Tim Wise's Blog, page 32

Tim Wise on CNN's "What the Week" with Pete Dominick, 10/23/10

Here's my appearance on CNN's "What the Week" with Pete Dominick, from 10/23/10, discussing racial and religious bias, the Juan Williams controversy and NPR…There are about two minutes of set up for the piece before the interview: worth watching in its entirety…

Affirmative Action for Dummies: Explaining the Difference Between Oppression and Opportunity

One of the best things about getting to speak to audiences across the country is the opportunity to engage with them during the question and answer sessions that follow my formal presentations. Although the questions posed are often contentious — no surprise given that the subject is racism and white privilege, and oftentimes white folks are not particularly pleased at hearing about such matters — the questioners are typically polite, if forceful, and I strive to make sure my answers are equally as civil as the challenges thrown my way.

Occasionally, of course, those who take issue with my positions do so to create drama, rather than to engage in a real exchange of ideas. And so it was this past week, when a young man at the University of Idaho tried his best to derail my presentation there. First, he stood outside the doors of the event, handing out a flier which called me an anti-white racist because of my support for affirmative action (and because I have said we should strive to listen to the historical perspectives of all people, rather than just those of white men — imagine!). He also had done some creative editing on a few quotes from past essays I had written, not to mention failing to actually footnote the quotes so as to let people know where he had gotten them. A scholar he isn't, but then again, such should hardly be surprising, coming from someone who previously had commandeered a microphone at another campus event to shout that immigrants were destroying the country, and who waded into the previous year's Take Back the Night March (an annual event to heighten awareness about rape and sexual assault), while shouting that he was "pro-rape."

As is my practice, whenever people like this show up at my events — even assholes who should have been kicked off campus for their endorsement of sexual violence — I always invite them to ask the first question of the night, and aver that I will allow them a follow-up as well. They will not, in other words, be able to claim that they were censored or unable to speak. They will not get to play victim.

And so, once I was done with my speech I immediately asked the young man if he would like to pose a question. After somewhat sheepishly walking to the mic, he got around to it, asking how I could claim to oppose institutional racism, while still supporting affirmative action, which — as he explained — discriminates against more qualified whites so as to benefit less qualified people of color.

Despite the tone of his printed missive, and his generally obnoxious demeanor around campus, I found the question reasonable, measured, and not uncommon, especially given the misinformation about affirmative action to which we have all been subjected for several decades. And so, after thanking him for the query, I attempted to explain why I feel affirmative action is fundamentally different from institutional racism as it has long been practiced against people of color.

After about 30 seconds or so of my reply — which I began by noting how paltry affirmative action efforts are and how little impact they've had on whites collectively — the student interrupted to say I was wrong, and to tell the audience that they should examine the subject themselves so as to find the truth. I agreed with this last part and said they could, for instance, begin by reading my book on the topic, which is filled with footnotes and references to studies all of which demonstrate the truth of my position on the matter. I continued trying to answer the question, to no avail, as he proceeded to interrupt a few more times to insist again that I was wrong and that he knew I would never answer the question. Indeed, answering is difficult when being interrupted.

Although I ultimately forced him to admit that he had no facts, no data, no references, no studies, no anything to which he could refer, which contradicted any of my claims on the subject, at the end of the exchange I felt unsatisfied. Making a college sophomore look foolish is neither particularly difficult nor rewarding. And after all, he had asked a question to which he — and anyone else wondering the same thing — deserved an answer. And so now, unfettered by the imbalanced rantings of an amateur heckler, I will explain what I tried to that night: namely, the difference between institutional racism and affirmative action.

Affirmative Action vs. Old-School Discrimination: Differences in Intent and Function

Although discrimination against people of color and affirmative action both involve race-based considerations, historic and contemporary discrimination against people of color differs from affirmative action in a number of distinct ways, both in terms of intent and the underlying premises of each, and in terms of the impact or consequences of each.

In terms of intent, affirmative action is nothing like old-fashioned or ongoing discrimination against people of color. Discrimination against so-called racial minorities has always been predicated on the belief that whites were more capable than people of color in terms of their abilities, and more deserving of consideration with regard to their rights and place in the nation. So when employers have refused to hire blacks, or have limited them to lower-level positions, this they have done because they view them as being less capable or deserving than whites–as less desirable employees. Likewise, racial profiling is based on pejorative assumptions about black and brown criminality and character. Housing discrimination is rooted in assumptions about folks of color being less desirable as neighbors or tenants.

Affirmative action, on the other hand, does not presume in the reverse that whites are inferior to people of color, or less desirable as workers, students or contractors. In fact, it presumes nothing at all about white abilities, relative to people of color. It merely presumes that whites have been afforded more-than-equal, extra opportunity relative to people of color, and that this arrangement has skewed the opportunity structure for jobs, college slots and contracts. Affirmative action is not predicated on any assumptions about whites, as whites, in terms of our humanity, decency, intelligence or abilities. It is based solely on assumptions about what being white has meant in the larger social structure. It casts judgment upon the social order and its results, not people per se. Although one is free to disagree with the sociological judgment being rendered in this case — that the social structure has produced disparities that require a response — it is intellectually dishonest and vulgar to compare this presumption about the social structure to the presumption that black people are biologically, culturally or behaviorally inferior to whites.

Additionally, discrimination against people of color has always had the intent of creating and protecting a system of inequality, and maintaining unearned white advantage. Affirmative action does not seek to create a system of unearned black and brown advantage, but merely to shrink unearned white advantage. In other words, unless one presumes there is no difference between policies that maximize inequality and those that seek to minimize it, it is impossible to compare affirmative action to discrimination against people of color, in the past or present.

Affirmative Action vs. Old-School Discrimination: Differences in Impact and Outcome

In terms of impact, affirmative action and discrimination against people of color are completely different. Discrimination against people of color, historically and today, deprives those people of color of the right to equal consideration for various opportunities on equitable terms. While some may think affirmative action does the same thing to whites, in fact this is untrue. Affirmative action programs only deprive whites, in effect, of the ability to continue banking our extra consideration, and the credentials and advantages we have accumulated under a system of unfairness, which afforded us more-than-equal opportunities. There is no moral entitlement to the use of such advantages, since they have not come about in a free and fair competition. History — and ongoing racial bias against people of color — have served as "thumbs on the scale" for whites, so to speak. Or even more so, as the equivalent of a "Warp Speed" button on a video game. Merely removing one's finger from the warp speed button cannot address the head start accumulated over many generations, nor the mentality that developed as a justification for that head start: a mentality that has sought to rationalize and legitimize the resulting inequities passed down through the generations. So affirmative action is tantamount to hitting a warp speed button for people of color, in an attempt to even out those unearned head starts, and allow everyone to compete on as level a playing field as possible. To not do so would be to cement the head start that has been obtained by whites, and especially white men, in the economic and educational realms. It would be like having an 8-lap relay race, in which one runner has had a 5-lap head start, and instead of placing the second runner at the same point as the first, so as to see who really is faster, we were to merely proclaim the race fair and implore the runner who had been held back to "run faster" and try harder, fairness be damned.

Finally, discrimination against people of color, historically, has had the real social impact of creating profound imbalances, inequities and disparities in life chances between whites and people of color. In other words, the consequences of that history have been visible: it has led to wealth gaps of more than 10:1 between whites and blacks, for instance (and 8:1 between whites and Latinos). It has led to major disparities in occupational status, educational attainment, poverty rates, earnings ratios, and rates of home ownership. Affirmative action has barely made a dent in these structural inequities, in large part because the programs and policies have been so weakly enforced, scattershot, and pared back over the past twenty years. So despite affirmative action, whites continue (as I document in my books, Colorblind, and Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White) to receive over 90 percent of government contracts, to hold over 90 percent of tenured faculty positions, to hold over 85 percent of management level jobs in the private sector workforce, to be half as likely as blacks to be unemployed (even when only comparing whites and blacks with college degrees), and to get into their college of first choice at higher rates than African Americans or Latinos.

In other words, when institutional racism is operating, we can actually see the results. We can see the after-effects in terms of social disparities that favor the group receiving all the preferences. But affirmative action has produced no such disparities, in reverse. It hasn't even really closed the existing ones all that much. So if anything, a proper critique of affirmative action would insist that it hasn't gone far enough, or been enforced enough to break the grip of white institutional privilege.

The Racist Underpinning of Anti-Affirmative Action Sentiment

Although not all who oppose affirmative action are racists who purposely seek to maintain institutionalized white advantage, the underlying premise of the anti-affirmative action position comes dangerously close to being intrinsically racist in nature. After all, affirmative action rests on the premise that, in the absence of institutional obstacles to equal opportunity — both past and present — people of color would have obtained positions across the occupational structure, and throughout academia and business, roughly equal to their percentages of the national population. So, on this view, affirmative action merely seeks to create a distribution of jobs, college enrollments and contract opportunities more similar to that which would have obtained anyway in a just society. To reject this premise is to believe, virtually by definition, that people of color are inferior, and that they would have lagged significantly behind whites anyway, even if equal opportunity had ruled the day. Either because of biological or cultural inadequacy, black and brown folks would simply have failed to obtain a much better outcome than they did under conditions of formal apartheid and oppression. Therefore, to this way of thinking, affirmative action artificially elevates those who would have failed if left to their own devices — at least, relative to whites — and injures whites who naturally would have ended up on top, and who because of their merits deserve to do so.

Indeed, it didn't take long for my critic at the University of Idaho to resort to just such a position last week. Confronted with the facts demonstrating ongoing white advantages throughout the society, despite his insistence that we were now the victims of massive injustice — such as the fact that even with affirmative action, whites receive over 90 percent of government contract dollars — his only possible reply (and one that was entirely predictable, though less blatantly racist types typically refuse to offer it publicly) was that perhaps this outcome reflected the "fact" that whites are just that much better than everyone else: perhaps, in this case, they were 90 percent or more of the most qualified people for those contracts.

Despite the fact that this is simply absurd — and the research here is clear, indicating that contract dollars flow to old boy's networks largely unrelated to objective merit — on a purely philosophical and analytical level as well, this argument is nonsensical.

Fact is, even were we to accept the fundamentally racist notion that whites as a group really are superior in terms of ability, intelligence, drive and determination relative to blacks and other people of color, and thus, that even in a system without artificial impediments, those people of color would lag behind whites in all areas of human well-being, the fact would remain, there were such impediments, and many of these remain in place today. And those impediments matter, above and beyond whatever "natural" inequities the racist mind might envision existing anyway. And those additional disparities require our attention, no matter what one may think about the inherent inequities between so-called racal groups.

By way of analogy, consider the following: Imagine that tennis stars, Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick were to play 100 matches: roughly two a week, for the next year. Statistically, Nadal is the stronger player. He is, simply, better than Roddick. But yet, the better player doesn't always win every competition, despite their advantage. So we might expect, rather than winning every time, that Nadal would emerge victorious, say, 70 times. But imagine now that we were to place ankle weights on Roddick, or prohibit him, by rule, from using backhand strokes, thererby forcing him to run around every Nadal groundstroke to his backhand court. Needless to say, given such artificial limitations, Roddick would now lose nearly every time, certainly more often than nine in ten matches. The fact that Nadal would have won most of the time anyway says nothing about how unfair the artificial impediments placed upon Roddick would be in this instance. And had those impediments not been there, the results, though uneven, would not have been nearly as lopsided as they were. Surely, even someone who starts from the racist assumption that whites would have naturally beaten out people of color for most of the best jobs, contracts and college slots, cannot help but admit that if "only" nature had been operating — rather than nature plus artificially imposed obstacles for people of color and artificial boosts for whites — whatever gaps emerged would, by necessity, be smaller than the ones we see now.

So in order to create a just society, in which people can prove themselves on their merits, we must have as close to an equal footing for all as possible. Even if the racists were right — and they are not — that some groups are simply "better" than others, there would be no way to tell which of the individuals in those various groups were the superior or inferior ones, unless all are afforded the chance to prove themselves, without the artificial burdens imposed by the society. If affirmative action were eliminated, we would not have the equal and fair race. We would have institutionalized white advantage, unchecked by a countervailing force.

In the end, we really shouldn't think of affirmative action as a matter of racial preference, so much as a preference based on a recognition of what race means, and what racism has meant in American life. It is a preference that takes into consideration the simple and indisputable fact that people of color have not been afforded truly equal opportunity. Whereas old-school discrimination against people of color was (and is) predicated on actual value judgments about the ability, character, and value of black and brown folks, affirmative action is predicated on no personal or group-based judgments whatsoever, but rather, upon the judgment that the social structure has produced inequities that require our attention and redress.

We can deal with that reality or not. But for those who would rather not, at least know that this is where the rest of us are coming from. Calling affirmative action a form of institutional racism doesn't make it so. Not in print, or at a microphone. Not anywhere.

Bikini Liberalism: Juan Williams, Implicit Bias and the Trouble With NPR

I've never been a fan of Juan Williams. Far too chummy with his FOX News colleagues and too eager to attack longstanding civil rights leaders in the name of supposedly courageous political "independence," Williams is one I have never thought to defend before.

But today such a defense is deserved. Williams, it turns out, has been done a supreme disservice by his other employer, National Public Radio, and it is a disservice to which the harshest condemnation should be applied.

For those not up on the story, its contours are simple enough: On Monday, Williams appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show to discuss the previous week's flap on The View, where O'Reilly had bellowed that "The Muslims killed on us 9/11″ as justification for opposing the building of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque." During their conversation about Bill's outburst — which had prompted hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg to walk off stage — Williams admitted to O'Reilly that he is often nervous on planes if he sees persons who are identifiably Muslim. Although he went on to caution O'Reilly, and presumably those watching, about ascribing to all Muslims the terrorist tendencies of an infinitesimally small few — so, in other words, he wasn't endorsing the fear to which he himself sometimes falls prey, but rather merely noting it honestly — the full context of his comments mattered not to the folks at NPR. On Wednesday they fired him, explaining that statements such as those he had offered on O'Reilly were "inconsistent" with their "editorial standards and practices."

Yet what had Williams done, exactly? He acknowledged his own biases, and then explained the fallacy embedded therein. He was being honest as a way to demonstrate an important fact, and in this case, a fact that the nice white liberals who predominate at NPR try to deny, especially for themselves. Namely, that even the best of us can be taken in by racism, by religious bias, by ethnic chauvinism, by prejudice. No matter our liberal bona fides, the bottom line is this: advertising works, whether for selling toothpaste, tennis shoes, or stereotypes.

Putting aside for a moment the irony – after all, much of the most crass anti-Muslim invective has been provided by the very people at FOX who pay Williams's bills – the point remains: no one can completely avoid ingesting some of that to which we're subjected when it comes to racial or religious "others." Years of research bears out this fact, indicating that wide majorities of us have internalized implicit biases against all types of people: African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, women, LGBT folks, persons with disabilities, and others. Not because we are bad people, let alone bigots, but because we're imperfect beings who despite being pretty decent, nonetheless can find ourselves stuck in the cognitive traps laid for us by the larger culture.

The only difference between Juan Williams and the people who fired him is this: Williams is honest enough to admit his own damage. And importantly, what the research on this subject tells us is that it is precisely those persons who are able to see and acknowledge their biases who are the most likely to challenge themselves, and try valiantly not to act on them. In other words, it is the Juan Williams's of the world whose self-awareness in this regard will minimize the likelihood of discriminatory behavior. Meanwhile, it's the liberals who deny to their dying breath that they have a "racist bone in their bodies," or who swear they "never see color," or insist that they are open-minded, forward thinking and free of prejudice, who are often unable to see how their internalized biases effect them, and move them around the chessboard of life without them even realizing it. Frankly, those are the ones from whom racial and religious "others" probably need the most protection.

If his ex-colleagues at NPR who now preen as ethical superiors, above the base instincts of we lesser mortals, were to sit and take the Implicit Association Tests developed by leading psychologists for the purpose of ferreting out subconscious biases, I have no doubt that most would be found to harbor the same prejudices to which Williams has confessed. But liberalism of the type that rules the day at NPR – what we might call "bikini liberalism," which involves just enough liberality so as to cover up the socially unacceptable parts – requires no such introspection. All they need to know is that Williams is buddies with that awful blowhard O'Reilly, and works for FOX. Case closed. They've never much liked his gig at FOX, and now they have found a reason to sever ties with him.

Fair enough. But in the process of their self-righteous shedding of the one who told the truth, we should not allow them to pretend they do so in the name of high-minded, unbiased principle. They do not. They do so only as a way to maintain the white liberal pretense: that racism and other forms of bias are only problems for those people over there, but never for us. We voted for Obama. We have a Celebrate Diversity sticker on our car, or one of those neat Coexist stickers, where the letters are all made out of different religious symbols. We're better than that. And we can't sully ourselves by associating with someone who admits that occassionally even they turn out to be flawed, and fragile, which is to say human.

Bikini Liberalism indeed. Or better yet, perhaps we should just call it what it is — dishonesty — and be done with it.

New Report on Tea Party Movement: Racist, Christian Supremacist Ties Documented

For those who still refuse to believe that the Tea Party movement is thoroughly infested with racists, white nationalists, Christian supremacists and assorted extremists — and who cleave to the lie that they are only protesting "big government," taxes and deficits – this report completely demolishes any legitimacy to the latter, sanguine view. Put together for the NAACP by veteran researchers and experts on the far-right (full disclosure: I know both authors and consider them friends), it demonstrates the connections to overt bigots clearly. Even if most hangers-on and followers of the movement are not motivated by racism, the movement's core is about white nationalism, and it is this core that determines the direction of the movement, not some elderly grandma from Scottsdale.

Pass this around, and download the report at the above embedded link…

Glenn Beck Defends Tea Party Candidate Linked to Racist, Violent Motorcycle Gang

Imagine for a moment that any Democratic Party candidate, especially a black or brown one, were to invite members of the Bloods, Crips or MS-13 (a notorious Salvadoran-American street gang) to attend one of their campaign events, or to provide personal security for that candidate during an interview.

Or imagine that the candidate of color were to speak at a rally organized by persons who are affiliated with those gangs.

What would the outcry be from the right? From white people generally? From Glenn Beck in particular? To ask the question is to answer it.

But when the candidate is a Tea Partier, the fact that he's affiliated with gangs doesn't matter, even if he is black. And so Beck can call that candidate a "man of integrity." Because those gangs are gangs of white bikers, specifically the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, notorious for all types of criminal activity, from drug and gun running to murder. And of course, white gangs don't count.

The Outlaws are also notoriously racist against folks of color — which makes candidate Allen West even more pathetic for defending them — but of course, their racism won't bother the right either…

All in a day's work when your life relies on double standards…

News Roundup — Bits and Bytes from the Past Few Days

Once again, I've fallen behind on posting (and comment approval — sorry about that), but am trying to catch up and post a bunch this coming week, along with a few new essays.

In the past week or so there have been several interesting stories and/or articles, bouncing around the web, that touch on race. So, in no particular order, here they are:

First, a great essay excerpted from a new book, detailing the dishonesty of right-wing claims that the housing and economic crises have been caused by lending to poor folks and folks of color under things like the Community Reinvestment Act. This racist lie has been bouncing around since early fall of 2008, and despite being debunked numerous times (and rejected by almost every serious economist in the country), it keeps coming up. White folks love us some scapegoats, apparently. Check out the essay, then the book from which it comes!

Then a well-researched piece about growing ties between certain Tea Party types in the U.S. and far-right, anti-Muslim bigots in the UK, giving the lie, once again, to the idea that all this "movement" is about is fiscal responsibility.

And finally, this excellent report from Media Matters, detailing the way that would-be assassin and wanna-be revolutionary, Byron Williams — who was injured in a shoot out with California Highway Patrol when stopped on his way to kill officials at the Tides Foundation and ACLU — was influenced by Glenn Beck and other right wing media mouthpieces. These folks are encouraging terrorism. They should be held accountable.

Tim Wise Named one of "25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World" by Utne Reader

Although they didn't go into much detail, Utne Reader — which rarely touches issues related to race or individuals who work on those issues — has named me one of 2010′s "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." Therein I am referred to — in a positive way it appears — as "The Confrontationalist," because I believe in confronting issues of race and racism rather than running from them under the guise of post-racialism. Not sure they really get what the antiracism struggle is about, but I'm grateful for the mention anyway

Catching Up – News Bits and Bytes for the Past Week

I've been unable to post for a few days , due to hectic travel and difficulty figuring out how to embed links to the site using my iPad (which is all I had with me on the road), because for some reason the editing options for WordPress sites are different on the iPad than a regular computer.

Anyway, home now and lots of things to mention, in case you haven't seen them:

In evaluating the Tea Party phenomenon, those of us who insist white racial resentment is at the heart of the movement are often attacked for besmirching the high minded, non-racial motivations of those who identify with this insurgency. So, for instance, we are told that the real concerns of the TP are: deficit spending and big government. Prejudice and bigotry have no part in their efforts, or so we're told.

And yet, if this were true, the conservatives in the Tea Party would have been screaming at George W. Bush when he was president (and certainly wouldn't have voted for his re-election, since he eliminated the government surplus that had been created in the Clinton years). They would have called for the resignation of Dick Cheney for saying, famously, that "deficits don't matter." They would have supported Al Gore in 2000, since he was a member of the surplus-creating Clinton Administration. They would detest, rather than revere, the legacy of the Reagan years, which boosted the deficit and debt to before-then unheard of proportions.

And surely they wouldn't support candidates who claim to oppose deficits but routinely live in debt, without concern about the internal inconsistency. To wit, Alaska TP favorite Joe Miller, who has run up immense personal debt, despite his insistence that the country must live within its means.

As for the TP'ers claimed "love" for the Constitution (and thus, their insistence that they are merely wanting to return to its principles), key TP backed candidates are remarkably dedicated to altering it, apparently not at all thrilled about some of its stipulations.

And speaking of Miller, he also proves how little the TP movement is really about opposing government intervention in the economy, or health care (at least if the aid is to people like themselves). Thus, Miller has been forced to acknowledge that he has personally benefitted from government health care as well as other government programs. That his supporters continue to reward him with loyalty, despite his hypocrisy suggests that it isn't government aid that bothers them, so much as concern that the "wrong people" might receive that aid. In addition to health care benefits paid for by government, Miller has also "previously acknowledged receiving federal farm subsidies for land he owned in Kansas in the 1990s, as well as low-income hunting and fishing licenses for him and his wife in Alaska."

Meanwhile, while there is little evidence the TP candidates really stand for fiscal responsibility, or even a principled opposition to government spending, there is plenty in the past week to suggest that bigotry and prejudice (racial and religious) is what steers their ship. And so, we have Sharron Angle attacking Harry Reid for being an "illegal alien's best friend," and running an ad featuring presumably scary looking Mexican immigrants (who, turns out, are actually Mexicans living in Mexico), whom Louisiana Senator David Vitter also featured in an equally xenophobic ad of his own.

And to demonstrate that her bigotry isn't limited to Mexican folk, Angle fabricated a story about Sharia Law taking root in American cities, so as to scare up anti-Muslim hysteria. Specifically, she singled out Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest per capita population of Arab Americans, Muslim or not, in the U.S. On a side note, I was in Dearborn this past week. Strangely, the only law enforcement officers I saw were white cops. No Taliban. No Caliphate. In short, Sharron Angle is full of crap. But anyone with sense already knew that I suppose.

Facing Race 2010 Final Plenary: Amazing Conversation – Check it Out!

Here is the final plenary session of the 2010 Facing Race Conference, in Chicago. I'm on the panel with Rinku Sen, Van Jones, Maria Teresa Kumar, and moderator Cathy Cohen

Oh Surprise! Dinesh D'Souza — Like All Right Wingers — is a Liar!

I'm sure this will come as a shock to no one who has been awake during the past twenty years. But, turns out, Dinesh D'Souza — my old nemesis and a man of color who is married to a woman named Dixie (I kid you not, this is for real, and it matters) — is just straight making shit up now about President Obama. I mean, just straight fabricating shit. Because that's what conservatives do. They lie. Always. Every minute of the day. Never forget this.