What Matters? Part II

One might assume (based on my criticism of BLM, “defund the police,” “the talk,” and arguing whether data proves racial disparities in policing) that I don’t think race matters in the States. One would be wrong. I have always stated racism is evil and evident across the globe yesterday, today, and sadly tomorrow. Which does not counsel passivity, but cold realism in approaching solutions. Solutions will never be total, only partial, and we must focus on continuous progress to avoid backsliding. But soldier on, we must.

If you have ever met a real racist–not someone just #hashtagged as one–you know that there is little one can do to change his mind. The repentant racist is a rare breed: not exactly extinct, but always on the endangered list. One can, however, conform a racist’s behavior. Even a committed racist gets tired of constantly having to defend himself from public scorn. Thus society made public use of the n-word so offensive it changed from acceptable (among many) to unacceptable (excepting rappers). What a racist mutters under his breath in his own home? Another story.

This is a work everyone can undertake: identifying the small acts of racism that occur everyday (ask any person of color) and stand against them. No need to be boorish: simply pointing them out as unacceptable will do. This is solidarity in action, and we all need to spend time thinking about how we enact it. Whom security guards follow in stores, when people assume skin-color automatically denotes wealth, why some people seem suspicious in some neighborhoods: examples where we need to check our personal biases and those around us. But this is no small thing. We can never ask people of color to stop thinking constantly about race if they are constantly reminded of it!

So much for atmospherics; what about policies?

You’re probably unsurprised I oppose reparations. If the sums were small and symbolic, I could probably be convinced, but then why bother? If you are in favor of the larger amounts being considered, I ask you to also consider the data on what happens when average people receive a financial windfall. It rarely turns out well. Not to mention, reparations involve all kinds of messy moral questions. Who is black, and how black does one need to be? This is the kind of racist genotyping the Confederacy engaged in! Why should the sons of Vietnamese refugees, the granddaughters of Irish indentured servants, or the great-grandchildren of Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg pay?

Racially-tinged policies are always a double-edged sword. Where there is a clear and proven case of racial discrimination, it may be just (and constitutional) overtly to consider race in the solution. Thus if a college or institution has a track-record of excluding a race, they may make a conscious choice to hire or promote people of that race for a time. But there is always a cost. As people of color so chosen will tell you, they suffer a stigma that they did not merit selection, but for the color of their skin.

Thus I strongly adhere to the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, who said “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” I mention this to note that the policies I propose are never tied to race directly, and thus avoid the stigma of racialist policies. Still, these policies would directly affect black Americans, the subject of our recent strife. I propose two policies. The local policy could be implemented immediately and make an immediate difference. The national one is long-term, designed to address historic imbalances.

At the local level:

It is amusing that big city mayors (almost always Democrats and often Progressives, to boot) rail on about segregation while maintaining the racist zoning policies that created that condition. There is a reason there are no affordable housing options in Georgetown, DC: zoning regulations. Before you finish reading this paragraph, Mayor Muriel Bowser could propose and the DC Council could approve the construction of small, tasteful, affordable family-housing in Georgetown. Mutatis mutandis, Chicago, New York and hipster Seattle.

Rather than trying to remake DC Ward 8 (the poorest, most crime-ridden section of the District), the local government could start integrating wealthy neighborhoods by (1) allowing affordable housing to be built there, (2) subsidizing the development and the movement of people to those areas, and (3) where necessary, using the powers of eminent domain (at fair market price, naturally) to obtain land. Why don’t they do it? Politically powerful and wealthy benefactors oppose it: NIMBYism at its racially-tinged finest. Despite decades of Democratic governance, most of America’s largest cities are more segregated than they were in the 1960s!

Is this important? Growing data sources show that one’s zip code at birth/childhood is a better predictor of health, wealth, and success than any other factor! We’ve tried for several generations a weird experiment in separate-but-equal: keeping poor people–mostly minorities–segregated but pouring money into schools, policing, and social services, with little to show for it (according to the protestors in the streets). Good neighborhoods already have less crime, better schools, more grocery stores and parks and enrichment activities. Integrating appropriate numbers of the poorer into such locations would involve little overall change to the neighborhood while reaping huge rewards. But don’t hold your breath.

At the national level:

Much is made of the relative distribution of wealth in America, including the racial imbalances. While some of the more exaggerated claims have been called into question, America has greater wealth imbalance than most advanced industrialized nations (and thus has it ever been, by the way). Furthermore, the net worth of a white family ($170,000) was almost ten times that of black family. Even accounting for the fact that the median white family was two parents with some college, while the median black family was a single mother with a high school education, this is astounding.

While I believe the breakdown in the family–specifically the two parent, nuclear family of yore–is the culprit, I would suggest the federal government focus its efforts on the children. Politicians who propose “baby bonds” are on the right track. Paid by the federal government to children when they reach adulthood, these transfer payments would help reduce the wealth imbalance at the critical juncture when youth either go to college or join the workforce (i.e., the exact time when some capital makes a huge difference).

The bonds should not be based on race but the financial status of the parent/s at birth: if below a certain cut-off, the federal government starts investing US savings bonds in a numbered account for that child, accessible somewhere between their eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays, payable only to the child (not his parents, nor his beneficiaries). The amount is open to debate, but should certainly cover a degree at community college. The money should be paid against receipts for things like tuition, vocational training, new job expenses or starting a business: not simply disbursed to be spent on tattoos or avocado toast (or a tattoo of avocado toast, even). Such a program has predictable costs (not all immediate) and could even be prorated to cover (grandfather, so to speak) some children already born.

Both of these programs are expensive, but we’ve spent trillions getting nowhere, apparently. Neither program guarantees success: for example, there is some evidence that racial segregation in housing is also a result of conscious choices by racial minorities. Both policies tackle root causes (lack of opportunity) while avoiding racially-associated pitfalls. These programs benefit from the fact they acknowledge the federal-state structure inherent to our system of government. They are eminently “do-able.”

Let me end where I began. Policies are all well and good, but remember, despite equal opportunity there will always be unequal outcomes. What we should strive for is the day when–even at first glance–we judge the other ‘by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.’ This is an unending task (in this world), but one which requires no political leadership or legal change, just personal commitment. Let us begin.