[lbo-talk] Obama & the white guys

Wojtek Sokolowski swsokolowski at yahoo.com
Wed Feb 20 12:15:19 PST 2008


--- Charles Brown <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> wrote:


> CB: Take a look at all the measures of quantity and
> quality of life,
> morbidity and mortality, life expectancy, income,
> wealth, education and
> just about all find Black people with lower "scores"
> than whites as
> groups. I say this is caused by racism, or as Miles
> puts it racism as
> integral to all social institutions. Some say it's
> in the genes. What
> do you say ?

[WS:] I say that looking at large group averages is alwyas misleading. You need to compare people in similar life situations. I simply belive that Blacks and Whites in this country live very different life styles, which makes comparison more challenging.

I furthermore belive that much of the differences that you cite are a result of life choices. Just to illustrate - you are Black and yet you achieved a professional status. My ex's son (and many others in her social circle), who are white, otoh work menial jobs. Why? Let me guess - because you and your parents made choices that eventually led to that status - whereas my ex's son & others made other choices, like dropping out of school or drinking too much for example. Now you may question whether parental choices are still individual choices for children - and it is a good questions indeed - but it certainly is not a systemic constraint of racism.

As far as the genes theme is concerned - I am surprised that you even mentioned it. You know darn well that I consider that utter bullshit and I made it known on this forum time and again, so why do you even mention it in this context?


>
> Also, the census makes the claim that there is
> significant residential
> segregation by race.

[WS:] I acknowledged that, but I also said that this is NOT what keeps many Blacks from attaining higher social status. This merely "protects" property values in certain areas but it does not prevent Black to move out of th eghetto - in fact there are many mixed residential areas that do not discriminate.

I think a more serious structural obstacle (that you did not mention) is transportation policies in many areas (e.g. Baltimore) that limit public transit, which makes it it difficult for many poor people (usually Balck) to commute to work - and that *is* one of the structural obstancles that is tantamount to racism (I call it tranportation apartheid). However, this is only one form of discrimination and that is far from being pervasive.


>
> Then marriage and relationships are generally
> endogamous by race.
> Churches are segregated by race, in general. Rarely
> do Black elected
> officials represent majority white jurisdictions.

[WS:] These are all individual choices - some of them are probably based on bigotry but other are not. AFAIK, there are no laws, or formal rules and bylaws that prevent peopce of certain ethnicity from marrying other ethnicities, joing churches or running for offices. Whether they get elected is another issue - I would say that a black person has a far greater chance of being elected than a socialist.

So to summarize, I did not deny the existence of bigotry or some structural rules that discrriminate against Blacks. I do believe, however, that they are an excedtion rather than the norm - the 10% that Obama was talking about. And I certainly do not buy it that people end in poverty in ghetto or in jail because of structural / institutional features of the US society - they end up there mostly because of the individual choices they or they parents have made. I am not an apologist of the US, but let's be realistic in the critique of it - formal / institutional discrimination is relatively absent from it, comparing to many other countries.

Wojtek

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