How much does white guilt still affect the race debate and race relations in the US?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Renob]
…I didn’t enslave anyone (and neither did anyone else in this country)…
[/QUOTE]
Then I’m sure you’ll join me, in the unfortunately near future when the last veterans of WW2 are gone, in saying “I didn’t free Europe from fascism (and neither did anyone else in this country)”

And neither of us will be disturbed when we hear Japanese say “I didn’t attack Pearl Harbor (and neither did anyone else in this country)”, or Germans say “I didn’t kill anyone in the Holocaust (and neither did anyone else in this country)”, etc, etc…

Are all nations sins absolved by the passage of time, or only our own?

CMC fnord!

42

[QUOTE=monstro]
I’ve never encountered a person I feel is wracked with “white guilt”
[/QUOTE]

I have. There were plenty of them where I went to college. To my mind, a person who has white guilt is not just someone who acknowleges and discusses the existence of racism in society, but a person who attributes EVERYTHING to racism, is loathe to criticism non-whites no matter what, and believes that white people are uniquely, eternally racist. I do think that this variety of white guilt is counterproductive and stifling. My impression is that this variety of white guilt has peaked somewhat, though it is still a force out there.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Then why is black culture broken? What caused that?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know. Maybe in part it’s the effect of historical racism, and in another part the effect of current racism. But that’s not a completely satisfactory answer, because in at least some of the ways in which you’d measure a broken culture, things have gotten WORSE for African-Americans as white racism DECREASED. There was a drastic decrease in white racism over the course of the 20th century, yet just as things started to improve, black crime rates and illegitimacy rates began to soar. Why? And I think it’s logical that crime rates and broken families have a strong effect on economics – at least partially (and arguably primarily) explaining the financial problems many African-Americans face.

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
On the first point: an enormous number of young black males are locked up for committing drug crimes in which the laws target drugs popular among black kids with harsher sentences (meaning more time in jail), the enforcement is targeted toward black neighborhoods (because the harsher sentences means that the enforcement agencies look more heroic for having busted “heavier” crimes), and the courts are more likely to impose those harsher penalties on kids who cannot show up looking “suburban.”
[/QUOTE]

Well, my data is over a decade old (though that was at the height of the crack epidemic), so you can take it or leave it as you like. But the book “America in Black and White” cites a study that shows that:

“The black prison population would be smaller, but not much smaller, if the drug laws were different – if, for example, crack and powder cocaine were treated identically…A calculation made on data for prisoners newly admitted to penitentiaries in thirty-eight states in 1992 indicates that if the percentage of black men serving drug sentences had been reduced to the figure for white men, the black proportion of the total would have fallen from 50 percent to 46 percent…Not a trivial difference, but hardly a monumental one. A similar calculation done [in 1994] for prisoners in federal facilities yields even less of a difference [3 percent].”

I don’t know how those figures have changed; I hope the authors come out with an updated version of the book.

[Quote=crowmanyclouds]
Then I’m sure you’ll join me, in the unfortunately near future when the last veterans of WW2 are gone, in saying “I didn’t free Europe from fascism (and neither did anyone else in this country)”

And neither of us will be disturbed when we hear Japanese say “I didn’t attack Pearl Harbor (and neither did anyone else in this country)”, or Germans say “I didn’t kill anyone in the Holocaust (and neither did anyone else in this country)”, etc, etc…

Are all nations sins absolved by the passage of time, or only our own?
[/Quote]

Well, I can’t speak for Renob, but I don’t blame young Germans or Japanese at all for the crimes their countries committed in WWII, and I get embarassed when Americans constantly trot out the old “we saved Europe” line (in my opinion, we need to win some new moral victories to brag about – enough coasting on the accomplishments of the WWII generation). It’s one thing to acknowledge your country’s sins and the possible modern repurcussions of those sins (as Japan apparently is still too reluctant to do), it’s another thing entirely to forever blame current generations for what their ancestors did.

43

This study (which I will accept as valid for the sake of discussion) misses some important points. Reducing the level of sentencing ignores the fact that the sentences, themselves, are much longer, so that blacks remain in the system much longer, creating a greater overlap for the number of black men who are incarcerated at any time. It also relies on the arbitrary adjustment to set the rates of blacks and whites as equal, yet there has been testimony from DEA agents that they invest far more effort in pursuing crack dealers and users than powder dealers and users (and, consequently, arrest far more people associated with other crimes turned up in the pursuit of the crack crimes).

I am sure that the number of blacks in prison would be high regardless of the drug policies–the poorest generally have higher crime rates than the middle class–but the extreme examples of the rates of criminalization among blacks is still linked to capricious laws and selective enforcement. I hope, for example, that Tula, Texas is an aberration, but I have no confidence that this is true.

44

[QUOTE=even sven]
…When you see a bunch of white people congregating on a sunny day on the sidewalks, one thinks “Wow, I live in a really nice and neighborly place.” But when one sees that same group excpet they are Black, one gets the urge the cross the street and starts wondering why the place has gone downhill so fast…
[/QUOTE]

I only get the urge to cross the street when the group is young men, any color, wearing their pants around their ankles. So, am I an anti-fashionista, a sexist, anti-young guys…?

sven, do you get that urge to cross the street when the group of black people includes several over 25 or when they’re dressed up for church?

“Profiling” is not 100% right, but it was a basic survival tool for thousands of years before it became a polive tool.

45

Interesting topic. I was turned down for a teaching job although I was more qualified (I have a math degree teaching experience, the other candidate had neither) and was told that this was because the school needed to have a certain percentage of minority teachers (I’m white, he’s Asian).

I think the problem stems from the belief that since whites were the oppressors, it is their duty to resolve the resulting issues from racial policies - and that sounds good but fails in many ways.

  1. I am not a racist and have never oppressed any minority group, nor did I partake in organizations that had a racist/segregationist agenda. So it is not my personal fault that any minority is in the position that they are in. I am not personally responsible for the history of racism and neither is the current government (is the current German government responsible for the Holocaust?). I certainly believe in opening up opportunities for everyone, but not because I was a White Devil Slavemaster but rather because it is the right thing to do.

  2. It is not the white person’s fault when minorities do not take advantage of the opportunities. I’m tired of hearing how the educational system is failing the Black student when it is those same Black students vandalizing and creating violence in their own schools.

  3. The separitist policies of minorities. Can there truly be unity when you insist that you are an African-American or Mexican-American? Celebrating your culture is wonderful, but when you use it to label yourself, are you somehow implying that you don’t feel you are just an American?

  4. Market economies. Is it right that housing prices fall when Blacks move into a city (so called white-flight). Of course not - but what policies would you have the government impose to make sure it doesn’t happen?

  5. What do you want?! I still don’t know what minorities feel it would take to make up for past injustices. Reparations? Preferred treatment (i.e. reverse racism), equal opportunity, a world with no racists? A system where emperically everyone is treated the same (e.g. if 10% of Black youths are incarcerated, then 10% of White, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, etc. youths are likewise incarcerated)?

  6. It’s your life, not mine! Also known as the entitlement syndrome. When someone knocks you down, do you just lie there until they help you up? What if they never help you up? Maybe it’s unfair, but the bottom line is that if I felt I was being treated like a second-class citizen, I would fight for equal treatment and not depend on the government to give it to me. What happened in the 1960’s in the South should not have been necessary - but if it never happened then segregation would still be the rule in much of the South.

46

[QUOTE=SaintCad]
6) It’s your life, not mine! Also known as the entitlement syndrome. When someone knocks you down, do you just lie there until they help you up? What if they never help you up? Maybe it’s unfair, but the bottom line is that if I felt I was being treated like a second-class citizen, I would fight for equal treatment and not depend on the government to give it to me. What happened in the 1960’s in the South should not have been necessary - but if it never happened then segregation would still be the rule in much of the South.
[/QUOTE]
And without the government enforcing civil rights, what makes you think segregation would ever have ended ?

47

What makes you think it’s ended? I can think of a fair number of places that’ve “gotten around” the law.

48

Oops. By it in post #47, I’m referring to segregation.

49

[QUOTE=SaintCad]
3) The separitist policies of minorities. Can there truly be unity when you insist that you are an African-American or Mexican-American? Celebrating your culture is wonderful, but when you use it to label yourself, are you somehow implying that you don’t feel you are just an American?
[/QUOTE]
Thank you, Woodrow Wilson.
I always find it amusing that people go out of their way to accuse minorities of being “separatist” by using hyphenated-American labels while it appears perfectly acceptable that Irish-Americans can celebrate St. Paddy’s Day, Italian-Americans can celebrate the Feast of the Assumption, German-Americans can celebrate Oktoberfest, Polish-Americans can celebrate the Feast of St. Joseph, etc. without incurring the same condemnation.

This post would appear to be the reaction against any “white guilt” displayed by others: broad brush generalizations and simplisitc strawmen responses to a number of rather complex social phenomena.

50

[QUOTE=SaintCad]

  1. It is not the white person’s fault when minorities do not take advantage of the opportunities. I’m tired of hearing how the educational system is failing the Black student when it is those same Black students vandalizing and creating violence in their own schools.

[/QUOTE]

How intimate is your knowledge of predominantly black school systems? Based on your statements, I can only assume that you do not really understand what is going on. I will agree that the education system is not failing the black student in the general case. It is, however, failing black school districts. Everyone in poor school districts, dominated by minorities, is suffering because of lack of funding and lack of interest. This is not a phenomenon restricted to minorities that is why I disagree with your statement.

I began my education in a poor, black school district and ended in a very wealthy white one. There is a world of difference in the quality of education and resources between these two districts. It is hard to lay fault with disruptive student behavior when teachers are underpaid and unqualified to handle certain districts. Do not get me wrong here though; I do not sympathize with students who squander resources that fall into their laps. Some of my classmates from high school failed out of school because they did not feel like going to class. When these people cry racism, I find it both insulting and ridiculous. “Well Frosted Glass, you got lucky. Normally they hate black people but somehow you graduated. It is a good thing that they treated you differently.” I graduated because I busted my ass and the only difference in our experience was the manner in which I handled myself.

[QUOTE=SaintCad]

  1. What do you want?! I still don’t know what minorities feel it would take to make up for past injustices. Reparations? Preferred treatment (i.e. reverse racism), equal opportunity, a world with no racists? A system where emperically everyone is treated the same (e.g. if 10% of Black youths are incarcerated, then 10% of White, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, etc. youths are likewise incarcerated)?

[/QUOTE]

Personally, I want you to stop asking that question. To me, the “what do they want from us?” question is one of the best examples of “white-guilt” that I have ever seen.

51

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
As I remember his argument, it was something along the lines of “Maybe Roshonda is less likely to get an interview, but if her name was Rose she’d just end up attending the interview and not getting a call later.” (Name taken from the title of that chapter, “A Roshonda by any other name”.)
[/QUOTE]

Actually, I think his argument was more along the lines of that the type of family that would name their child Roshonda would be less able or willing to be supportive of traditional education that would lead to Roshonda’s success. He pointed out names that poorer white people tend to use to show that race had little to do with it.

Basically, he was saying that naming your child Roshonda was correlative with poor success because of this.

52

The difficulty in holding a productive debate on race in America lies in the fear that many people have of offending others. White people tend to express a certain hesitance in sharing negative views of blacks because people may accuse them of racism. Conversely, I have found it difficult to fully articulate my feelings on bigotry, and its place in modern society, out of fear that I will be written off as another “militant” black. It is unfortunate but these portrayals halt productivity. You cannot fix something if people are unwilling to identify the problem.

The main reason that “white-guilt” is counterproductive is the way that it affects policy. The alleged progress that results from this mentality is a direct reaction to the demands of angry, vocal blacks. Citing slavery and segregation as an explanation for all of our problems causes some whites to draft policies that are aimed at leveling the playing field. The guilt of the policy makers, however, makes it impossible to solve these problems effectively because they prevent themselves from seeing everything that is actually causing the problems for blacks. For example, putting measures in place to ensure that blacks have the same opportunities to participate in professional sports as whites is not a terrible idea. The problems arise when you require a certain number of starting positions on a team to be filled by black players.

People would be better off if we aimed at the source of the problem when dealing with racial inequalities. Students, for example, benefit more from improved learning materials and resources than they do from lowered standards. To deal with the source, however, requires that you address more sensitive issues. Those suffering from white-guilt need to understand that it is okay to ask where John’s parents were when he was out stealing bicycles from other kids. Sure poverty was a factor in his crime, but so was poor parenting. If Kim drops out of high school to deal drugs, you would not be completely wrong to complain about teachers and administrators who do not care enough to motivate but do not ignore her drug-addicted mother. The only way to begin resolving our race issues is to take off the blinders and start evaluating the whole situation.

53

[QUOTE=crowmanyclouds]

And neither of us will be disturbed when we hear Japanese say “I didn’t attack Pearl Harbor (and neither did anyone else in this country)”, or Germans say “I didn’t kill anyone in the Holocaust (and neither did anyone else in this country)”, etc, etc…

[/QUOTE]

I think the Japanese and the Germans have basically been absolved for just the reasons that you’ve cited: the current regimes had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor or the Holocaust, respectively.

54

[QUOTE=even sven]
I disagree with this point here. When you see a bunch of white people congregating on a sunny day on the sidewalks, one thinks “Wow, I live in a really nice and neighborly place.” But when one sees that same group excpet they are Black, one gets the urge the cross the street and starts wondering why the place has gone downhill so fast.
[/QUOTE]

Untrue. If you see a nicely dressed group of people behaving well, regardless of race, you know you are in a nice neighborhood. When you see trashy people drinking beer and dressed poorly, regardless of race, then you know you are in a neighborhood that’s going downhill. I live in an area that has a lot of poor black and poor white people. I don’t want to live in neighborhoods dominated by either. It’s not a race thing, it’s a class thing.

I think that’s the root of the problem. No one wants to associate with lower class people who act badly, whether they are white, black, brown, or whatever. If you come from this underclass you are less likely to be successful in life. It’s not a race thing – I grew up with plenty of white kids who are in the same boat as poor black kids from the ghetto.

I’m not denying that bad things happen to individual black people. I think that most of the time these things happen to them because they are from the underclass, however, and not because they are black. Do some black people get unfairly lumped in with this underclass simplyl because they are black? Of course, and it’s horrible when it happens. But I think those kind of instances is much more rare than instances when a black person is denied a job/loan/whatever because he is part of the underclass.

Again, this is a matter of classism, not racism. People want to keep poor people – regardless of color – from moving into their area.

That certainly isn’t proof of racism. It’s classism. These businesses, I’ll bet you, are the trashiest businesses left in the area, probably liquor stores, dollar stores, takeouts, and the like. I lived in a gentrifying area and it was the same thing. The yuppies that moved in had no problem with the race of anyone; they had a problem with the stores that catered to the underclass. They didn’t care about the black barber, but they did care about the fish fry market next door that served people who left trash everywhere and harassed people walking by. I’m sure that in your neighborhood if a black person owned a Starbucks or a trendy gardening store no one would be organizing to shut them down.

Automatically assuming its racism whenever something negative happens to a black person is completely inaccurate. Sometimes bad things happen to black people and it can’t be blamed on racism.

Except these districts do not suffer from funding. Take DC, which has the highest per-capita funding of any state and yet has the worst schools. Funding does not equal good schools. As you allude to, it’s the culture of an area that produces good schools. When you moved from a crappy area to a good area, your schools were not better because of funding. They were better because the people in the area you moved to gave a shit about their kids’ education.

Of course, back in the 80’s the very people calling for these harsh laws was the black community. The crack epidemic was ravaging that community and the people wanted harsh laws to stop it. Black leaders were in the forefront of the movement to enact strict laws for crack.

I’m sure that if Congress would not have passed these harsh laws people would be screaming that they were racist because they didn’t want to stop the crack epidemic. It’s a matter of people finding racism everywhere, regardless of whether it actually exists.

I didn’t free anyone from fascism and I have never claimed credit for doing so. I take credit for my own actions, not for the actions of others.

55

[QUOTE=Renob]
Of course, back in the 80’s the very people calling for these harsh laws was the black community. The crack epidemic was ravaging that community and the people wanted harsh laws to stop it. Black leaders were in the forefront of the movement to enact strict laws for crack.

I’m sure that if Congress would not have passed these harsh laws people would be screaming that they were racist because they didn’t want to stop the crack epidemic. It’s a matter of people finding racism everywhere, regardless of whether it actually exists.
[/QUOTE]
While blacks certainly joined the call for tough enforcement when the initial nonsense that crack was one hundred times as addictive as powder was publicized, they did not continue to demand draconian punishments when it was shown (only a few months after the hoopla) that crack was no more addicitve than powder. They certainly never demanded that the DEA direct nearly all its efforts to going after dime dealers in the city while devoting a much smaller fraction of the force to going after large scale distributors in the suburbs.

56

[QUOTE=Renob]

Except these districts do not suffer from funding. Take DC, which has the highest per-capita funding of any state and yet has the worst schools. Funding does not equal good schools. As you allude to, it’s the culture of an area that produces good schools. When you moved from a crappy area to a good area, your schools were not better because of funding. They were better because the people in the area you moved to gave a shit about their kids’ education.

[/QUOTE]

Do you honestly believe that funding is not a factor in the quality of schools? I cannot speak to DC but I do know a little bit about New Jersey schools . If you have the time you should look around. The DFG stands for District Factor Group, which defines the socio-economic group of a given district. It goes A to J with A being the poorest and J being the wealthiest. R is reserved for experimental schools.

57

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
While blacks certainly joined the call for tough enforcement when the initial nonsense that crack was one hundred times as addictive as powder was publicized, they did not continue to demand draconian punishments when it was shown (only a few months after the hoopla) that crack was no more addicitve than powder. They certainly never demanded that the DEA direct nearly all its efforts to going after dime dealers in the city while devoting a much smaller fraction of the force to going after large scale distributors in the suburbs.
[/QUOTE]

Black leaders (and average black people) wanted the crack epidemic stopped. They wanted harsh punishment for those who dealt crack. They wanted the violence surrounding crack stopped. So they called for tough punishments and they got it. Crack is certainly different from powder cocaine and the effects of the crack trade cause many more problems. The powder cocaine trade simply does not disrupt communities like the crack trade. Of course the DEA will go after a drug with a higher profile and one that is causing more destruction.

You and I both know that if the DEA and local police stopped concentrating on crack that they would be called racist because they are a drug that is concentrated in the black community. They can’t win this argument when there are people out there throwing around the term “racist” so recklessly and without any foundation.

58

[QUOTE=Frosted Glass]
Do you honestly believe that funding is not a factor in the quality of schools?
[/quote]

Yes. Higher funding is certainly correlated with more successful schools. But higher funding is also associated with some of the worst schools in this country (such as those in DC). Schools that are good have higher funding because the people in the community care about education an want to ensure that their kids get the best education possible. They naturally want to pour as much money as possible into these schools. The real reason the schools are successful, however, is that they are in an area where people are well-off and value and education. They pass these values onto their kids.

DC, with its high (around $13,000 per pupil, if I recall correctly) funding and incredibly low test scores, should put an end to any thought that we can help students by throwing money at schools where parents and students do not care about success. It’s simply throwing good money after bad.

Of course where poor people live schools will be bad. It’s not because they don’t have money for schools – often federal and state funding provides plenty of funds for such districts – but because these school districts are populated by poor people. People living in good neighborhoods are the type of people who care about education, have fewer children, and do all they can to help their children succeed. People living in poor areas, by and large, do not value education and make very poor choices that negatively impact their children’s chances of success. It’s not a money thing, it’s a culture thing.

59

[QUOTE=Renob]
Again, this is a matter of classism, not racism. People want to keep poor people – regardless of color – from moving into their area.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t deny that it appears this way, and I’m certainly not trying to claim that class has nothing to do with it. But in the past, such measures have been used with the explicit goal of keeping a community white. Nowadays racism is socially unacceptable so it has to remain covert; I don’t think it’s been adequately shown that racism is no longer at least in part a driving force in such tactics.

Besides, chalking these things up to classism doesn’t help us much in examining the problem - you chalk up the fact that blacks are more likely to be lower class to a broken culture, but I want to know how that culture broke in the first place. If the lingering effects of explicit racism in the past left black people impoverished, and if they haven’t gotten out of poverty, then it’s excellent evidence that the social mobility our society prizes is mostly a fiction, and it demonstrates that racism is at the root of the problem even today, even under the untenable assumption that it has since disappeared.

:rolleyes: Remember when I said that it’s hard to talk about these issues because of the constant complaints from some white people that they’re being victimized by being accused of racism? Here you’re making up hypothetical accusations of racism, on the assumption that they would happen under some imaginary circumstance. It’s funny how people’s complaints about the “race card” are such accurate descriptions of their own behavior.

60

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
I don’t deny that it appears this way, and I’m certainly not trying to claim that class has nothing to do with it. But in the past, such measures have been used with the explicit goal of keeping a community white.
[/quote]

I agree with this. But that was the past.

I’ll certainly agree that there is some racist element, mainly in the context that often “black” is shorthand for “underclass.” To turn your formulation on its head, though, I don’t think adequate evidence exists to say that racism, and not classism, is what is driving exclusionary housing policies. If you are going to charge racism, you need evidence.

I don’t blame racism for the broken culture of black America (or the broken culture of some of black America). I blame a culture of poverty shared by the underclass of every culture. The culture of rural white poverty is the same culture of the black ghetto. Racism isn’t to blame for rural white culture being broken.

Sorry, but I’m simply applying history to the situation. Some black leaders charge that the crack epidemic is a white conspiracy to re-enslave black people, so it’s not to hard to figure that if we de-escalated the war on crack they would charge that it’s just Whitey trying to hurt black people. People like Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson, and Cynthia McKinney charge racism any time a bird shits on them. Perhaps I was engaging in some hyperbole, and if it makes you feel better, I withdraw my statement. But you can’t deny that many black leaders throw around the charge of “racism” way too much.