Race Policy, Race Dynamics and Change (3/17)

Complete 4 Myths from FeaginThe Army-Navy Game

Myrdal Dynamics and ChangeWar and Change.

(Review) Feagin, Racist America

Feagin’sBasic idea is that racism is not a psychological characteristic of individuals, but a social structural dynamic of the social systemhis thought experiment, “Starship Earth” argued that disproportions of income, power, housing, etc. are always wasteful and divisive if they are too large,But he further argues that this set of problems is much more serious if the disproportions are tied to an ascriptive trait, such as race.Those kinds of inequalities are particularly divisive.

A sketch of the number of deaths in mass race violence in the US

10,000

1,000

100

10

1

1850 ‘60 ‘70 ‘80 ‘90 1900 ‘10 ‘20 ‘30 40 50 ‘60 ‘70 ‘80 ‘90

Why?

The 4 Myths

Racist America (2001) criticizes 4 myths:

1. American is a non-racist society

2. There is a vanishing residue of prejudice .

3. Affirmative action goes too far and privileges minorities.

4. Nothing can be done. Change must be slow.

The pattern of change in attitudes in the US

InterpretationAttitudes sometimes change quite quickly. There has been a sharp decline of views such as “There should be laws against intermarriage,” (though 10% to 20% of the white pop. still agrees with such items.)But most of the change was completed by 1968, and there has also been a decline in support for reducing existing inequalities.They seem to have responded to policy rather than driven policy.For example the Civil Rights movement and the urban rebellions of the 1960’s seems to have driven a good deal of change, which stopped when that did.

The dynamic of race today

Table 21.4 (*p.406) details “four centuries of legal progress and setbacks.” different people conceive of that dynamic in different ways.The above pattern of urban race violence suggests that every period of war in US history has been a period of race violence,And every period of mass race violence has been a period of war.Why

Possible explanations1. Impossibility of maintaining coercion (like

removing the top of pressure cooker)2. Relative deprivation3. Legitimation of violence4. American values become an issue if people

are being asked to die for them.But for some purposes it does not matter what the explanation is. Race relations is a powder keg which is often ignited.

What is the dynamic of race relations in Myrdal

Myrdal’s argument was that racism and racial inequality reinforce each other.

Racism Racial Inequality

+

+

• This is sometimes wrongly interpreted to mean that “racism” is the individual sentiment that produces discriminatory behavior.

Violation of the American Creed

+

-

The relation between prejudice and racial

inequalityThe text correctly stresses that it is complexFeagin criticizes Myrdal as proposing a model :Prejudice Discrimination RacismFeagin, as the theorist of institutionalized discrimination, argues that the relations go: Racism Discrimination Prejudice

Where do race inequality and racism come from?

Feagin believes that a model that suggests that bad ideas drop out of the sky is defective.

It is the social structure and dynamics of inequality and segregation that are important.

And a model that says that the value system is anti-racist is problematical.

It takes struggle to make it anti-racist

#3 Myth that affirmative action goes too far.

Feagin argues that the playing field still privileges white males.It was partly leveled by affirmative action.But in housing, employment, schooling and other areas, the reality is still one of a non-level playing field that privileges white males.He suggests that white males usually overlook immense structures of privilege (such as feeder schools and legacy admissions in education) to attack any counterbalancing policies.

Institutional discrimination and systemic racism

Feagin suggests that over American history, racism, as a pervasive institutional system maintains itself as a structure of inequality and privilege.Racism is not a matter of prejudice.It is often maintained by relatively little individually prejudiced action .The role of prejudice and stereotypes is often to resist policies to reduce race inequality or inequality of opportunity.

Individual, Institutional and Cultural racism in SMMM

Individual racism is individual prejudice or discrimination

Institutional racism are institutionalized structures that disadvantage a group, and which are often maintained for reasons having little to do with prejudice.

Cultural racism is an institutionalized belief in the superiority of European culture.

Institutional racism

An individual may practice and support discriminatory policies for non-prejudiced motives.E.g. a Southern landowner wants to pay his tenants as little as possible.Or a feeder school or a legacies admission may be discriminatory in effect, but supported for non-racial reasons.Feagin argues that what makes policies “racist” or “anti-racist” is their consequences, not their motivation.

How much racial inequality is there?

Feagin Racism directly or indirectly costs the average black American about 10% of their life span; 40% of their income; and 90% of their wealth.

Sociology, Micro, Macro and Mega: 1990

White Black Hispanic

% 4 yrs col. 22%11% 9%

% in poverty 11%32% 28%Median inc. $36,915 $21,423 $23,431

Is there race inequality of opportunity

Is the playing field level.

Some people believe it is more than level.

The text (e.g. p. 440 “Top dog or Underdog”) suggests this is mistaken.

Feagin argues that discriminatory treatment and stereotyping is pervasive in the US today,

As measured by thousands of matched pair applications for housing, employment, etc.

#4 The Myth that nothing can be done

There are not only huge shifts in attitudes,

But also large differences and relatively rapid changes in different institutions.

The army went from largely vertically segregated to the most integrated large institution in the US in decades.

The process was similar to that pictured in Remember the Titans

The problem in the army and other armed forces:The problem was that vertical segregation was divisive, dysfunctional and unjust.Incoming candidates differed in test scores, so that if those scores to determined placement vertical segregation was assured.Are the test score differences innate or due to differences in schools, etc.?The army argued that there was evidence of the latter, and if so it is unjust as well as inefficient to accommodate to it.

Nature of army programs

A set of four main compensatory programs.

None insures one a position, only a chance.

They are not aimed to replace the educational system, but to remedy the cumulative racial inequality.

The army and the navy, again.

Feagin does not believe that the army is any more “utopian” than the navy.

Nor were the average sentiments of either most people or most officers different.

The main difference was a commitment by the leadership to a sufficient set of policies directed at both inequality and prejudice.

Are race relations and race inequality stable or unstable?

Call a structure “stable” if it changes a little if a small force is placed on it, and it changes a lot of a large force is applied. Structures without feedbacks are often stable.

Call a structure “unstable” if it changes a lot even when only a small force is applied. Positive feedback structures are often unstable

Call a structure “hyper-stable” if, even after it has been changed, it tends to change back. Negative feedback structures are often hyper-stable.

The three marbles, again

unstable stable

Hyper-stable

Myrdal believed that race relations were unstable.

They have lots of positive feedbacks. A decrease in prejudice should create an avalanche of

further changes unraveling the racist structure. Just as an increase in racial inequality should create an

avalanche of further changes increasing racism. (Note that both happened in the 1970’s)

Changes in the South were undermining some aspects of Jim Crow.Changes in the country were making Southern regionalism less viable.Changes in the world were making US failure to live up to its ideals less viable.

Implications of his analysis of racial inequality as positive

feedbacksThe structure looks inert because and only because it is so pervasive.

But policy interventions can be very powerful because change is amplified.

However they must be broad spectrum (I.e. health, education, political power, income, wealth, social participation, etc.