{"id":29735,"date":"2022-12-01T21:17:22","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T05:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29735"},"modified":"2022-12-01T21:17:22","modified_gmt":"2022-12-02T05:17:22","slug":"racism-lives-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/racism-lives-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Racism Lives On"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shelby Steele\u2019s Shame: How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized our Country<\/em> attempts to address the historical reasons behind the rise of modern liberalism (primarily White moral guilt), which he believes is the primary driving force behind modern racial inequality, and why the freedom offered by conservatism is the answer.[1]<\/a> Steele goes on to address what he believes is the reality for Black Americans(and what he on and off again conflates to all minorities) in America, that \u201cyou will be far more likely to receive racial preferences than to suffer racial discrimination.\u201d[2]<\/a> He reasons that this is evident by the way \u201cBlacks have now risen to every level of American society, including the presidency\u201d [3]<\/a>. This, I think, is the crux of Steele\u2019s argument, that racism is dead and that modern liberalism is redundant because it is essentially \u201cprotesting racism to people for whom it was already anathema\u201d[4]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I appreciated Steele addressing the popularization of decrying racism that not only doesn\u2019t cost anything, but enhances one\u2019s position.[5]<\/a> In certain spaces, it seems en vogue to do so. One such space is the local educational space. One large school district where I live boasts both a nondiscrimination policy and an equity advisory board along with many other DEI driven initiatives and trainings. And yet, in a school district where only 41% of the students are White[6]<\/a>, 71% of the employees are White[7]<\/a> (a higher percentage when broken down further to differentiate between certified and classified staff). But those are just numbers. Anecdotally, I have a friend who is a woman of color and an educator in this school district. She, along with a white, male coworker were both temp workers for the year seeking guaranteed employment for the following year. She was told by administration that there were no openings and she would have to apply again. Later, she learned that her white, male coworker was told that he would be automatically hired on for the following year. This seemed to be despite the majority of their team advocating for my friend to be offered a job rather than her coworker. While my friend did not choose to bring a complaint to the district, her coworkers did. What was most striking was that her White, male, coworker who was offered the job agreed that it seemed wrong, but \u201che needed the job\u201d so he stayed silent. This is a frustrating example of Steele\u2019s Aspen prototype, someone for whom could reap the benefits of opposing racism with no risk to themselves.<\/p>\n

What I found troubling about Steele was that he seems to have distilled all of modern liberalism down to this caricature of the young, White man that he encountered in Aspen. Interestingly, according to the Pew Research Center, only about 59% of democrat or democratic leaning voters were White compared to 81% of Republican or Republican leaning voters.[8]<\/a> Recognizing that perhaps Democrat and modern liberalism are not the same, they are I believe, congruent. As such, it would have been helpful if Steele engaged more with why so many people of color align with and support liberal policies.<\/p>\n

Additionally, while I found Steele\u2019s personal anecdotes helpful and moving, I remain skeptical of the broader conclusion he draws that racism and the revolutionary mindset needed to fight it died in the 60s.[9]<\/a> I am convinced, through my own experiences and those close to me, that racial discrimination and overt racism not only remains alive today, but is pervasive. According to the American Experiences with Discrimination Survey, almost 1 in 6 Asian-Americans experienced a hate crime or incident in 2021, with 1 in 3 Asian-Americans having experienced a hate crime or incident in their lifetime.[10]<\/a> Even in the Moynihan study that he draws from, the vestiges of overt racism still rear its ugly head in the form of systemic racism.[11]<\/a> For example, I\u2019m curious why he never addresses the clear correlation between the increase in female-headed Black households with the initiation of the War on Drugs and similar policies that incarcerated Black men for possession and sales at a disproportionately high rate compared to their White counterparts.[12]<\/a>. Meanwhile, systemic barriers that Asian-Americans face have more to do with our invisibility. For example, despite making up 7.7% of the U.S. population, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has only invested .17% of its budget on Asian-Americans and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.[13]<\/a> A quote from Michelle Alexander\u2019s The New Jim Crow<\/em> seems appropriate: \u201c\u2026.racial caste systems do not require racial hostility or overt bigotry to thrive. They need only racial indifference\u2026\u201d[14]<\/a><\/p>\n

Lastly, avoiding extremes like the characterization of every person as either victim or victimizer[15]<\/a>\u00a0is paramount. There must be ways to continue to improve through dissent and disruption when it is appropriate[16]<\/a>\u00a0but ultimately, as Steele postulates, \u201ctoday\u2019s great divide comes from a shallowness of understanding.\u201d[17]<\/a>\u00a0Just as I appreciated Steele\u2019s personal anecdotes, learning from one another\u2019s experiences rather than making sweeping conclusions could help foster understanding and alleviate the shame that plagues our nation.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Shelby Steele, Shame : How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country <\/em>(New York, New York: Basic Books, 2015), 8.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 16<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, 16<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 10<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid, 10<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> \u201cEnrollment and Demographics\u201d, Oregon Department of Education, report posted 2\/3\/2022, https:\/\/www.hsd.k12.or.us\/Page\/5413.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> \u201cHillsboro School District Statistics and Demographics\u201d, Zippia, Accessed 12\/1\/2022, tinyurl.com\/yp6jhs72.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> \u201cJohn Gramlich, \u201cWhat the 2020 Electorate Looks Like by Party, Race and Ethnicity, Age, Education and Religion,\u201d Pew Research Center<\/em>, October 26, 2020, https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2020\/10\/26\/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion\/.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Steele, Shame : How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country, 16<\/em><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Jennifer Lee and Karthick Ramakrishnan, \u201cA Year After Atlanta\u201d, AAPI Data<\/em>, March 16, 2022, http:\/\/aapidata.com\/blog\/year-after-atlanta\/.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Steele, Shame : How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country, 22<\/em><\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Rodney Stark, \u201cDeviant Places: A Theory of the Ecology of Crime.\u201d Criminology<\/em> 25.4 (1987): 893-910.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Alka M Kanaya, Ann W. Hsing, et al, \u201cKnowledge Gaps, Challenges, and Opportunities in Health and Prevention Research for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders: A Report from the 2021 National Institutes of Healthy Workshop\u201d, Annals of Internal Medicine<\/em> 175, no. 4 (April 2022): 574-589, https:\/\/www.acpjournals.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.7326\/M21-3729.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness<\/em>, (The New Press, 2012), 14.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Steele, Shame : How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country, 16<\/em><\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Ibid, 45<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> Ibid, 20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shelby Steele\u2019s Shame: How America\u2019s Past Sins Have Polarized our Country attempts to address the historical reasons behind the rise of modern liberalism (primarily White moral guilt), which he believes is the primary driving force behind modern racial inequality, and why the freedom offered by conservatism is the answer.[1] Steele goes on to address what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2477],"class_list":["post-29735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-steele-dlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29736,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29735\/revisions\/29736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}