The Other War: Race
Overshadowed by the overdue electoral debate on the war in Iraq are a host of other
issues whose future course could be determined by the balloting.
In Michigan, for example, voters will approve or turn down Prop 2 which would ban affirmative action programs used in unversity entrance.
This vote comes ten years after a similar measure was passed in California. And it underlines the very sharp racial faultlines that still undergird American society.
With that in mind, I'm happy to direct you to a crisply written, insightful and free 78 page report on this matter authored by celebrated Newsweek columnist Ellis Cose.
Killing Affirmative Action: Would ending it really result in a better, more perfect Union? has been published and put into free public circulation by USC's Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism where I am an associate director.
I invite the readers of this blog to click on the Ellis Cose page on our IJJ site and download or read a copy of his report. I also urge our readers to start off the public conversation on this subject by participating in the Online Public Forum. Just click on the forum button at the bottom of the linked-to page and give us your thoughts. I'm counting on some of the more prolific and regular commenters on this site to get the ball rolling.
November 3rd, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Marc - thanks for this. It’s a welcome relief from the flood of stuff that sends me into “anti” tirades and rants. I’ll print it out and read it - share it and discuss it with my better half - and make any comments when I’ve had a chance to seriously absorb it. Won’t use the hallowed halls of USC-Annenberg to vent my currently near-explosive obsessions and frustrations at the parade of madness. This issue demands a higher level of engagement. I think it’s great that Annenberg is making this widely available through a free pdf. It would actually be worth someone’s while - an intelligent intern or whomever - to post information on it’s availability on all of the liberal blogs. You’ve probably already got some such strategy to publicize it over the internet…just a thought.
November 4th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I always find it interesting that those who oppose Affirmative Action programs never seem to come up with an alternative that would identify and cultivate talented minorities. I mention this because, except for the racists like Charles Murray who believe certain groups are inherently inferior, everyone pays lip service to the idea that we should have everyone reach their full potential. So the question becomes how?
November 4th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
Affirmative action is the most decent way to deal with the inequalities - it would help if some meaningful action was being taken to end the inequalities that gloom the future of many African-Americans.
The trouble with AA started when Bakke came along and framed it as ‘discrimination’. This resonated with a segment of white middle America, many of whom felt threatened economically. Unfortunately, the subsequent Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush administrations have managed to extend the threatening cloud of gloom over most of the middle class, white, black and brown.
Its sad how the plight of black America has become marginalized. The results of terminating AA in the UC system are real clear - significantly decreased black enrollment, significantly increased gloom.
The observation that ‘central-american immigrants are willing to do the work that poor american’s won’t do’ has been repeated so much that there are probably many poor americans that have internalized this condescending, deceptive malarky.
In times like these it sure would be nice to have an opposition party but with Obama’s support for ‘the fence’, clearly, any hope for generating poor and working class solidarity will not come from the two business parties.
November 5th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
richard locicero:
I am conservative as you well know, and I don’t think AA is a good idea as implemented.
There is something to encouraging minorities to apply, and perhaps the goal ought to be to send out folk to do just that. However, selecting one race over another is just preposterous and violates the constitution.
How about this: make selections totally blind. If a kid is from a disadvantaged school, have a committee apply a formula of some sort, but the committee that selects should never see the race or perhaps even sex and maybe even name of the applicant. Numbers could be supplied instead. Let the selection be based on merit.
Self segregation by some in dorms/coffee houses/student associations says that perhaps diversity isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.
November 5th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
This is a lack of understanding of the system. Economic based aid exists. Everyone gets it without reagard to race. Entrance for hard to get into programs like exclusive law schools and impacted graduate school majors is what AA is really about.
November 6th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
A little story that is rather well knbown. Clifford Alexander was the first Black Sec of the the Army and in 1979 he was given the list of colonels recommended for advancement to BGEN. When he noted that not a single black was on the list he asked the promotion board to go back and take another looki.
And that is how colin Powell got his first star.
You got a problem with that?
November 6th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
rlc, filling in, I’ll tell you who had a problem with that–the guy who was deemed more qualified but whose name was scratched because he was Caucasian. What happened to him and what might have he become? We’ll never know for sure about his life or the many others whose careers were thwarted, because some people believe that equal opportunity equates with reverse discrimination.
Individuals matter, and innocent individuals shouldn’t have to bear the disproportionate costs of the liberals’ ideas for curing society. As usual, liberals are fast and free taking money and livelihoods, as long as it’s not their own, because it makes them feel good and they don’t have any other solutions.
Taking it up a notch, the Democrats are now spouting new talking points using “for the common good”–right out of the communism. America better watch out.
Yes, I have a problem with that, with affirmative action, and with putting groups ahead of individuals–no matter what “good” one may believe exists, because there is a hidden, but real and heavy, price on the other side.
Democrats and the Left need to recognize and respect people as individuals rather than members of groups and act appropriately rather than selfishly.
November 6th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Woody they didn’t scratchany names. THEY ADDED ONE. They looked at the pool of Qualified personnel and found Powell! And because the Army makes the efort to afirmatively identify talent it is the one institution in American life where a white has a good chance to have a black supervisor. Also, because of the pay system, the difference between a four star and a recruit is about 11 - 1. Its over 400 - 1 in the private sector between CEO and new hire on the floor.
Of course the Bush Administration is doing its best to rectify that. The latest pay raise gives generals an 8% boost. Lower ranks get 2.2!
November 6th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
I’m not going to do a back-and-forth on these comments, but I had dinner with a friend and his son recently. The son received a $24,000 signing bonus to join one of the services. I don’t remember which one. Factor that into the 2.2% pay change. Signing off.
November 6th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
…except for this. Does anyone know if there is a obituary notice for Marc’s dad and if there are any special requests? Of course, Marc knows how sorry we all feel for his loss.
November 6th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
My condolences to Marc.
Self-segregation is the by-product of 300 years of slavery (which built and sustained the economy of the South prior to the Civil War. At one point there were more slaves than white people in the South) and 100 years of legalized segregation. To say diversity is not what it’s cracked up to be is give up on a battle that’s only 50 years old. Do the math 400 > 50. There are millions of Americans who desire passionately to see the US live up to its stated dream - that all men (and women) are created equal. Isn’t that why we’re better than everyone else?
AA by its definition is not supposed to be hire the unqualified black/woman/Asian/Latino/gay over a white candidate - it is to enforce diversity. That is the Republican trap that many white people fall into unfortunately and based on (the possibly racist, but not necessarily) assumption that all white candidates are qualified and all non-white or female candidates are not. You do understand when you make these points GM and Woody without fact, you open yourselves up, fairly or not, all types of Darwinian racist assumptions. Are you, GM and Woody arguing that racism no longer exists? Or that the constitution via “free speech†protects the right of the majority to be prejudice, therefore exceptional minority and exceptional applicants (because they exist) should be denied equal access to capital?
The military, ironically, the people who are fighting the war that Woody and GM support, even though, take the Army for example which %17 percent of its forces are African-American when African-American’s make up %13 of the US population have been exceptional, as opposed to the private sector in identifying minority talent. Good enough to produce a Colin Powell and for their sons and daughters die for your freedom GM and Woody, but not good enough to share office space with you?
The main assumption being made by anti AA’s is that the US is a meritocracy and all people start on equal footing and are treated equally regardless of any physical differences. I have a human resources background and my father worked for 35 years in human resources and training at a fortune 500 company and can comfortably say that it’s a myth that the companies in order to diversify their ranks routinely hire and promote unqualified non white male candidates. Most managers hire people they know or are comfortable with, this is known in the industry as the “comfort zone” - their neighbors, the people they worship with, their friends The point for AA was to encourage those managers who do not have access to qualified non white male candidates (or feared them aka “white flight”) to consider the variety of options that were available to them in their hiring process.
To my good Christian friend Woody, a fellow from the South, since we’re speaking anecdotally, I’ll share my history. I am a black/ afro-Latina (Do you not see me as your equal? What would Jesus say, given this nation’s history?). By the time my father was 14 he was an orphan, by the time my mother was 10 she had lost her father. Pre-Civil Rights act, their families sent them to live with relatives in Ohio (an early abolitionist haven) with the dream that they go to college. My father once spent three weeks in jail as a teenager without charge, or notification to his family, even though he had no record and was one of the top students in his high school. Eventually he was released after the cops nailed the white perpetrator of the crime. He mopped hospital floors to pay for college and my mother worked as a maid/nanny for rich Cubans every summer in Miami, where she was born, to pay for college. That’s where they met and eventually my father went on to get his masters.
My parents provided a wonderful upbringing for brother and myself. They sent us to college where I graduated summa cum laude and my brother graduated from a top ten law school and currently works as a prosecutor. Despite my hard work and achievements, I have encountered discrimination personally and professionally. I grew up in Maryland where %30 of the population is black and is home to the most affluent African-American county in the US.
I have a very Anglo sounding name and can’t even count on my fingers and toes the shock on the faces of white people (internships, clubs, jobs etc) when they meet me and I am not the color they expected.
I almost didn’t get a job because the white male manager thought that the company’s mainly white clientele wouldn’t react favorably to someone my color, he was hoping for a “perky blonde”. The women on the team who were the ones who convinced him that they should hire me because A. I gave the best interview. B. I had the best credentials. Once given the chance to prove myself, proved him wrong in spades. :). This is just one of many personal stories I could share, my point being there are many sides to this issue and you Woody, GM should open yourselves to the entire story before coming to such rigid conclusions.
Is AA, as we know perfect I don’t know? I’m definitely concerned about how the poor, working class and middle class get shafted.
Woody - “Taking it up a notch, the Democrats are now spouting new talking points using “for the common goodâ€â€“right out of the communism. America better watch out.” Jesus was all about the common good, he challenged every prejudice of his day and he paid the ultimate penalty for you to live without sin, correct? John 1:1-42 and revisit the parables of the Samaritans.
I haven’t made my way through the PDF yet, but I appreciate the work done by Marc and USC and hope to give a more concise answer. My parents believe in AA, because they experienced how it gave people a chance to look beyond their race and see that they were talented. I have friends of all races, genders and sexual orientations. I’m grateful to be a part of a generation that looks to embrace rather than repel.
November 6th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Woody Says:
November 6th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
I’m not going to do a back-and-forth on these comments…
DARN !!!!
November 6th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
And thanks for sharing from experience, rcxer…usually we just pull stuff out of our butts or rip from Google around here.
November 6th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
RcerX
I can only bow humbly in honor of the eloquence as displayed by your life experience and wisdom gained from same.
November 6th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Generaly, I pull Google out my butt.
I would be interested in knowing what, if anything people thought about what to me is the coperate, Republican version of AA; “Diversity.” Diversity gets excellent PR, which Republicans tend to site this as evidence of “the liberal media.” But companys have every reason to want a mixed work force, it’s great public relations and tends to take the spot light off stagnet wages. Right?
November 7th, 2006 at 12:40 am
I agree Wall, the ultimate issue is class, as many Marxists (and I say this without shame) successfully argue that race is the diversion that the ruling classes utilize to sway the masses from the real issues, wages, child care, health care etc.
I’ll refer to Marc’s earlier posts about Obama, minority organizations taking corporate payoffs and immigration. It’s a sign or moral cowardice that Woody (who I do think of as a blog friend) would leave such an incinderary post, but not want to debate - ie” I’m not going to argue about this”. What is your fear Woody? Are you a bigot? Scared?
Diversity has been completely co-opted by corporations who understand the larger picture. It’s not just great PR, but it is also pragmatic. By 2030 whites will only make up % 50-60 of the population. If wages are supressed because the labor force (illegal immigrants, people of color, women) is deemed unworthy by the current majority (Hello Walmart) why would they along with working class/ poor whites unite to change the system? For all of Woody’s and GM’s whining, they are simply setting up their own descendants for failure.
The Reps trot out Condi on 60 Minutes to people of color, desparate for acceptance. “I knew the little girls who got killed in Birmingham and it reminds me of what is happening in Iraq” What a perversion of history. What an acquiencence to immorality from the person who was shopping for $500 dollar shoes while people were drowning in NO.
Because real estate is the last true bastion of hard core racism, “diversity” has been allowed to be sold in a non meaninful manner by corporations looking to make a buck.
November 7th, 2006 at 4:36 am
Mr. Cooper:
May God bless you and your loved ones in your time of loss.
November 7th, 2006 at 6:27 am
I regularly work with a corporation that has a diversity initiative with a lot of support from the top down. I have to say that some of the best, most effective - even emotional - appeals for the the importance of what I would call inclusiveness, of reaching out to new recruits and younger employees beyond the managers’ ethno-centric assumptions, have been in the context of this corporate initiative. They are very clear that there are two reasons for the emphasis on diversity - one is because it’s the right thing to do for employees themselves (which is an issue of fairness, morale and group cohesion, so it is also a “legitimate” business value), and the other is because it’s important to have your workforce in complement with your customer base (both for reasons of external appearances and marketing as well as for reasons of making rational decisions regarding emerging markets and having the tools to communicate and service them - for example bilingual employees, culturally sensitive people designing marketing campaigns, employees active in their communities and promoting a positive corporate image, etc.) These are all real concerns and, personally, I don’t denigrate them because it means real opportunities open up for real people that would be less likely to exist if the company didn’t make a major effort to push diversity as a core value. They aren’t bullshitting - although when it comes to upper-level management it’s still very lopsided. It’s easy to point to that fact and be cynical about the whole effort (cynical or naive?) although I also believe that while it will be the last level to change there’s a long-term inevitabllity of those jobs opening up given the corporate culture that’s being promoted. Some or another version of affirmative action is alive and well in much of corporate America so far as I can tell, and that’s a good thing with tangible results for real people. Frankly, I’d rather hear a CEO lecture his managers on the need to promote and hire from a broad spectrum, and to recognize that the “natural” tendency amongst themselves to value or “get” people essentially like themselves is a negative for their employees and for the company, than hear recycled rhetoric from the usual familiar suspects.
I also believe that, while affirmative action is imporant at places like the upper-echelon public and private universities, the crisis in our educational system at the entry and middle levels is so extreme for kids of color and poorer kids in general that unless that’s seriously addressed, the rest of it is a sideshow.
November 7th, 2006 at 6:32 am
This corporation, incidentally, is also very openly promoting gay acceptance among their employees - even extending to smaller “markets” in the midwest and southwest. They’ve got a gay employees organization, with full support of the company, in Iowa. They’re more progressive than most on this, but they aren’t as exceptional as one might expect either.
November 7th, 2006 at 7:50 am
Reg, how is the corperation on Unions?
November 7th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Never been unionized and they’re not likely to ever be. They use a lot of part-timers and students at the most basic entry level, and as soon as folks move beyond that they’re “professionalized”, heavily mentored and given fancy titles across the board - they imagine that they’re “financial consultants” as opposed to low-level salespeople. The “proletarianized” pieces of the operation like call centers are increasingly centered in outlying areas like Montana (I don’t think they’ll be able to move that stuff to India for a variety of reasons). Kool Aid doesn’t even begin to describe their approach to “team buliding”, but they’re not stupid and it mostly works. I’m often amazed at the degree to which the more sophisticated corporate “culture” initiatives aimed at creating cohesion and motivation among employees are like a bizarre parallel universe designed with considerable coherence to, in effect, anticipate Marx’s critique of the alienation of workers under capitalism. It’s 50% annoying BS and 50% enlightened “human relations”, but it’s gotten pretty damned fine-tuned. I’m a contractor working with their “creatives” and outside of the loop that actually creates any value, so I can afford to be amused.
November 7th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Well, I hope Woody is taking notes. This doesn’t sound too liberal to me. Respectfully, Reg, we seem to be discribing system where a deverse workforce is put in place because it’s good for business and the right thing to do. Said workforce, in all it’s rainbow hues, however, must remain of one mind when it comes to deciding how the spoils of company profits are devided. That’s done by the people at the top, who somehow tend to remain a touch on the pale side.
November 7th, 2006 at 11:24 am
I’d say that it’s liberal…as distinct from social democratic. The only point I’m making is that some corporations are, in fact, committed to diversity as more than window-dressing in the sense that they see a necessity to go beyond tokenism in their hiring and promotion practices. And, yes, it’s part of their business plan. This has real benefits for real people in the workforce and probably some significant benefit for custumers in terms of service. That it might only glacially impact who’s at the very top or and not affect one iota how the profits are divided up shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
It does impact most of the jobs and most of the people in some tangible ways. Frankly, working in an environment where you feel like you can be promoted and valued as much as anyone else is very important to any worker - and especially to groups of people who have been routinely discriminated against. Also, in those environments, if it’s not part of the business plan and promoted by the top management, as opposed to whoever’s in charge of putting on the Black History Month festivities, nothing effective will come of it.
I think it makes a lot of difference for a large slice of the workforce in terms of their opportunities and having a decent working environment - not a small thing.
November 7th, 2006 at 11:27 am
I forgot to mention the part, for Woody’s sake, how I do think that over the long term corporations promoting diversity in their ranks might make it a bit easier to bring Imperialism to its knees and deal a death-blow to the White Man. As Chairman Mao said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step.
November 7th, 2006 at 11:50 am
Reg, perhaps that should be “white man’s rule.”(?) Or…. corporations promoting diversity in their ranks will enevitably use it as window dressing. What if it becomes harder and harder, for instance, to obtain affordable health insurance without working for a huge, non-union company that creates products of debatable impact on society at large? But that’s O.K., we have seminairs explaining why it’s important not to use racial slurs.
I hope you’re right, but I’m waiting for some healthy skepticism to be brought to some of these issues. I expect it will roll in around the time we review no bid contracts in the Defence Department.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
“white man’s rule” ? - no I want to induce maximum paranoia, if only for tactical effect. I like “death blow to the White Man”.
There are a lot of companies where the notion of unionization in today’s climate might as well be Waiting for Godot. As for health care, frankly I think if we get anything that remotely looks like a decent universal health care package out of DC it will be, in part, because at least a significant faction of corporate America recognizes that it’s in their own self-interest. As for window-dressing, something can be effective PR, and still be worthwhile. I’m making a case on something that’s pretty narrow here, but when you think of some of the tangibles in terms of some Joe or Jill’s 9-5 experience stretched over several decades, I’m reluctant to simply dismiss it.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Wall raises some interesting points but I really should remind him that we live in a capitalist society and, until that changes, it is progress if larges organizations decide that it is good for business to be diverse. I’m not sure what you mean by creating products of debatable impact on society. Sounds a lot like production for use and then we get into the question of what is useful. Cell Phones? HD TVs? Viagra? Again we have market economies and until that changes I’m not sure what you’re going to do about it.
This does not mean lassez faire. Europe has capitalist societies and market economies and also provides generous social safety nets. And, lately, higher growth rates thatn the US.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
OK, I’m guilty. Not yet finished reading all of the Ellis Cose piece, but I couldn’t help but taking a peek at where the discussion is at on Marc’s site….
quick feedback on reg’s
“I do think that over the long term corporations promoting diversity in their ranks might make it a bit easier to bring Imperialism to its knees and deal a death-blow to the White Man”
I’m assuming reg’s going a bit over the top with that last part, but I think its worth noting that the UAW AND General Motors both oppose Prop 2 in Michigan.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
“reg’s going a bit over the top”
I just wanted to give Woody something that wouldn’t be disorienting if he checks back into this discussion.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Right on.
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