Commentary
What It Means to Act Affirmatively
The recent decision by the Supreme Court that allows universities to consider an applicant's race to achieve a diverse student body (but rejected the University of Michigan's undergraduate point system) represents both a victory and a loss. The Court's conclusions were as follows: "In summary, the Equal Protection clause does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body." It seems that colleges and universities may take race into account as a means to enhance a diverse student body--and this is better than nothing--but the language of 'enhancing diversity' in no way supports the fundamental motivation for affirmative action admissions policies.
Affirmative action policies were designed as one kind of effort to redress hundreds of years of black racial disadvantage and discrimination as well as its counterpart: white racial advantage and privilege. Ending formal legal forms of racial inequity did not and will not create racial equity.
This nation remains deeply unable to seriously grapple with the profound history of racial domination and economic exploitation of African-American people. Three hundred years of slavery followed by one hundred years of Jim Crow segregation and discrimination have had deep and important negative economic, social and political effects on African-Americans. Many Americans want to imagine that this history has no impact on their contemporary lives. However, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in her dissenting opinion, "In the wake 'of a system of racial caste only recently ended'... large disparities endure. Unemployment, poverty and access to health care vary disproportionately by race. Neighborhoods and schools remain racially divided. African-American and Hispanic children are all too often educated in poverty-stricken and underperforming institutions. Adult African-Americans and Hispanics generally earn less than whites with equivalent levels of education. Equally credentialed job applicants receive different receptions depending on their race. Irrational prejudice is still encountered in real estate markets and consumer transactions. 'Bias both conscious and unconscious, reflecting traditional and unexamined habits of thought, keeps up barriers that must come down if equal opportunity and nondiscrimination are ever genuinely to become this country's law and practice'..." 1
Racial equity (or something close to it) will happen only when we: 1) face the real impact (past and present) of hundreds of years of racial domination and exploitation of African-Americans and 2) face the real impact (past and present) of hundreds of years of white racial privilege and disproportionate power and access to resources.
It is this latter part that we seem unable to even talk about. Serious movement toward racial equity and justice will require a re-conceptualization of white identity. At this point, many whites do not see (some refuse to see) that whiteness carries multiple kinds of privileges. Whites have substantially benefited from this inequality for generations: unequal, as in, greater access to capital accumulation, unequal, as in, greater access to property ownership; unequal, as in, greater access to better educational institutions; unequal, as in, greater access to fair and impartial judicial processes and unequal, as in, greater access to political representation, and consumer leverage.
Until these unfair white racial privileges are acknowledged and rejected, equality is impossible. Those who claim 'reverse racism' in reply to every attempt to balance the racial scale are relying on the sustained illusion that whites have no greater power, access and privilege that non-whites. This myth is sustained by our public conversations on race that focus only on "minority disadvantage" but never explore white privilege (its logical counterpart).
Rather than face both African-American disadvantage and white advantage, many hope that we can "make room" for African-Americans and other non-whites without disturbing white privilege. This is at the heart of the problem with our conversations about affirmative action. Until whites act affirmatively to expose their own racial privilege, and work with African-Americans and others to illuminate the contours of this privilege and eradicate it, we will maintain current forms of racial privilege and discrimination, and perhaps be blind to newly emerging ones. Until we do this, we will not be able to create racial equity and instead remain tangled up in obfuscating language about diversity and 'reverse racism.' As a result we will prepare the ground for new generations of racial discrimination for African-Americans and bitterness on both sides of the racial divide.
June 2003 Santa Cruz, CA
1 Excerpt from Associated Press
Affirmative action policies were designed as one kind of effort to redress hundreds of years of black racial disadvantage and discrimination as well as its counterpart: white racial advantage and privilege. Ending formal legal forms of racial inequity did not and will not create racial equity.
This nation remains deeply unable to seriously grapple with the profound history of racial domination and economic exploitation of African-American people. Three hundred years of slavery followed by one hundred years of Jim Crow segregation and discrimination have had deep and important negative economic, social and political effects on African-Americans. Many Americans want to imagine that this history has no impact on their contemporary lives. However, as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg points out in her dissenting opinion, "In the wake 'of a system of racial caste only recently ended'... large disparities endure. Unemployment, poverty and access to health care vary disproportionately by race. Neighborhoods and schools remain racially divided. African-American and Hispanic children are all too often educated in poverty-stricken and underperforming institutions. Adult African-Americans and Hispanics generally earn less than whites with equivalent levels of education. Equally credentialed job applicants receive different receptions depending on their race. Irrational prejudice is still encountered in real estate markets and consumer transactions. 'Bias both conscious and unconscious, reflecting traditional and unexamined habits of thought, keeps up barriers that must come down if equal opportunity and nondiscrimination are ever genuinely to become this country's law and practice'..." 1
Racial equity (or something close to it) will happen only when we: 1) face the real impact (past and present) of hundreds of years of racial domination and exploitation of African-Americans and 2) face the real impact (past and present) of hundreds of years of white racial privilege and disproportionate power and access to resources.
It is this latter part that we seem unable to even talk about. Serious movement toward racial equity and justice will require a re-conceptualization of white identity. At this point, many whites do not see (some refuse to see) that whiteness carries multiple kinds of privileges. Whites have substantially benefited from this inequality for generations: unequal, as in, greater access to capital accumulation, unequal, as in, greater access to property ownership; unequal, as in, greater access to better educational institutions; unequal, as in, greater access to fair and impartial judicial processes and unequal, as in, greater access to political representation, and consumer leverage.
Until these unfair white racial privileges are acknowledged and rejected, equality is impossible. Those who claim 'reverse racism' in reply to every attempt to balance the racial scale are relying on the sustained illusion that whites have no greater power, access and privilege that non-whites. This myth is sustained by our public conversations on race that focus only on "minority disadvantage" but never explore white privilege (its logical counterpart).
Rather than face both African-American disadvantage and white advantage, many hope that we can "make room" for African-Americans and other non-whites without disturbing white privilege. This is at the heart of the problem with our conversations about affirmative action. Until whites act affirmatively to expose their own racial privilege, and work with African-Americans and others to illuminate the contours of this privilege and eradicate it, we will maintain current forms of racial privilege and discrimination, and perhaps be blind to newly emerging ones. Until we do this, we will not be able to create racial equity and instead remain tangled up in obfuscating language about diversity and 'reverse racism.' As a result we will prepare the ground for new generations of racial discrimination for African-Americans and bitterness on both sides of the racial divide.
June 2003 Santa Cruz, CA
1 Excerpt from Associated Press
