ago and demonstrably, it worked.”
No. I’m OK with it because it was a specific and limited response to specific racist acts.
“Why aren’t you okay with temporarily changing the rules on how high a SAT score has to be to get you into college, given that low SAT scores appear to be the result not of inferior intelligence but of racial discrimination?”
A) it isn’t temporary.
B) there are lots of things that contribute to academic success other than raw intelligence, so your formulation “not of inferior intelligence but of racial discrimination” is wrong. The difference between the lowest and highest possible scores on the SAT are almost certainly NOT a result of racial discrimination. And if it were, you would have trouble explaining why Asian-Americans seem to do very well on the SAT and are also the ones MOST DAMAGED by the affirmative action racial discrimination policies.
Sebastian: it isn’t temporary.
I know of no affirmative action programs that have been permanently adopted. All of the ones I am aware of have been implemented subject to review. Which permanent programs were you thinking of?
The difference between the lowest and highest possible scores on the SAT are almost certainly NOT a result of racial discrimination.
Got an argument why, in that case, the distribution scores of SAT tests tend to be racially skewed? Does it have anything to do with the Bell Curve argument?
and are also the ones MOST DAMAGED by the affirmative action racial discrimination policies.
First I think you’d have to show that anyone AT ALL has been damaged by affirmative action programs.
Jes: Now would you care to respond to the argument against defunding public schools by vouchers that I presented?
You said: “Vouchers are a guarantee that the children who most need support in getting the same educational opportunities as the children of wealthy parents – won’t”. I’m not really sure that is an argument. I mean if it is a certainty (guarantee) in your mind how do I counter that?
I’d probably favor some kind of interim funding, say for a couple of years. If a public school is hit hard by students taking advantage of the opportunity to go elsewhere, they get the loss made up by tax dollars for some time. If they can’t turn things around in a couple of years then that money stops.
Gary: Having agreed to that point, what can we say about the fact that to do a lot of what we can do to help young ‘uns get educated does require money, as well as that it be well-spent?
This is entirely reasonable. I agree with you. It does take money, and more than they get now. I’m for increasing funding as long as it comes with requirements for accountability. That rarely seems to happen though. If you took a look at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case I noted, the New York State Court of Appeals has mandated a “sound basic education” for all New York City pupils. But the court also ordered that city schools have to be accountable for results. Everyone had their eyes on the money, but that accountability thing kind of got lost.
All: I want a solid public school system. I have no desire to kill it off. But I don’t agree that economically disadvantaged kids should be stuck in a poor school system with no way out. Getting a good education is practically their only way out of that environment. They should be able to take their share of the tax money allocated for their education and take it somewhere else.
You said: “Vouchers are a guarantee that the children who most need support in getting the same educational opportunities as the children of wealthy parents – won’t”. I’m not really sure that is an argument. I mean if it is a certainty (guarantee) in your mind how do I counter that?
By showing how, in your mind, giving schools with poorly-performing students less money will help those students do better? That’s what the voucher system promises: that if a majority of the students are doing badly, a school will get less money next year. That’s your argument: you say that by defunding the education of students who are doing badly, somehow this will do more to help them than increasing the funding. How do you work that out? What makes you think poorly-performing students do better if their school is given less money?
If a public school is hit hard by students taking advantage of the opportunity to go elsewhere, they get the loss made up by tax dollars for some time. If they can’t turn things around in a couple of years then that money stops.
Sounds like great motivation for the school to get rid of the poorly-performing students.
But I don’t agree that economically disadvantaged kids should be stuck in a poor school system with no way out.
Then why do you want to make the poor school system worse? Or why do you think a poor school system will get better if it’s given less money?
They should be able to take their share of the tax money allocated for their education and take it somewhere else.
A five-year-old kid in grade school should be able to do this? Or a fifteen-year-old kid in high school? Or their parents should? What about the kids whose parents are working 80 hours a week and don’t have the time or energy when they get home to figure out what other school their kid could go to? How are those kids going to benefit more by being in a school that’s got less money?
Holsclaw: They temporarily changed the rules about how to weight mess hall assignments because the assignment TO MESS HALL had been done on a racial basis.
Uh, oh. Out come the ALL CAPS! Musta’ struck a conservative nerve.
So, currently we have black kids who have been racially assigned to crappy neighborhoods and schools and thus have poor SAT scores, and thus do not qualify for “elite” schools, but dare we not, like the military, impliment rather non-traditional and actually (in their case) rather brutal (in terms of departure from what traditionally constituted ‘merit’) corrective measures, and change the rules to overcome the outcomes due to this racism?
Is that what you’re saying, Sebastian?
The authors of the 14th Amendment are rolling in their graves.
from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/affirm/stories/aaop031595.htm
The first lesson is that affirmative action in the Army eschews quotas but does have goals. Guidelines for Army promotion boards are to select minority members equivalent to the percentage in the promotion pool. This means that the Army promotion process is based not on the number of minority members in the Army, but on the number of minority members in the pool of potential promotees to the next higher rank. Very important, there are no “timetables” to meet goals.
Temporary, eh, what, Sebastian?
Jes: You’re holding out for the perfect, something many here have argued against in terms of AA. [mind reading cap on] You seem to be willing to let everyone suffer the current state of the system unless it can be fixed for everyone across the board. This is not a new issue; our public education system has been going downhill for decades.
Anything you suggest in terms of more money will take decades more to turn things around (IMO). In the meantime, you’re condemning the sharp kid whose poor parents want her to benefit from a better education. Vouchers could change that overnight.
It’s like government control is more important as a means to an end than outcome. (Mind reading foul accepted.)
Personal anecdote: I lived in a zip code in PA desirable mostly due to the good reputation of the school system. Philly suburbs. Made me money selling my house there – just the desire for that public school system. Many people from the city would register their cars in my county, claim a relative’s or friend’s address in my zip code as their primary residence just so that they could put their kids into my local public school system.
No bus service for that obviously. They went to extremes to drive their kids from city to ‘burb and retrieve them every day. Ask any Philly commuter what that is all about. That was a severe hardship on the entire family; they did it illegally so that their kids could have the best education. And some were caught and prosecuted for it.
This is not as simple a matter as parents not being involved with their kid’s education or not having the time to decide what would be best. Parents are breaking the law as it exists to try to get their kids out of failing schools. And note that I’m not even talking about parents moving their kids from public to private school – just parents moving their kids to a more desirable public school – at risk of jail and fines…
However… 😉
To congratulate myself at least one time in 2007 – I had the good sense to steer clear of the abortion thread. 😉
I’d like to touch back on something Jes mentioned, about outcomes: Is anyone asserting that the graduates of colleges with affirmative action programs have become less competitive? Or otherwise impaired? And are they producing any data in favor of the assertion?
I know of several common complaints about declining standards of other sorts among college graduates, but none of them are related to affirmative action, so nearly as I can tell. It’s a safe bet that, for instance, affirmative action has nothing to do with declining drill in grammar and mathematics among the students of upper-class predominantly-white prep schools. Hence the phrasing: is there any reason to believe that making a more diverse student body an institutional goal leads to institutions preparing their students less well than rivals who don’t have that goal?
For affirmative action in law schools for instance we find that black people admitted under affirmative action tend to have much higher drop out rates, much lower grades and much lower bar passage rates (the last being especially cruel as they are then saddled with $100,000 in debt with no hope of actually becoming a lawyer.
See for example here, and here
To congratulate myself at least one time in 2007 – I had the good sense to steer clear of the abortion thread. 😉
So you wind up on a thread that veers wildly off course (it started out discussing B. Bartlett’s intellectual dishonesty), descends inexplicably into affirmative action (the death zone of racial discussion of any kind), and thence into the merits of vouchers (yet another dead end)and the Philadelphia ‘burbs.
For this you congratulate yourself? Well, happy new year in any event, OCSteve!!! 🙂
Thanks, Sebastian, I’ll read up on those. Anything about general university conditions?
I think it is probably difficult to measure in general university terms (very easy to match bar passage to affirmative action admits but I can’t think of an easy comparable measure for general university). But I wonder if there is a good reason to suspect dramatically different outcomes at the general university level. (I can think of some differences which might come to bear, but they don’t seem compelling.)
Well, that’s part of the point I was getting at. I’ve read a lot of criticisms of college-level affirmative action which seem to presume the existence of grave harm being done by such things, but very little discussion of what such harm would include, or how you’d measure it, or whether anyone’s tried. And I’d find all of that stuff more interesting.
Bruce, I’m confused. Are you asking about the overall achievement level of students from schools that practice AA or just of those admitted because of AA? Because I think one of the problems of AA is that simple admission policies are not, in and of themselves, solutions, but students admitted need to be supported in other ways. I did some study on this in New Zealand, where they are trying to bring Maori into higher education and it is not simply an admission policies that were revamped, but special course work and tutor systems were put in place. This sort of brings us back to the center, cause if you set up a system that helps students thru, majority students complain that they would have done as well or better with the same kind of support. I’d grant the point, but if there is not a support network (cause face it, college is not simply how one does in the classroom, but organizing living details, balancing classwork and real-life, dealing with differing expectations, figuring out what a social life is and, need I say, sex and love, and all of these can be just as much a cause for someone dropping out as poor performance in the class, either as a trigger or as a causative factor for poor grades), it is not really surprising that lacking such a network, minorities are more at risk for dropping out or poor performance.
LJ, I’ve read some discussion of dropout risks and other concerns that apply during student years. I was asking – or at least intending to ask, which isn’t the same thing 🙂 – about outcomes after the student years are done.
I thought there was the Bowen and Bok study where the outcomes in “real life” weren’t that much different…
“So you wind up on a thread that veers wildly off course (it started out discussing B. Bartlett’s intellectual dishonesty)”
Threads don’t have a programmed course to go “off” from. There aren’t rules requiring anyone to stay “on topic,” and discussing veering onto whatever anyone wants to talk about, within the general bounds of custom and non-trolling, is perfectly normal.
You might also consider using quotation marks, or blockquoting, to indicate when you’re quoting something.
OCSteve: Jes: You’re holding out for the perfect, something many here have argued against in terms of AA.
Actually, no. Deciding that education is going to be given good funding so that all kids shall receive good education isn’t “the perfect”. It’s merely a goal any country ought to have.
Anything you suggest in terms of more money will take decades more to turn things around (IMO).
Well, yes. Is that any reason not to begin now? Vouchers are an excellent way of deciding not to turn things around – to keep most kids with poor parents in schools that are getting worse and worse. It beats me why you think this is a good idea.
In the meantime, you’re condemning the sharp kid whose poor parents want her to benefit from a better education.
While you’re condemning all the sharp kids whose parents are way too busy to even think of moving them to a better school to an even worse education. Why – again – do you see this as a better goal than long-term investment in good education for all?
Jes: Tell you what…
In exchange for a voucher program and some accountability in public schools I hereby bless a 50% increase in my school taxes.
If you can’t explain why you think it’s good for kids to be stuck in a failing school with ever-decreasing funding, OCSteve, why do you support that happening?
Here’s the fundamental problem in principle with “vouchers”, as I see it.
In any given area, there are so many children, and they all need an education. Say there are three schools, A, B, and C. A gets very good results: B gets mediocre results: C gets poor results.
A is a private school that lets in poor-but-bright kids on a scholarship system, and accepts any kid whose parents are wealthy enough to pay their extortionate fees, in exchange for which the parents get a virtual guarantee – plenty of individual attention, small classes, lots of funding for textbooks, equipment, etc – that their kids will get into the college of their choice.
B and C split the available public funding pie between them. They don’t get the rich kids, who go to A: they don’t get (or they lose) the very brightest of the poor kids, who also get skimmed off to A. Because of where C is located, C gets a lot of kids who didn’t start learning English till they went to school, and C doesn’t get any extra funding for English tuition. If you look at how kids improve, C actually does better than B. Neither C or B can compete with A for teacher salaries.
Introduce vouchers. For school A, this is pure gold: they can take even more bright kids at even less cost to them. Their results get better. For school B, this is a blow: their share of the public funding pie goes down. Some parents who can’t get their kids into A take their kids to B instead.
For school C, this is a knell. Their share of the public funding pie goes way down. The good they were able to do for the kids in their area melts away. Their results get worse and worse.
Again, OCSteve: not seeing why you think this is better. The UK introduced “parental choice” for schools some years ago: but all it’s meant is an end to the system where kids from the same neighborhood all went to the same school, forming a community. Education authorities try to keep families together, but often siblings have to go to different schools: some kids have to travel an hour or more to get to school even when there’s a school five minutes walk away, which they are not allowed to attend because it’s a “good” school and therefore already full to the brim; and, if I need add: most parents don’t have any real choice about where their children go to school.
Jes: If you can’t explain why you think it’s good for kids to be stuck in a failing school with ever-decreasing funding, OCSteve, why do you support that happening?
Why do you support every kid being stuck in a failing school with their parents having no choice about it?
I pay around $2,300 per year in school taxes. Increase that to $3,500 and I won’t complain as long as I see some accountability (administrators can actually administer their schools) and some options right now for parents to move their children to the school of their choice.
You want more money – done. I want accountability and some choice.
Why do you support every kid being stuck in a failing school with their parents having no choice about it?
I don’t. I support providing more funding for schools and education so that no kid is stuck in a failing school.
I pay around $2,300 per year in school taxes. Increase that to $3,500
How generous. You’re actually willing to pay a bit more so long as kids in failing schools get a lot less! Why – again – do you feel that kids in failing schools are better off if their schools get less money? Is this a question you’re even willing to consider – since you’re patently unwilling to answer it?
I don’t. I support providing more funding for schools and education so that no kid is stuck in a failing school.
But at an all or nothing cost. No poor kid escapes that unless every single one does.
Why – again – do you feel that kids in failing schools are better off if their schools get less money? Is this a question you’re even willing to consider – since you’re patently unwilling to answer it?
I’m unwilling to answer it because those are words you put into my mouth. Why do you object to accountability and parental choice?
Obviously I don’t feel that giving a school less money will help them in the short term. In the long term I think it will force them to either get their act together or close their doors. Either outcome is acceptable to me. (And no, that doesn’t mean that I expect those kids to get no education at all. I expect the government to insure that those kids still get an education.)
But at an all or nothing cost. No poor kid escapes that unless every single one does.
And your objection to all kids getting a good education regardless of their parents’ income level is…?
I’m unwilling to answer it because those are words you put into my mouth
Oh, please. Fine: explain to me how you think vouchers work. When child Z leaves school C, with a “voucher” to be paid into the funds for school A, does or does not school C lose the funding represented by the voucher? Are you thinking of vouchers as brand-new money which comes into the system?
Why do you object to accountability and parental choice?
I have no objection at all to accountability. What makes you think I do? I have no objection to parental choice, but think it preferable to fund all public schools sufficiently well that kids will still get an excellent education even if their parents have neither the money nor the time nor the knowledge to be able to investigate all the schools in a given area and figure out which one they ought to try to get their kids into.
Obviously I don’t feel that giving a school less money will help them in the short term. In the long term I think it will force them to either get their act together or close their doors.
So in the short term, you find it acceptable for most kids to receive an inferior education as their school loses money. And you have a fantasy that a school will somehow do better the less money it gets. How is it supposed to do that?
And no, that doesn’t mean that I expect those kids to get no education at all. I expect the government to insure that those kids still get an education
So long as there are voters like you who find it acceptable for children to receive an inferior education in a filthy, falling-to-pieces school, I don’t suppose any government will find it worthwhile to invest much in education.
Have a good day Jes. I give.
Ah well: I guess it makes you a better person that you are unwilling to consider the consequences of defunding education for poor kids, than if you were actually rubbing your hands with glee over the thought of maintaining a permanent underclass.
“Actually, no. Deciding that education is going to be given good funding so that all kids shall receive good education isn’t “the perfect”. It’s merely a goal any country ought to have.”
Ok, but vouchers are a form of funding. In theory you could have exactly the same funding levels and do it all through vouchers.
Your A,B, and C thing doesn’t think the numbers through. There aren’t very many ‘A’ private schools that are totally outside the system in your formulation. Acting as if they will swamp the system isn’t understanding the magnitude. What is more likely to happen is that people from the ‘C’ schools will now get to go to the ‘B’ schools. And also many of the ‘C’ schools will improve so they don’t lose all their students. And further some new private schools will become available in the old ‘C’ neighborhoods because there isn’t a monopoly anymore.
You are wrong about teacher salaries. For the most part teacher salaries are lower in private schools than they are in public schools.
“Ah well: I guess it makes you a better person that you are unwilling to consider the consequences of defunding education for poor kids, than if you were actually rubbing your hands with glee over the thought of maintaining a permanent underclass.”
This is almost comical. In actual point of fact, the schools which have been most instrumental in maintaining a permanent underclass have been run by Democrats for more than a generation. See especially New York and California. Don’t try to put that on OCSteve or Me. Your ideological compatriots have been firmly in charge of schools–and are already spending much more money than they do in the UK or almost anywhere in Europe. Something else is going on–it isn’t a lack of money, and you can’t blame Republicans for the day-to-day actions–the Democratic affiliated teachers unions have been completely in charge for longer than my lifetime.
SH: “the Democratic affiliated teachers unions have been completely in charge”
From what I’ve seen, where the unions have been weakened, the educational system has worsened. Money is in fact a problem in CA – we have many schools with fundamental structural problems, and the cost of living here isn’t comparable to most of Europe. We had a fine educational system when there was more money available, until the conservative/populist Prop 13 enacted as a reaction to attempts to make educational funding more equitable when the state was conservative. And, well, the problem of ESL students isn’t simple or ignorable.
And, jeez, why respond to Jes, who treats you so discourteously?
Ok, but vouchers are a form of funding.
True. They’re a form of funding that ensures the poorest schools get the least money, so the kids going to those schools get the worst education. OCSteve felt this was acceptable: do you?
OCSteve’s argument was that giving less money to schools with poorly-performing students would magically make those schools do better: is this an argument you follow? Can you explain how less money improves a poor school?
OCS, fwiw my understanding of the accountability argument is that private and charter schools can be reasonably seen as attempts to avoid what some consider burdensome accounting (e.g., demanding teachers be certified [which at least according to the policy expert here at Stanford is very important]), and the teacher-testing part has to be evaluated in light of the extreme difficulty in coming up with a reasonable regime. It’s really hard to evaluate a single school fairly over the course of years – to do so on the individual level is much harder.
Also, it seems to me that the conservative critique of the current system ought to look a lot more at principals than teachers and at inequities in district organization.
From personal experience I sympathize with the frustration of dealing with an entrenched education bureaucracy that I believe is behind the support for vouchers. It was my own frustration that led me to become deeply involved in a charter school, although it was my daughter who actually decided she wanted to go there.
But it seems to me, to believe vouchers are the solution to the problem is tantamount to trusting the invisible hand of the market. That approach has some dangers. First, the “creative destruction” entailed often disproportionally harms the poor and weak. Also, when a large lump of money suddenly appears, as would be the case when implementing vouchers on a large scale, it tends to attract sharks. I do not trust our current political environment to guard against these dangers. So although the threat of vouchers may be a useful blow to the head with a 2-by-4, I believe vouchers would be a cure worse than the disease.
We were extremely lucky at our charter school in that we had the support of the district superintendent of education. In our particular district there was bad blood at the time between the teachers’ union and management, and this carried over to opposition to the charter. We would have welcomed union teachers in the early years but none were willing to take the plunge.
I agree strongly with rilkefan — principals and other administrators are far more likely to be the cause of poor school performance than teachers or teachers’ unions. This was made vivid to me at the high school my daughters attended after leaving the K-8 charter. A new principal there completely changed the atmosphere in a few short years.
At bottom, though, a lack of sufficient funding is the biggest problem. Again, in my experience, if every decision one makes is colored by a lack of funds, it is almost impossible to achieve good results. The best that can be hoped for is to stave off failure.
“From what I’ve seen, where the unions have been weakened, the educational system has worsened. Money is in fact a problem in CA – we have many schools with fundamental structural problems, and the cost of living here isn’t comparable to most of Europe. We had a fine educational system when there was more money available, until the conservative/populist Prop 13 enacted as a reaction to attempts to make educational funding more equitable when the state was conservative.”
I’m not really sure where you are talking about unions losing power. They haven’t in California for instance.
Prop 13 has impacted the state as a whole, but funding for schools in California is way up compared to the 1970s (which is the last time they could plausibly be considered good in general). It used to be plausible that it was mainly a money issue, it really isn’t very plausible anymore.
I certainly suspect that some principals suck, but I can’t really see how they are likely to be more of a problem than teachers (who see the students every day) or overall funding (which makes the limits in which principals operate). Administrators in schools operate with very tight strictures. They are hemmed in by the unions on one side, and the school board on the other (unless the school board is effectively controlled by the union which it often is). They are the reverse of the classic CEO–all the responsibility, with very little of the power to make fundamental changes.
Ral, the schools are underfunded excuse is a relic of the past. Compared to almost all Western countries we spend much more per pupil . Back in the 1970s we spent the least, now we spend pretty much the most. It isn’t just money.
Sebastian, compare California to New York.
I agree, though, it isn’t just money.
So, with regard to the effect of inflation and population increase, what is the difference between funding in Californian public schools in the 1970s and 30 years later? How much of that is affected by the increase in necessary school equipment? (In the 1970s, computers were not considered a necessary classroom aid: in the 2000s they certainly are. That would be one difference: I imagine there are others.)
For those interested in gory details, see the RAND report I linked above. Dated 2005.
“So, with regard to the effect of inflation and population increase, what is the difference between funding in Californian public schools in the 1970s and 30 years later?”
Even counting inflation and population, California has seen enormous increases in funding for schools. That is how we went from spending much less than Europe to much more. Strangely this is exactly the time California went from having good education to having very bad education.
I’m not really sure what you want me to take away from the RAND report. I’m certainly in agreement that California education as hit a huge multi-decade decline. But as they show, most of the decline took place during vast increases in expenditures–including as the RAND report shows two ONE YEAR INCREASES of around 27% in 1994-1995 and 2001-2002. It simply isn’t a lack of money that is the problem in California schools.
Even counting inflation and population, California has seen enormous increases in funding for schools.
So, cite, Sebastian, cite! Where are the figures for school spending in the 1970s? For school spending in the 1980s? For increase in population? For increase in inflation? For increase in school equipment now considered necessary? For increase in school maintenance costs? What is the increase in real terms, and where is the increase being spent? Where are you getting your figures for this from?
We’ve had these discussions before Jesurgislac. I don’t look up cites for you because you don’t really care. I don’t even think you believe I’m wrong in this case.
Once I show them, you just ignore. You can use google just like anyone else. I already cited the world comparison numbers. Look over there to your heart’s content. It is a fact that California has massively increased their spending per pupil. The RAND report even shows that.
Just to be clear I will NEVER look up a cite at your request Jesurgislac, unless it at the very least begins with “I believe that you are wrong about that number and that you are wrong enough to materially change the argument” or something to that effect.
I’ve been “cite-please” trolled by you far too many times.
But because I’m a sucker, I point out that most of the cites you request already exist in this thread as links either by me or ral.
California has spent less per pupil than the national average for many years. “Enormous increases” from a low base do not indicate sufficient spending. Then there is the fact that spending is so variable year-to-year.
The relatively recent funding for lower class sizes in the early grades has, I believe, led to some good results that will probably have a long tail.
Why are you comparing with Europe?
Sebastian: We’ve had these discussions before Jesurgislac. I don’t look up cites for you because you don’t really care.
I don’t recall that we’ve ever had a discussion about school funding Sebastian, but since you brought it up: yes, your habit of making stuff up and claiming it as fact in other discussions has led me to ask for cites. When you provide them, they usually turn out not to be to reliable sources of factual information, but to biased news articles or websites geared to providing biased information to prove the point you want to make.
I point out that most of the cites you request already exist in this thread as links either by me or ral.
*goes back and checks* Yes, you did provide a cite to spending in 2002 in Californian schools on December 31, 2007 at 04:43 PM. I apologize for asserting that you hadn’t provided any.
Re the infamous 20 points in the U. of Mich undergrad admission system: see this to dispel some misconceptions.
Sorry — brain damaged markup.
Jes And you’re OK with that[reevaluation of mess hall assignments] because it was twenty-odd years ago and demonstrably, it worked.
Why aren’t you okay with temporarily changing the rules on how high a SAT score has to be to get you into college, given that low SAT scores appear to be the result not of inferior intelligence but of racial discrimination?
Jes, the difference to me in the military response versus the UM response is in how the remedy was applied. In the military, they had a lot of sources to turn to: former commanding officers, soldiers, performance reviews, performance in OCS and school, etc. The military already had a track record in its own institution to turn to and try, as objectively as possible, to unwind the discrimination. The military did not use a 100 point scale for promotion to general and automatically assign 20 points to African Americans, did they?
As for the SAT argument, if each college put as much effort as the military presumably did the results would be more acceptable. I would have no problem overlooking a low SAT score of a student raised by a single parent who worked afternoons to help support the family who had a good attitude and positive teacher reviews, or went to a really lame school, etc. Just giving 20 points doesn’t cut it. The remedy was nowhere near as tailored as the military’s remedy.
bc: In the military, they had a lot of sources to turn to: former commanding officers, soldiers, performance reviews, performance in OCS and school, etc.
Recommend you read the article bemused linked to, which outlines the other sources besides SAT scores that Michigan U could and did use in deciding which students to admit.
As for the SAT argument, if each college put as much effort as the military presumably did the results would be more acceptable.
Good. They did. It would be the universities that admit purely on SAT scores that don’t put as much effort into admissions as Michigan U did.
On school funding:
I was involved in the formation of one of the first charter schools in Alaska. Alaska mandated union wages for teachers. Funding in Alaska comes from the State and local funds (in my borough’s case, 1/3 came from local funds). The borough refused to allocate ANY local funding (interpreting the law to not require any). We started a school being 1/3 behind and accepting all comers of whatever background.
The school succeeded and continues to be a tremendous success. I attribute all of the success to dedicated teachers and parents. Wherever you have that combination, it’s going to work. Take away one or the other and it will likely fail. After all, our school did it when literally it had no money after salaries and building costs were paid.
Throwing money is not the solution (although there has to be adequate money). I now live in California. We have a funding crises in our district. Some say that is due to Prop 13. I am not entirely convinced. Our funding is far above what the Alaskan charter school started with. It is interesting how focused the district is in maintaining standards with the funding it has. That focus with better funding would probably result in improvement. But when funding increases, the focus seems to go away.
Right now the focus is on parent involvement and using volunteerism to fill in where things are short. That should really happen no matter what. In my local area, the kids that are failing are most often from failing homes. Getting their parents on the stick is going to yield way better results than throwing more money IMHO.
I find it hard to understand why so many defend a system that almost completely lacks merit advancement. The NEA works tirelessly to squelch any attempt at basing salaries on merit and rewarding teachers who go above and beyond. I believe more of a business model would yield better teachers and attract more talent. I would be in favor of such a system.
Also, my local system appears to have had way too much administrative costs attached. Too many people for starters. I would be interested if anyone has looked into how administrative costs have changed since the 70’s especially in light of the growth of the Dept. of Ed.
I would love to see vouchers tried all over the country on at least a trial basis. See what happens. I don’t share Jes’ concerns. I think it could be the best thing to happen to education in a long time. My only worry is that it takes a dedicated parent to take advantage of a voucher and what to do about the kids who’s parents simply don’t care.
Jes: Good. They did. It would be the universities that admit purely on SAT scores that don’t put as much effort into admissions as Michigan U did.
What is your basis for saying UM put as much effort into the problem as the military?
I read the article. It fails to account for problem outlined above by Sebastian Holsclaw (20 points for being African American vs. 12 points from worst-to-best SAT score). It’s not as if they said they would give UP TO 20 points depending on how a particular student faired due to racial discrimination issues. Each student automatically got 20 points.
I am not against any tipping of the scale as I said way upthread. This just seemed to be too much.
bc: “I believe more of a business model would yield better teachers and attract more talent.”
Would this be the same ‘market’ model that is dusted off and used to justify obscenely high CEO incomes? That one? If this is such a great model, why not apply it to all facets of public service…for police, for firemen, for civil servants? (Oviously, if you want the ‘best’ for ‘our’ money, then if follows you have to pay through the nose to get the very best….does it not?)
Oh, wait, we already tried that model in the 19th century. We called it the ‘spoils system’.
It never ceases to amaze me that we, as a society, insist on the very highest qualifications for teachers, pay them like dirt, and then whine and moan like little spoiled children when they ‘fail’. And heaven forbid that we raise their salaries to attract better, and better motivated, candidates.
But we persist in treating them as a form of public service priesthood (service, sacrifice, mission, and boy oh boy–they work cheap, too!). If that be the case, then ‘free-market solutions’ are obviously not a meaningful solution.
What is your basis for saying UM put as much effort into the problem as the military?
What is your basis for thinking they didn’t?
Though I’ve linked to this before, this Dave Eggers article again seems apropos.
bc: Right now the focus is on parent involvement and using volunteerism to fill in where things are short. That should really happen no matter what.
I agree and I believe there’s research showing a strong correlation between parent involvement and good results. It was one requirement in our charter and in the first year we had more volunteers than we knew what to do with. It worked out, though, and the school is still going strong.
However, I fail to see how vouchers will increase parent involvement. Parents who want to get involved tend to do so and charter schools give them the opportunity. Vouchers are just a way to reallocate existing, too limited, funds.
I don’t see anything in the article that bemused linked that impacts my argument negatively. Basically they say that other things were considered. I never said otherwise. But the fact that the SAT min to max is weighted at 12 while race is given a full 20 shows the enormous weight being given to race.
bobbyp:
Would this be the same ‘market’ model that is dusted off and used to justify obscenely high CEO incomes? That one?
No, the model that runs most of this economy. CEO salaries represent a failure of the market system, true (not enough positions to have a truly competitive market plus shareholders that really don’t care on know how to fix the situation). Show me a non-union, private sector job that keeps on advancing you no matter what.
I’m not sure I agree that teachers receive too little pay, at least in California and Alaska. Remember that teachers get three months off. Many teachers work to supplement their income, true, but they have a lot of time to work. In California, teachers get the total amount of their contributions plus interest in the first three years of retirement. Not to mention that their health care coverage is around the best available. So when you compare their close to $50k average salary (really closer to $67k for year round) and benefits package, it is competitive.
Yes, beginning teachers salaries do not match the cost of living on a single income with a family of four (previous cite). Many private sector jobs also do not. However, if viewed on an annual scale, it looks like the beginning salaries exceed the cost of living.
I don’t think arguing that salaries are too low overall really has anything to do with whether we should reward merit. Fine, provide sufficient salaries but institute a merit system and reward really good teachers.
I am not sure why there is so much resistance to a merit system. In my experience, there are teachers and then there are TEACHERS. A significant portion spend extra time, continue their education, create fresh lesson plans and really care about kids. A significant portion do not. Their lesson plans were done in the first three years of teaching and were only redone when mandated. Come to think of it, maybe that was one of the greatest benefits of the new state standards! (don’t get me going on that one). My point is, why should the teachers and TEACHERS be paid the same?
bc: Remember that teachers get three months off.
…which most of them spend preparing for their next year of teaching.
Many teachers work to supplement their income, true, but they have a lot of time to work.
Well, all of us do, in a sense: we start at 9, finish at 5, we need at least 6 hours of the remaining 16 to sleep, but we could spend the remaining 10 hours at work.
Of course, this would mean teachers would have virtually no prep time left in the working day to plan their lessons, their teaching work would suffer.
Fine, provide sufficient salaries but institute a merit system and reward really good teachers.
For that to work, you’d need to figure out how to assess really good teachers. I can imagine that you could, but it would be fairly complex: you’d want to get feedback from the classes, from the parents, from the other teachers, from the superintendent, from the school’s other staff. You’d look at the end results, but you’d also want to assess progress – where each student started from, and how capable the students were of progressing. All of that, over five to ten years, and you’d build up a very clear picture of who are good teachers and who are mediocre and who are outright bad. And that would be very useful, not least if it were done in partnership with teacher unions and with the intent of ensuring that teachers who don’t care about their performance get weeded out, but those who want to improve get given the training opportunities and the help to do so.
But I get the feeling from similiar schemes in the UK that what’s really wanted is some instafix quick method based on how many students got higher marks in a standardized test this year than last year.
Yes, beginning teachers salaries do not match the cost of living on a single income with a family of four (previous cite). Many private sector jobs also do not.
But that’s not really the issue. A average teacher’s salary evidently does not match the cost of living on a single income with a family of four.
Further, it’s not just a question of whether “private sector jobs” match up to teaching jobs. It’s a question of whether Americans want to attract the best and the brightest graduates to teach their children. If education offers similar salaries and earning opportunities to what a graduate can get in other careers, it will be easier to attract the best people to it.
bc: I am not sure why there is so much resistance to a merit system.
I would guess, for the same reason most people will resist a “merit system” at work when they feel that what is being measured is irrelevant to how good they are at their job or how hard they work at it, or that it’s being measured as an excuse to cut salaries. See Taylor, Scientific Management. And the difficulties of setting up a realistic merit system for teachers that won’t penalize teachers who decide to work with hard-to-teach kids, or who have just one uneducable monster in their class that they work hard just to keep in line so that the other kids can learn, are considerable.
PS: You write: A significant portion spend extra time, continue their education, create fresh lesson plans and really care about kids. following your assertion that I’m not sure I agree that teachers receive too little pay, at least in California and Alaska. Remember that teachers get three months off. Many teachers work to supplement their income, true, but they have a lot of time to work.
You don’t seem to be clear in your mind whether teachers ought to be able to “spend extra time, continue their education, create fresh lesson plans” or whether they ought to be working a second job to make ends meet in all those hours in the day when they’re not actually teaching.
I’m saving a lot of this up for a longish post at TiO, but I would point out 2 things. First, that the requirements for a teaching degree, because of state legislatures wanting to appear concerned about the state of education (but not coupling that with an increase in the teacher pay), make it generally a 5 year+ degree, which, when coupled with the poor salaries, generally has students at more expensive institutions eschew a career in teaching. This creates a vicious circle where people interested in teaching end up going to cheaper, less prestigious institutions, making teaching a lesser profession.
And one of the reasons why there is such opposition to merit pay is because it is very hard, as Jes points out, to determine what merit is. For example, would a teacher who deals with autistic children be more or less likely to get a merit increase that a teacher who is teaching an IP calculus course?
Also, the notion that teachers can supplement their income also says something to people who are going to become teachers, and the message is that this is not a job that requires your full thought and effort, but something that you do part of the time and the rest of the time, you do something that pays better. This is an outgrowth of the local nature of US education, as it has always been a profession that was primarily for women, so has often not been treated as a primary wage earner, whereas in other countries, it is much more common to imagine that teaching is job for a primary wage earner.
Jes:
First of all, my comment on time to do extra work refers to the summer. The good teachers probably do spend part of their summer preparing for the next year. Most do not. Even the good teachers I had in high school would regale us with the “what they did with their summer” and it was not typically preparing. Most had good lesson plans and spent time freshening them on the fly.
As to my alleged lack of clarity, I will clarify: Teachers shouldn’t have to work a second job during the school year. I just don’t like arguments that ignore the fact that they have several months free and available to supplement their incomes. When the “livable wage” argument comes up, it almost always ignores the fact that they work 3/4 of a year. The pay is going to be commensurate. And those same arguments ignore the great benefits I have to pay for out of pocket, like health care (I spend at least $10k a year on my family of seven). Or the retirement bonus as I stated above.
No, I’m not adverse to attracting talent as you say with larger salaries. I AM against raising salaries across the board with no merit system in place.
And as to the difficulty of a setting up a merit system, I respectfully disagree. I knew who the good teachers were within days (if not minutes) of being in their class. I’m sure you could take any decent principal and he or she could give you a ranking within minutes. Yes, parent feedback, peer review and student feedback would be important. And it would be fairly easy I think to correlate for difficult students. Far easier, say, than AP Math.
bc: I just don’t like arguments that ignore the fact that they have several months free and available to supplement their incomes.
Well, according to this, teachers aren’t paid for the 2 months they don’t work – they get a long vacation, but it’s an unpaid long vacation. (This surprised me, but I find it confirmed here. That would seem to take care of your objection that the teachers have too much free time for the salary they get.
When the “livable wage” argument comes up, it almost always ignores the fact that they work 3/4 of a year. The pay is going to be commensurate.
So do you feel that schoolchildren should go to class for a normal working year, no long break in summertime? The long summer vacation was originally instituted to let students help with the harvest: as students don’t help with the harvest, do you think they should study year-round? Do you feel that teachers should have time to be able to improve themselves – go to courses, take classes, go on trips?
I might also add that unlike in almost any other profession, teachers cannot simply take a day’s or a week’s vacation whenever it suits them: a teacher who calls the school to let them know there’s been a burst pipe and they’re staying home to let the plumber in, is going to cause havoc and disruption in the school, because someone has to be available, at minimum, to supervise the students in their class: ideally, to give them the classes.
Liberal Japonicus also has a point: it’s a bad idea to tell teachers, explicitly or implicitly, that teaching is just something they do that they shouldn’t expect to be able to earn a living from. If teaching is a career, teachers should be able to earn a living wage from doing it, and be able to support a family after a while.
bc: And as to the difficulty of a setting up a merit system, I respectfully disagree. I knew who the good teachers were within days (if not minutes) of being in their class.
Did you? Then you were probably wrong. Anyone who claims to be able to know how good someone is at their job within minutes usually is. (FWIW, I had a couple of teachers when I was at school that at the time, I thought were bad teachers: it was years before I recognized their good qualities.)
bc: And it would be fairly easy I think to correlate for difficult students. Far easier, say, than AP Math.
Really? You think it would be “fairly easy” to figure out exactly how difficult a student was, and how well a teacher coped that student, and how badly this affected the rest of the class, and what the long-term effects were, not only for the difficult student but for the rest of the class? What formula were you planning to use?
“I knew who the good teachers were within days (if not minutes) of being in their class. I’m sure you could take any decent principal and he or she could give you a ranking within minutes.”
The key is that the system has to be both objective, so as not to simply make salaries dependent upon favoritism — which is what the problem has always been — and yet not increase bureaucratic time-wasting and paperwork.
Thus the problem.
On the one hand, folks decry the lack of “accountability.” OCSteve says, not unreasonably, “I’m for increasing funding as long as it comes with requirements for accountability.”
Then we notice that a huge problem in many education systems seems to be huge bureaucracies with many employees not focused on teaching or helping students, but rather on enforcing “standards,” and practices, and testing, and supporting that bureaucracy, and that school systems end up teaching for a test.
Anyone wonder how that happens?
Perhaps someone might explain how to design a system without calling for contradictory goals.
Because you can focus your money and efforts on teaching and helping kids and families and neighborhoods.
Or you can focus your money and efforts on testing the teachers and testing the kids, and evaluating their efforts, and making them “accountable.”
But every bit focussed on one goal damages your ability to get to the other goal. Every bit of money or effort put into the system to achieve one goal is money and effort taken away from the other goal.
Or so it seems up to now, in so many school systems.
“I might also add that unlike in almost any other profession, teachers cannot simply take a day’s or a week’s vacation whenever it suits them”
I want to live in your world.
Although maybe you’re making a point about “professions,” and how people who have them, unlike mere jobs or careers, deserve different treatment. Probably not, but otherwise I’m a tad confused. Few people I know can take “a day’s or a week’s vacation whenever it suits them.”
I’m unaware of teachers having dreadful problems taking days off for emergencies or illness, by the way. My parents did it all the time, as did all their colleages who worked for the NYC Board of Ed, as did all my teachers.
Aside from the contract guaranteeing time-off rights, a substitute teacher comes in; this is firmly institutionalized.
It’s a small point, so no big deal, but from either end, this seems to make little sense: “I might also add that unlike in almost any other profession, teachers cannot simply take a day’s or a week’s vacation whenever it suits them.”
Sure, it inconveniences kids and disrupts classrooms, but how that significantly differs from a surgeon needing to miss an operation, or a plumber familiar with a job not showing up to continue a plumbing job they’re in the middle of, or any other mid-job continuity interuption, I don’t know.
But as I said, it’s a small point.
“bc: And as to the difficulty of a setting up a merit system, I respectfully disagree. I knew who the good teachers were within days (if not minutes) of being in their class.”
Does that differ from teachers being able to evaluate their students within days (if not minutes)?
If not, why?
If so, why do we need tests? Can’t teachers just write an evaluation of each student for their report cards from observing the students in class?
It may be easy to tell who the good teachers are, but it is not at all easy to prove it or to provide documentation.
More On Race
Given recent discussions here about racism, code language, etc., I thought this was a good read and worth linking. Especially this part:
In a perverse way, Bull Connor is almost reassuring. That’s because his very existence at least validates the hi…
I’ve linked this here. I still think that Publius tends to be too quick to give people like Bartlett a pass on the racist nature of what they’re doing. As I write at Lean Left, he’s actively working to allow people to ignore past institutionalized racism, who’s responsible, and the lingering effects of it. This might not rise to the level of cross burning, but it’s still active racism in my book.
Brett:
No, not on the basis of being disadvantaged by a history of racism, on the basis of race itself
Don’t suppose you have a viable way to make that distinction in policy, do you Brett?
If the overlap between those “disadvantaged by a history of racism” and those who happen to be a particular race is on the order of the high 90’s, percentage-wise, as I suspect it is, then I don’t think it’s unreasonable to treat this as a distinction without a difference.
Plus, you ignore the invisible privileges of being white that the white immigrant gets to enjoy but the nonwhite immigrant does not.
“those who happen to be a particular race”
How do you define that?