Dear White America (3 page)

More evidence of modern-day racial bias manifests in the criminal justice system. Back in 1964, about two-thirds of all those incarcerated in this country were white, while one-third were persons of color. By the mid-1990s, those numbers had reversed, so that now, two-thirds of persons locked up are black and brown, while only a third are white.
22
This shift was not the result of a change in who commits crime—the relative rates of criminal offending didn't change significantly in the intervening years—but rather stemmed mostly from the disproportionate concentration of justice system resources in communities of color, especially due to the so-called War on Drugs. Although whites comprise roughly 70 percent of all drug users and are every bit as likely as people of color to use drugs
23
(contrary to popular perception), nine in ten people locked up each year for a possession offense are people of color.
24
Black youth are nearly
fifty times
as likely as our youth to be incarcerated for a first-time drug offense, even when all the factors surrounding the crime (like whether or not a weapon was involved) are equal.
25
Even though they are
less
likely than we are to be found with drugs or other illegal contraband when searched by police, blacks and Latinos are far
more
likely than we are to be stopped and searched by law enforcement looking for such items.
26

The incarceration spiral for persons of color then further contributes to an uneven opportunity structure in the larger society by depressing the likely earning potential of ex-offenders once they're released from jail or prison. Because of persistent biases against those with criminal records (especially persons of color with such records) and assumptions that they make for dishonest or unreliable employees, ex-offenders are far more likely than others to be unemployed, and they earn far less upon returning to the free world than others of comparable age, education and productivity.

So even in this, the so-called “age of Obama,” evidence of institutional racial inequity and even outright institutional discrimination persists.

Most of us, I'm sure, are largely unaware of these facts, and in many ways that has always been the case. We have long been in denial about the reality of racism, even back in the day when, in retrospect, it was blatant. Even in the early 1960s, before the passage of civil rights legislation, most of us, according to Gallup polls, failed to see that the nation had a race problem. Even as African Americans were being hosed down and blown up in Birmingham, beaten in Selma, murdered in Mississippi and segregated and isolated up North, two-thirds of us said blacks had equal opportunity in employment, education and housing. In one 1962 survey, roughly 90 percent of us said that we believed black children had just as good a chance to get a quality education as we or our children did.
27
That we may see such beliefs as borderline delusional now does not change the fact that we believed them to be quite rational at the time.

What does it say about us that even when the nation was characterized by official and quite legal white supremacy, we mostly failed to appreciate the obvious? What it says to me is that our judgment on the matter is perhaps not the best. It says that perhaps we'd do well to listen to the voices of those who have been and continue to be targeted by racial discrimination, and not those who have had the option of ignoring it.
They
say we have a problem. And unless we wish to adopt the fundamentally racist view that we know their reality better than they know it—perhaps because they are “too emotional,” or lack objectivity, or are too unintelligent to discern the contours of their own lived experiences—we should probably believe them. It isn't that we are incapable of seeing the truth. But having the luxury of remaining oblivious to the experiences of people of color (we aren't tested on it as a condition of obtaining academic or professional credentials, after all), we simply have little reason to know any better, whether in 1962 or today.

And yes, it's true, not
all
people of color agree about the extent to which racism remains a problem. I am well aware that there are black conservatives, about whom many of us seem quite animated, who insist that everything I am saying here is wrong; they believe, for instance, that there are no real barriers to opportunity any longer, and they hold themselves up as proof. But doesn't it seem problematic that we would so readily rely on the opinions of a statistical handful of the black community for our insights concerning that community? That we would so readily dismiss the expressed realities of the vast majority of persons of color, cleaving instead to the perspectives offered by those who not only constitute a small minority of those communities, but have minimal connections to those communities: people who work for white-led organizations and think tanks, live in white communities, and in some cases even brag about having left the black community behind?

If I were to suggest that the period during which blacks were enslaved hadn't really been that bad, and utilized as my evidence for such a position the testimony of those blacks (yes, they did exist) who, despite being deprived of personhood, swore that whites treated them well, would any rational person consider that testimony credible? Were someone to propose that the cruelty of white enslavers could be judged just as well, or even better, by those black folks who informed them of pending slave rebellions as by those who planned and carried out such rebellions—or that since most of the enslaved didn't run away, we should presume the business of trafficking and enslavement benign—who would proclaim such inanity reasonable? The answer, of course, is that while few would think such a thing reasonable now, most of our people thought exactly that during the period in question. Indeed, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a well-respected physician of his day, insisted that only mental illness (what he called
drapetomania
)
could cause enslaved black folks to run away from the plantation system within which they toiled. And whenever possible, white folks
did
proclaim the system of enslavement benign, by holding up the apparent “loyalty” of those they owned—since they mostly stayed put and very few went the way of Nat Turner—as proof. Even more, whites pointed to African Americans like Booker T. Washington, whose acceptance of segregation and second-class black citizenship—he eschewed agitation for voting rights or an end to racist laws in favor of black thrift and self-help—fit more neatly with our sensibilities.

No, I am not claiming a direct parallel between the current period and the period of slavery; the analogy is not between the system of oppression then and the ongoing problem of racism today. I am quite aware of the differences, as are, I assure you, people of color who insist that racism in the present is a real and persistent matter. The analogy is, instead, to the way so many of us have, in every generation, sought out the testimonials of utterly unrepresentative outliers within the nation's communities of color to ratify the system most of us already believed to be just and fair, never taking note of the irony involved: the implicit suggestion that black people really do understand their lives, but only when their understanding mirrors our own.

As for our understanding of these issues, which can be gleaned fairly easily by looking at recent survey data, it appears that a disproportionate number—certainly a clear majority—believe the following, in no particular order of importance:

First,
that the real thing holding people of color back—especially black folks—is not racism, but rather their own behavioral pathologies, personal choices and dysfunctional cultural values, as manifested in high rates of out-of-wedlock childbirth, reliance on public assistance and general devaluation of educational achievement.

Second,
that if people of color—and again, especially black folks—would simply try harder, they could make it. The problem, in other words, is that such persons lack the willpower to “pull themselves up out of poverty.” Plenty of other groups (like the Irish, Italians and Jews) have pulled themselves up, and even Asians, a non-European group, have done so. If they can do it, anyone can, with sufficient effort.

Third,
that even if racism remains a problem, dwelling on the matter or making too big an issue of it will only harm people of color, encouraging them to adopt a “victim mentality” and thereby sapping individual initiative. In other words, we shouldn't discuss racism too much, for the sake of the very people affected by it.

And
fourth
, that it is unfair to criticize the United States for racism in the past or present; after all, every nation has had its problems with discrimination and inequality. If anything, America has done more than these other places to make things right and to create an equal-opportunity society, and black and brown folks are better off here than anywhere else on earth: a point that ostensibly mitigates against continued discussion of racial injustice here.

Because these positions are so common, and at first glance may seem reasonable to many, I'll spend some time addressing them before moving on to more important issues. I understand, after all, where these types of perspectives come from, even if I view them to be largely without merit. Much of what we've been told over the years by parents, friends, the media—or politicians competing for our votes and using racially tinged imagery to obtain them—has made its mark and warped our thinking. It is hardly surprising that many of us, having been misled around a whole host of racial subjects, would have developed a mentality in which beliefs like those above would find a comfortable home.

The quite common position, that black social pathology and lack of effort explain the economic status of African Americans, rather than racism, confuses two related, yet somewhat distinct issues: racism and poverty. Even if I were to grant, for instance, that black poverty could be largely explained by internal dysfunctions within the black community (or what we sometimes like to refer to broadly as “black culture”), that would be irrelevant to the issue of racism facing people of color who are not poor. Even those black and brown folks who are well above the poverty line (and thus neither on public assistance nor often in single-parent homes) continue to struggle and face substantial disadvantages relative to their white counterparts.

As mentioned previously, even persons of color with college degrees, working in professional and managerial occupations, have far higher rates of unemployment and far lower wages than similar whites. Across virtually all job and educational attainment levels, blacks and Latinos with the same levels of education, working in the same occupations, routinely have double the rates of unemployment experienced by whites,
28
and income-rich black and Latino households still have less than one-third the net worth as comparable whites, thanks to long-standing inherited advantages among our families.
29
African American children from middle-class and affluent households are also far more likely than their white counterparts to attend high-poverty schools,
30
to be relegated to low-track classes,
31
and to be suspended or expelled from school altogether, despite breaking serious school rules no more often than white students from the same socioeconomic status.
32
Middle-class and more affluent blacks are also disproportionately the targets of subprime mortgage loans, paying much higher rates of interest than comparable white borrowers, and are subjected, according to the available evidence, to racial profiling of all types.
33
In other words, even if all the conservative critiques of the black and brown poor were accurate, the issue of racism as a unique and independent contributor to the status of the black community, relative to the white community, would remain.

But of course, the critiques of the black and brown poor are largely inaccurate, and the attempt to use such stereotypical imagery as a way to blame them for their own condition, and thereby skirt the issue of racism, is irresponsible in the extreme.

As for out-of-wedlock childbirth, many of us are quick to point out that rates of so-called “illegitimacy” have grown so substantially in the black community (now representing over 70 percent of all African American births) that we can hardly be surprised that most black children and families will be struggling economically. Although it is certainly true that single-parent homes typically have a harder time, financially, than two-parent homes, it is simply not the case that changes in the structure of the black family are to blame for racial disparities between whites and blacks. According to one study from the 1990s—at which point the out-of-wedlock birth rates in the black community had already climbed to their current high levels—even if these rates had remained the same since the 1960s and not budged upward at all, nearly all the income and poverty-rate gaps between whites and blacks would have remained the same.
34
Even black married couples are twice as likely as their white counterparts to be poor, and Latino married couples are more than
four times
as likely as married whites to be poor.
35
Currently, nearly one in five black children growing up in a two-parent home lives in poverty, more than double the rate for white children, while one in four Latino/a kids in a two-parent home remains poor—roughly equal to the rate at which white children in single-mother families experience poverty.
36
And when black and Latina women are single moms, they are nearly twice as likely as our single moms to be poor.
37
In other words, it is not single parenthood
per se
that explains the deprivation of persons of color relative to whites.