Racial Equality – Page 2

A Rerun

I particularly enjoy visiting the “your memories” function on Facebook (mostly for the pictures of grandchildren when they were younger and me when my hair was still black…). The other day, however, those memories included several comments referencing a post from 2017. I reread it, and concluded that it continues to be relevant–especially as we approach a pivotal election. So today, I’m taking the day off and reposting “Tribalism Versus Americanism.”

Think of it as a very late summer re-run.

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We Americans are a cantankerous and argumentative lot. We hold vastly different political philosophies and policy preferences, and we increasingly inhabit alternate realities. Partisans routinely attack elected officials—especially Presidents—who don’t share their preferences or otherwise meet their expectations.

Politics as usual. Unpleasant and often unfair, but—hysteria and hyperbole notwithstanding– usually not a threat to the future of the republic. Usually.

We are beginning to understand that Donald Trump does pose such a threat.

In the wake of Trump’s moral equivocations following Charlottesville, critics on both the left and right characterized his refusal to distinguish between the “fine people” among the Nazis and KKK and the “fine people” among the protestors as an assault on core American values. His subsequent, stunning decision to pardon rogue sheriff Joe Arpaio has been described, accurately, as an assault on the rule of law.

It’s worth considering what, exactly, is at stake.

Whatever our beliefs about “American exceptionalism,” the founding of this country was genuinely exceptional—defined as dramatically different from what had gone before—in one incredibly important respect: for the first time, citizenship was made dependent upon behavior rather than identity. In the Old World, countries had been created by conquest, or as expressions of ethnic or religious solidarity. As a result, the rights of individuals were dependent upon their identities, the status of their particular “tribes” in the relevant order. (Jews, for example, rarely enjoyed the same rights as Christians, even in countries that refrained from oppressing them.)

Your rights vis a vis your government depended upon who you were—your religion, your social class, your status as conqueror or conquered.

The new United States took a different approach to citizenship. Whatever the social realities, whatever the disabilities imposed by the laws of the various states, anyone (okay, any white male) born or naturalized here was equally a citizen. We look back now at the exclusion of blacks and women and our treatment of Native Americans as shameful departures from that approach, and they were, but we sometimes fail to appreciate how novel the approach itself was at that time in history.

All of our core American values—individual rights, civic equality, due process of law—flow from the principle that government must not facilitate tribalism, must not treat people differently based upon their ethnicity or religion or other marker of identity. Eventually (and for many people, reluctantly) we extended that principle to gender, skin color and sexual orientation.

Racism is a rejection of that civic equality. Signaling that government officials will not be punished for flagrantly violating that foundational principle so long as the disobedience advances the interests of the President, fatally undermines it.

Admittedly, America’s history is filled with disgraceful episodes in which we have failed to live up to the principles we profess. In many parts of the country, communities still grapple with bitter divisions based upon tribal affiliations—race, religion and increasingly, partisanship.

When our leaders have understood the foundations of American citizenship, when they have reminded us that what makes us Americans is allegiance to core American values—not the color of our skin, not the prayers we say, not who we love—we emerge stronger from these periods of unrest. When they speak to the “better angels of our nature,” most of those “better angels” respond.

When our leaders are morally bankrupt, all bets are off. We’re not all Americans any more, we’re just a collection of warring tribes, some favored by those in power, some not.

As the old saying goes: elections have consequences.

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History Is Rhyming…

Note: yesterday’s “extra” post was an accident. Sorry for the assault on your inboxes!

Like many readers of this blog, I subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s daily “Letters from an American.” Having come through an education system notoriously light on comprehensive history, I find her daily expositions of America’s past very enlightening–especially when I learn about the details of past events that bear an uncanny resemblance to our current quandaries.

A recent Letter made me think of the quip attributed to Mark Twain, to the effect that while history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, it frequently rhymes.

Richardson was comparing our current divisions with those that triggered the founding of the Republican Party–and the Civil War. The GOP, ironically, was formed to fight slavery and uphold the premise of the Declaration that “all men are created equal.” In the years since the Civil War, we’ve seen the parties change places–the Democrats have become the party defending human equality, while today’s GOP looks very much like the combination of racists and plutocrats that characterized the old Democratic Party.

What really struck me was the sense that we’ve returned to that age-old fight. The parties may have switched sides, but the nature of the battle remains depressingly familiar.

After providing details of the events leading up to the demise of the Whigs and the formation of a new Republican Party–a party formed to combat the notion that some humans are superior to and entitled to rule over others by virtue of their skin color– Richardson compared that era to our own.

When voters elected Lincoln president, the fledgling Republican Party turned away from a government that catered to an oligarchy trying to overturn democracy and instead reinvented the American government to create a new, active government that guaranteed to poorer men the right to be treated equally before the law, the right to a say in their government, and access to resources that had previously been monopolized by the wealthy.

The present looks much like that earlier moment when people of all different political backgrounds came together to defend the principles of the United States. In today’s moment, when someone like J.D. Vance backer billionaire Peter Thiel says, “Democracy, whatever that means, is exhausted,” and the Republicans’ Project 2025 calls for replacing democracy with Christian nationalism, it makes sense for all people who care about our history and our democratic heritage to pull together.

Richardson noted that there are some in the GOP who recognize the threat posed by a MAGA party that looks a lot like the Confederacy. She quoted Olivia Troye, who served in the Trump White House, and who is now working with Republicans for Harris. Troye has called upon Mike Pence to endorse Harris, and is quoted as saying that

“[W]hat is happening here with the Republican Party… is dangerous and extreme. And I think we need to get back to the values of…observing the rule of law, of standing with our international allies and actually providing true leadership to the world, which is something that Kamala Harris has exhibited during the Biden Administration.”

(As an aside, I’d be shocked if Pence had the spine to endorse Harris…I’m pretty sure that his one moment of integrity in refusing to go along with Trump’s coup exhausted his ability to do the right thing. I hope I’m wrong, but I think his four years of utter, embarrassing sycophancy are more consistent with his character than that one example of moral courage…)

Richardson’s comparison of that pre-civil war era with our own is apt. There are differences, of course, but the choices Americans face today certainly “rhyme” with the choices that confronted Americans then. Once again, We the People are facing a frontal challenge to the most basic premises of our founding documents–premises that we have admittedly never quite lived up to, but that we have (mostly) continued to pursue.

There’s a lot wrong with American society today, but most of it is fixable–if we elect public servants who are honorable and who–in the words of Olivia Troye–are committed to the rule of law, to standing with our international allies, and capable of providing what has been called servant leadership.

Richardson reminds us that we’ve been here before, and the good guys prevailed. If we want to preserve the country they saved–if we want to turn back the White Supremacists and plutocrats of today’s GOP–we’ll vote Blue in sufficient numbers to drive the lesson home. A Blue wave would–ideally– lead to the disintegration of MAGA and a return of the GOP to normalcy.

Or perhaps, as with the Whigs, the creation of a new, saner political party.

I can live with either result.

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What Is Merit?

You’ve got to give Trump “credit” for one thing: he publicly expresses all the most vile racist tropes embraced by the MAGA movement. His attack on Kamala Harris as a “DEI” candidate is on a par with his constant assertions that people of color are either criminals or bums (or “not the finest” people…). Too bad America doesn’t get more immigration from Norway…

One of the most persistent accusations that bigots like Trump level at efforts aimed at erasing the structural effects of decades of discrimination is that such efforts necessarily disregard merit–that attempts to diversify a workforce or a student body inevitably result in a less-effective workforce or a “dumbed down” classroom.

The problem with that accusation is that it rests on a deeply-held conviction that merit is something that “those people” obviously lack, rather than on an accurate understanding of what constitutes merit and how we measure it.

Persuasion recently featured an interview between Yascha Mounk and Simon Fanshawe on just that topic. Fanshawe does a good deal of diversity work rooted in the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and other Enlightenment figures, and Mounk asked him how his approach differs from other diversity efforts. Fanshowe responded that “diversity inclusion” is about trying to understand what people’s different experiences bring to joint enterprises.

What organizations or businesses really have is a bunch of strangers brought together to achieve a common objective, whether it’s making pizzas or teaching a course at university or putting a man or woman on the moon. And my proposition to them is that it’s through their differences, what they each differently bring to that task and its different components—that’s why diversity matters. And one further thing that I would say is that there’s a key difference when we think about this notion of diversity. We think about the deficits. In other words, you can look at data and you could look at where the imbalances are between different groups of people. But there’s another element of this which is the diversity dividend, and that’s what happens when you start to combine the differences. Diversity is absolutely a talent strategy if you’d like to achieve common objectives.

When Mounk questioned him about the widespread notion that diversity efforts necessarily downplay merit-based hiring, Fanshawe’s response was, in my opinion, exactly right.

What I would say is that you need to think about what you mean by merit. In other words, what do you value and what people are able to bring it into organizations? Typically what you have is that merit is largely based on a technical notion, on a professional skill notion. They will bring that technical skill. But the truth of it is there’s a kind of skill threshold when you’re trying to fill a job or create a team. But then the question is, what else is that person bringing? And I’m not suggesting, ever, that people should be recruited because of who they are. I’m saying that, actually, it’s not who they are that matters. It’s what they bring through who they are…

So what I would say is that if we start to think of merit as being that combination of skill and then also the knowledge of that and the experience you bring through who you are and your personality, then what you start to do is to combine a number of things with other people. So it’s important to recognise that the members of certain groups and certain members of those groups experience disadvantage. But it’s not a uniform experience. It’s not an all-day experience. I often say that the thing about prejudice for lesbians and gays is we might experience discrimination every day, but we don’t any longer experience it all day.

Let’s reevaluate merit, because what you often have in jobs is that people have an assumption about the merit that’s required for the job. They then recruit to that assumption and that assumption is never challenged. And in effect what it can do is cut out people who actually have got enormous amounts of talent they could bring to that job but they’re just not perceived as being suitable for it.

That last paragraph really speaks to the issue of prejudice. Not prejudice for or against certain groups of people, but the “pre-judging” that so often occurs in formulating job descriptions. What are the skills this job really requires? If that skill list is too narrow, the business or organization will overlook applicants who would be enormous assets.

Of course, the MAGA cult doesn’t consider such possibilities.

Like Trump, they define “merit” as White skin, a penis, and a “Christian” label.

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Bigotry And Business

Every day, I become more convinced that racism is the foundation of MAGA Republicanism. I do give grudging kudos to MAGA’s activism on behalf of its expansive hatreds–all evidence points to the minority status of these angry White Nationalists, but they are unrelenting–and frequently successful– in their efforts to combat any movement toward civility and inclusion.

Most of us are aware of MAGA’s successful efforts last year during Pride month to cow Target for having the temerity to carry Pride merchandise and thus mortally offending the “Christian” warriors. Those pious folks also rose up to attack Bud Light for working with a transgender person. (Somewhere, there must be an office of “watchers” ready to unleash the troops whenever some business has the nerve to market to “undesirable” folks….)

The most recent example of which I’m aware is a business called Tractor Supply.

Tractor Supply (with which I am wholly unfamiliar) sells animal feed, tractor parts and power tools. It has more than 2,230 stores nationwide, and has been recognized for its inclusiveness; Bloomberg praised it for promoting gender equality, while Newsweek called it one of the best U.S. companies for diversity.

Inclusion was evidently the company’s big sin. The haters came out in force.

The company came under scrutiny this month when conservative podcast host Robby Starbuck denounced Tractor Supply’s diversity and climate policies. An employee recently had messaged him to complain that the company was supporting LGBTQ+ groups, Starbuck told The Washington Post.

Starbuck visited Tractor Supply weekly to buy provisions for his farm in Franklin, Tenn., he said, but wasn’t comfortable with the company putting money toward inclusion programs.
“Start buying what you can from other places until Tractor Supply makes REAL changes,” he wrote on X on June 6.

Other customers responded to say they would join the boycott, and the company’s share price fell by 5 percent in the past month, according to the Financial Times.

Tractor Supply backed off, announcing that it will end all “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” programs and will no longer support LGBTQ and global warming causes.

That, of course, enraged a different part of the customer base. A number of customers have indicated an intent to stop doing business with Tractor Supply, and several have issued statements indicating disappointment with the company’s willingness to buckle under. As one wrote, “Tractor Supply’s embarrassing capitulation to the petty whims of anti-LGBTQ extremists puts the company out of touch with the vast majority of Americans who support their LGBTQ friends, family, and neighbors.”

Tractor Supply is a predominantly rural enterprise, which means it faces a more formidable challenge than businesses that cater to a largely urban customer base. As a recent study has found, a growing aspect of rural identity has added to America’s political and cultural divide.

Jacobs and Shea pinpoint the 1980s as when this identity began to crystallize. In different regions, cost pressures on family farms and ranches, suburban sprawl, or water inaccessibility squeezed rural communities economically, which coincided with terrible depictions of country life in popular culture. Just as national news outlets emerged through cable and the internet, regional papers closed, and divisive national narratives enveloped local political context. Separate localized identities merged into a national common rural identity

Simultaneously, globalization shuttered small manufacturers central to communities’ economies, so younger generations moved to bigger cities, and social issues and addiction grew. For Cramer, a key component of this rural identity is a resentment from the perception of being overlooked by government. It has furthered party polarization as rural Americans increasingly vote Republican and see the world opposite from group identities associated with Democrats and vice versa.

Rural America is whiter, older, and more religious than urban America, but the researchers found that–even after controlling for those factors– living in rural America independently added to support for the Republican party.

One of the most conspicuous aspects of MAGA Republicanism has been the willingness of its adherents to “act out.” In addition to the more-or-less organized bands of truly dangerous crazies like the Proud Boys and other neo-fascist groups, members of groups like Moms for Liberty and the American Family Association have become increasingly belligerent, increasingly apt to insist that the schools, libraries and businesses they patronize privilege their particular bigotries. They are primarily active in the rural precincts where Republicanism is high and the fact that they don’t represent majority opinion even there is less obvious.

It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for the businesses caught in the middle–damned by MAGA if they stick to their purported principles, and shunned by tolerant Americans if they abandon them.

And we wonder why success in retail is so elusive…..

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Occam’s Razor Again

A few days ago, I mentioned “Occam’s Razor,” the principle that the explanation of an event or condition that requires the fewest assumptions is usually the one that’s correct. (Wikipedia tells us that “Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation. Occam’s razor applies especially in the philosophy of science, but also appears in everyday life.”)

In the years since the election of 2016, I have come ever-more-firmly to the conclusion that the explanation of MAGA–as predicted by the principle of Occam’s Razor, not to mention common sense– is racism.

There are reasons so many well-meaning Americans fail to understand this. As Rick Perlstein recently wrote, much of that failure can be attributed to coverage by the traditional media.

This failure, as I have been imploring, represents a deeply ingrained pattern, betokening a broader civic problem. In the weeks following Barack Obama’s election in 2008, America suffered an epidemic of racially motivated hate crimes: 200, all told, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. You may not have heard about that, because it was woefully undercovered by the gatekeeping organs of American political journalism. It was crowded out by their chosen narrative: that with the election of an African American president, we had overcome.

In the nation’s vaunted Newspaper of Record, a record of that portentous violence was particularly scant—even when it occurred in New York City, on the night of Obama’s victory, when a roving mob on Staten Island committed three separate assaults on minorities. The last victim they thumped onto the hood of an automobile; he spent the next month in a coma. The New York Times only ever mentioned the crime two months later, tucked away in the “New York Region” section, when the alleged perpetrators were arraigned.

I am actually somewhat sympathetic to the “we have overcome” narrative; it was certainly my initial reaction to that election. Unfortunately for its accuracy, subsequent research has painted a very different story. While many Americans (I hope and believe a majority) rejoiced at what we thought was evidence of progress, it turned out that Obama’s election operated to surface a significant and virulent racism that had been (thinly) veiled by what was then called “political correctness” and is now vilified as “wokeness.”

I recently came across an article about yet another academic study underlining the role of “racial resentment” in our current, ugly, polarized political time.

“Stop the Steal: Racial Resentment, Affective Partisanship, and Investigating the January 6th Insurrection,” relied on a national survey of adults in the US conducted in 2021. As the Guardian has reported,

Political observers are quick to blame hyperpartisanship and political polarization for leading more than 2,000 supporters of Donald Trump to riot at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

But according to a recently published study, “racial resentment” – not just partisanship – explains the violence that broke out after the 2020 election.

Angered over the claim, promoted by Trump and his closest allies, that heavily Black cities had rigged the 2020 election in favor of Democrats, white voters – some affiliated with white-nationalist groups and militias, and others acting alone – stormed the US capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 election.

“What Trump and Republicans did was they tried to make the point that something nefarious was going on in areas that were primarily African American,” said David Wilson, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who published the study with Darren Davis, a professor of political science at Notre Dame.

The entire appeal of the MAGA movement has been a play on racist resentments: affirmative action and other remedial measures are really efforts to “rob” Whites, taxation of the wealthy is a ruse to enable “redistribution” to unworthy Black folks, immigration is an effort to “replace” White Christians, elections of the “wrong” people have obviously been rigged…Whatever “polite” justifications voters offer for supporting Trump, the real reason, when you peel the onion, is that he hates the people they hate: Jews, Gays, Muslims…and especially, always, Black and Brown people.

The research cited by the Guardian confirmed numerous other studies that have found a major, positive correlation between racialized resentment and support for Trump and MAGA. The potential effects of that resentment for democracy were suggested by a hair-raising quotation in the final paragraph:

“If you can get people to believe that democracy is about your freedom, and that the government is taking that away through taxes, through policies, through regulatory efforts, and [even] by fixing and rigging elections, you can stoke their resentment and they can even come to resent democracy.”

If democracy helps “them,” then democracy must go….

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