HOW RACIST ARE WE REALLY? Part II

Some argue there has been little racial progress since the fifties but even the president says this progress simply cannot be denied. Can anybody see a man named Barack Hussein Obama being elected president in 1960? The idea is laughable. What racial arsonists like Black Lives Matter fail to see is that decades ago, battles were fought over segregation, lynchings, and voter suppression (the real kind). The very existence of words like “micro-aggression” and “cultural appropriation” is proof that times have changed.

 

Is racism really everywhere? In 1997, CNN and Time conducted a poll that asked white and black teens “Is racism a major problem in America?” Both groups said, "yes." But when black teens were asked if racism in their own lives was a "big problem," a "small problem" or "no a problem at all", 89% percent said racism was a "small problem" or "not a problem at all" for themselves. In fact, not only did black teens see racism as insignificant in their own lives, but nearly twice as many black teens than whites called "failure to take advantage of available opportunities" a big problem in their lives. Could black perception of mass racism really be an illusion?

 

In gauging the true extent of racism, simply looking at intergroup disparities is not helpful. Thomas Sowell, a conservative black economist, notes that one of the stupidest ideas in all of politics is that all groups in a society should end up with equal results. If one child comes from a family where sports are discussed every night over dinner and another comes from a family where science and literature are discussed, are they really likely to be equally successful? Sowell notes in Wealth, Poverty and Politics that across the world, many ethnic minorities actually excel such as the Chinese in southern Asia, the Lebanese in Ethiopia and the Armenians in Turkey before the genocidal purge. He also notes staggering differences between African Immigrants and African Americans. 75% of black students at Harvard are African, Caribbean or mixed race. 

 

To separate fact from rhetoric, let’s begin with income. There clearly is a disparity.  According to a 2014 Census Bureau study, blacks are almost twice as likely to live in poverty as all races combined, 27% vs. 15.5%. What can explain this? Marriage. Conservatives have always argued the preeminence of family and the data (you know, “science”) proves it. 71% of all black children are raised by single mothers. The poverty rate for black married couples with children is only 10.8% but skyrockets to 46.1% for single mothers. The rate for all races is very similar: 8.2% poverty for married couples and 37% for single mothers with children. The drastic difference in poverty rates is almost wholly explained by family status.

 

Fig. 1 shows how black marriage rates were decimated soon after the war on poverty started.

 

Fig. 1

 

Family structure is not the only factor, of course. Figure 2 shows the impact of well-meaning but counterproductive government policy.

Figure 2

 

Figure 3 shows the inverse relationship between welfare spending and poverty reduction.

 

Fig. 3

 

Despite ineffective anti-poverty policies, Figure 4 shows the poverty gap between black and white families continued to close until about 2000.

 

Fig. 4

 

The education gap has also closed significantly. In 1940, the ratio of whites to blacks attaining college degrees was 5 to 1. In 2011, it was 1.5 to 1.

 

Fig. 5

Could simple geography partially explain the racial income gap? Possibly. While blacks are relatively well dispersed throughout the nation, there is still a major concentration in the South and other low income regions. If blacks had the geographical dispersion of Asians, the highest income group in America, the overall income gap might be smaller still.

 

America has come a long way but suspicion of white bias is not all fake, of course. A report on the Baltimore PD was just released showing lots of excessive force and harassment. While Part I showed that police abuse is not the problem it’s thought to be, should it surprise anyone if riots occur in cities where it is, in fact, worse? Also, there are a number of clever studies that show unconscious bias despite people’s good intentions. If you think you’re enlightened, take the Implicit Associations Test, then feel bad about yourself. However, blacks, too, have internalized this sense of inferiority. In 1995, one study had black participants answer 20 questions from the GRE. After being asked to simply state their race on the test, correct responses dropped in half.

 

Henry Kissinger argues that the notion of oppressed peoples rising up is a myth. The oppressed tend to rise up when the situation is improving. And that’s what seems to be happening here: It is finally safe to express anger at a level not seen even during the Civil Rights era. In Milwaukee right now, rioters are grabbing random whites off the street and beating them up. How interesting that now that we have a black president and the most equality-obsessed generation in history, the streets have exploded.

 

Some of this, of course, is due to a terribly cynical group of hucksters who exploit race hatred for political gain. They know that if blacks one day realize conservatives don’t hate them, the Democrat party is done. However, there has to be more to it. To confused, decent white people, the renewed anger doesn’t make sense. Racism is the biggest taboo in our culture and real progress has been made. Viewed through a psychological lens, however, it makes perfect sense. In the midst of danger, one simply survives. In the South, you will still find 80 year old black gentlemen who open doors for white people and call them “sir” and “ma’am”. We are only one generation removed from fire hoses and attack dogs and the collective PTSD is still working itself out. Will it? 

 

Unfortunately, many seem to be waiting for every vestige of unconscious racism to be vanquished before looking at the broken families and anti-intellectualism in their own communities. But unconscious bias doesn’t work that way. White women will continue to clutch their purses until the links between blacks and crime are severed by reality. That change has to come from within. If they are waiting for white people or a benevolent government to save them, it’s going to be a long wait.