Filed under: Author - ACG,Politics | Tags: Clarence Thomas, Equality, Racism, Ricci, Sonia Sotomayor, Title VII, Voting Rights Act
To a large extent, the momentous decisions that came out of the Supreme Court’s most recent term raised the question of when, if ever, we as a society should let go of the “strong medicine” we adopted in the ’60s and ’70s to combat the twin evils of overt racism and violent bigotry. Many of these provisions – like the Voting Rights Act, challenged in Holder, and Title VII, challenged in Ricci – pushed the limits of Congress’ power to enforce the Reconstruction Amendments to remedy past discrimination. That was the right decision, then, but maybe it won’t always be. Justice Thomas’ dissent in Holder, in fact, pointedly asked the question many have been thinking: haven’t we fixed racism yet?
But now—more than 40 years later––the violence, intimidation, and subterfuge that led Congress to pass §5 and this Court to uphold it no longer remains. An acknowledgment of §5’s unconstitutionality represents a fulfillment of the Fifteenth Amendment’s promise of full enfranchisement and honors the success achieved by the VRA. Id.
Surely he’s right, that the Voting Rights Act’s greatest triumph would be its factual obsolescence. But are we there yet?
NO. Not when we still hear stories like this:
More than 60 campers from Northeast Philadelphia were turned away from a private swim club and left to wonder if their race was the reason. [. . .] “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club,” John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.
We as a nation have made significant strides since the civil rights movement. But apparently, for some portions of America, it’s still okay to lock kids out of pools on account of their race (name that Supreme Court case!), or even beat them. Racism has always been an evil that thrives at the fringes of society. That we’ve expunged it nearly completely from the center is something to celebrate, but not cause to let down our guard.
Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King.
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I don’t think that’s a good reason. It’s entirely possible that the incidence and extremity of racism in the country or regions thereof justifies the continued existence of these laws, but it’s pretty clear that success isn’t to be defined as no racist incidents whatsoever. That would be nice, but the character of the black experience in this country will have almost completely changed from what it once was long before racism is entirely stamped out (if such is even possible).
I’d argue that we’ve hit an equilibrium point with respect to race relations, and that the current set of laws doesn’t actually do much to change the culture – that the Voting Rights Act can’t do more than it already has to make itself obsolete. At this point, a lot of racism is what might be called ‘natural’, where much of the race-based difference in our actions and attitudes is explicable as the result of seeing patterns between and among racial groups in society. For example, it’s perfectly reasonable to be leerier of entering a dark alley that has a black man standing in it than one with a similarly-kempt white man (and you’ve almost nothing at all to worry about if it’s a woman standing there), and that reaction doesn’t just turn off like a light when in situations that aren’t as dangerous. It’s just that facts about things like education levels and crime rates color our judgments. I don’t think higher-level racism is going to be diminished much further without policy that works to change these patterns in society, which the current set of laws don’t really prioritize. I think a different kind of civil rights regime is necessary now.
Comment by Gotchaye July 10, 2009 @ 1:28 pmFor example, it’s perfectly reasonable to be leerier of entering a dark alley that has a black man standing in it than one with a similarly-kempt white man.
I disagree, and the problem is with “similarly-kempt.” If both men are similarly kempt, then the assumption that the black man is more likely to harbor ill intentions is based solely on his skin color, and that’s unreasonable. True, it may be more likely that the unkempt man you encounter in that alley is black than white, and that’s precisely the problem.
Comment by Kris July 10, 2009 @ 3:36 pmIs that true? My understanding was that, for reasonable definitions of similarly-kempt, a given black man is more likely to do you harm than a similarly-kempt white man. “Kempt-ness” isn’t the only relevant factor in predicting violent crime, and skin color correlates with many of the other factors. Your judgment is proximately based on skin color, but, if I’m recalling the data correctly, it’s a reasonable one. It’s not the man’s skin color qua skin color that you’re reacting to.
Regardless, I have no problem giving up on most of that claim. A seemingly racist response remains perfectly natural if it’s merely the case that the unkempt man is more likely to be black than white. The natural human tendency to generalize from experience is then going to color our judgments. It’s a cognitive error, but the effects of white people associating black people with violent crime is not something that you can stamp out with laws governing behavior that emerges from that. As I think we agree on, the problem that we -can- try to address is the statistical association of blacks and violent crime, primarily by addressing poverty issues.
Comment by Gotchaye July 10, 2009 @ 3:54 pmMy understanding was that, for reasonable definitions of similarly-kempt, a given black man is more likely to do you harm than a similarly-kempt white man.
This may actually be. I haven’t seen any reports on this, but if you say you have, I won’t disbelieve you.
I do agree that we can’t change pseudo-racist cognitive errors with laws, but that instead we need to address the root causes and inequities, such as poverty. We’re not post-racial because there are still plenty out there who are disadvantaged.
Comment by Kris July 10, 2009 @ 5:11 pm[...] How Post-Racial Are We? [...]
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