There is no good solution here. Unfortunately, while the reasons may be race neutral, it doesn’t work out that way in real life. I think in law, at least here locally, government has to ensure that even if there’s no overt racism, it can’t accidentally impact a race either, I forgot what the term for that is call. Anyway, its a vicious cycle of richer white people avoiding poorer minority kids in school, going to their own districts, and leaving the worst off schools to those who are left behind. This doesn’t get fixed in a year or 5 years, but requires diligent effort that most people would not stick around to see through.
My preferred way to help everybody may not be popular to people benefiting from it, I can already hear the “Its not fair!” cries. But I think parents should have less ability to force a change in schools for the purpose of avoiding a bad one in order to bring up the averages of every school. These parents need to recognize that what may be good for them is very bad for other kids, and I have more of an interest in reducing the harm to the worst students than slightly improving the conditions of students who already benefit. And I’m not at all opposed to teachers concentrating more on kids who need more help rather than give equal attention to everyone.
My basis is the writings/letters and such that have survived – there weren’t opinion polls from back then (except for during the Civil Rights period). You’re free to disagree of course. Do you really believe that black Americans at the time didn’t have a more accurate picture of the horrors of slavery than white Americans, on average? Or a more accurate picture of the horrors of Jim Crow?
And that the majority of white Americans at the time opposed the Freedom Riders and other Civil Rights activist groups seems like a clear indication that they had a feeble understanding of the actual impact and significance of anti-black racism.
Also from that last link – during the Civil Rights movement, black Americans had a much, much more accurate picture of whether MLK Jr. and other activists were actually helping or hurting the cause of Civil Rights: in 1965, 94% of black Americans said that MLK Jr’s actions were helping the cause of Civil Rights; only 36% of white Americans agreed.
That’s an enormous difference. Black Americans knew much, much more about anti-black racism and how to oppose it during the Civil Rights movement than white Americans did.
Obviously people who experience anything are generally going to have a better sense of what that experience is like than would other people who have not experienced it. In the case of slaves, for example, they would know what it’s like to be a slave than someone who was never a slave.
But the corollary to my point above was that a slave would not have better sense of what it’s like to not be a slave than someone who wasn’t a slave. So if the slave wanted to compare his experience to that of someone who wasn’t a slave, his experience might not give him that much added insight.
Of course, in the case of things like slavery, it’s pretty obvious for the most part that it’s better to not be a slave than to be one (leaving aside proponents of “black inferiority” theories). But where this becomes relevant is in assessing more nuanced things like the impact of racism today. A black person knows their own experiences, but doesn’t know white experiences. So a black person who knows that they’ve had to deal with various frustrations in dealing with police, job opportunities, service from businesses etc. etc. is going to have a hard time accurately assessing how much of that is due to anti-black racism versus the type of stuff that anyone has to go through, because they’ve never been in those situations as a non-black.
To say “black people thought slavery sucked and they were right about that so that proves they’re right about the impact of racism today” is overly simplistic and invalid.
That’s a very small part of my argument. Do you disagree that the polling I cited from the Civil Rights movement demonstrates that black Americans were much more knowledgeable and accurate on the subject than white Americans, in general, at that time?
ISTM that that’s essentially your entire argument.
No. It doesn’t.
What it shows is that as the primary victims of Jim Crow, black people were much more motivated to oppose it by any means available than white people, who could easier afford to leave things be. That doesn’t mean that they had any sort of unique insight into anything.
Huh? The question was specifically about whether MLK Jr’s actions were helping the cause of Civil Rights, not whether they opposed or favored the Civil Rights movement. Black people were overwhelmingly right – MLK Jr really did help the cause of Civil Rights a great deal, and white people were very wrong about this. I don’t see any other way to interpret this other than black people understood better both anti-black racism and how to fight it than white people in America.
If you really interpret it in the way quoted above, then it seems that no such polling data, for any such question, could ever convince you on this, since you could finagle any data to interpret it in such a way if you wished.
What seems ludicrous to me is your expanded claim that not only do black people have unique insight into their own experience, but that they also have unique insight into the mindset of white society, such that they and only they knew how the whites could be won over.
Where did I claim that black people had special insight into “the mindset of white society”? That poll asked a question that could be factually evaluated later (and it wasn’t about the “mindset of white society”), and black people were overwhelmingly right, while white people were overwhelmingly wrong. It seems reasonable to consider that maybe black people were right on this topic because they had a better and more accurate picture of the actual situation than white people.
What do you think that poll illuminates? Why were black people so much more accurate on whether MLK Jr. was helping Civil Rights?
The CRM succeeded because it secured legislation protecting the rights of black Americans (and other minorities).
That post didn’t make sense to me, since you were talking about whites wanting to leave things be, when the poll question was about whether MLK Jr’s tactics were effective in helping to accomplish his goals. The question wasn’t whether or not black people should leave things be, the question was whether or not MLK Jr’s actions were helping the cause of Civil Rights – and black people were right, while white people were generally wrong.
Most of the legislators who enacted that legislation were white. And most of the voters who those legislators were answerable to were white. (And FWIW, most of the judges who issued various rulings in favor of civil rights were white.) I assume you were aware of all this …
The point was that black people were more likely to support any tactic that presented itself as potentially overturning Jim Crow, whether those of MLK or of Malcolm X or anyone else. The fact that the tactics which worked had higher black support was not because black people had any insight as to what worked, but because they were more likely to support any sort of opposition to Jim Crow, including but not limited to whatever happened to work.
Obviously. But convincing legislators and the President is very different than “winning over white society”. It was legal protection that was the goal.
Again, this poll wasn’t about whether one supported MLK Jr’s tactics. It was about whether one thought the tactics were effective in achieving his goals. That was a factual question, not one about political beliefs or support, albeit one that couldn’t be evaluated until later. Black people correctly evaluated this, while white people generally did not. And I think it’s reasonable to believe that black people correctly evaluated this because they better understood the facts and circumstances than white people, on average.
They’re not very different. They’re the exact same thing. Legislators and the President are a part of white society, and more importantly, they support what the voters support. Or in cases where they don’t, then they get replaced by other presidents and legislators who do.
So in sum, the way the CRM was successful was by garnering enough support among white society - including legislators, presidents, judges and voters - to get various laws and legal decisions passed.
I don’t anticipate arguing further about this.
People consistently judge things as being more likely to be successful if they also happen to support them.
If so, then this seems to be arguing that, on this particular issue, white people were more self-delusional than black people. That supports my point.
Is there any possible polling question and results data that you’d concede might reasonably indicate that black people had more knowledge and understanding of the issue of anti-black racism than white people?
I don’t see that we’ve been discussing anything connected to “self-delusion”.
Not that I can think of offhand.
As previous, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that Group A has a better insight into the difference between Group A and Group B than Group B does merely by virtue of Group A having a better handle on one half of the equation while Group B has a better handle on the other half.
[Though I’m a bit cautious about your use of the term “issue of anti-black racism”. There are certainly a lot of aspects of anti-black racism that black people would have a better handle on. What I’m discussing here is whether black people have a better sense of how their treatment compares to that of white people.]