Illuminates powerful arguments and data. Thank you! This is golden, especially for people like me, who would agree that of course racism is a "choice," but I wonder if you'd want to expand the audience to those who need more persuasion, given the enormous historical and cultural weight of racism. Also, at the individual level, there are people who have come out worse-off post Affirmative Action and DEI, e.g., Whites who are less well qualified but would have done just fine in the bad old days. But maybe that is not your project here--to spark the debate and leave it to others to work out the details?
I disagree that marginally-qualified white folks would do better today but for anti-racism. It sure looks that way. And it may feel that way. I contend that the number of individual white people adversely impacted by anti-racism is negligible - approaching 0.
The unspoken feature of white supremacy and mastery culture is that it is designed to screw over vulnerable white folks - including all those not in line to succeed to oligarchies. What we see in this Econometrica paper is how America has been fed a lie - and how we've internalized it - in which white supremacy improves the lot of white people. In fact, its veins run like ice, coldly indifferent to who gets ground up and spat out by the machinery of oppression.
This is why the massive collateral damage of racism hits white people hard. It can do that as long as white people believe that at least they're better off than they would be in a color-blind society. Racism puts a target on all people who can be exploited. It offers no safe harbor for white folks - at least not for those who are vulnerable enough to be hopeful of finding a safe harbor.
Access to higher education is a case in point. The racist pushback to it threw up barriers. Yes, more white people can get a college education now, but at what cost? The value of a degree has diminished and being "better off" ignores the massive debt people carry (or, if not debt, than the toll exacted from working one's self through college must be calculated).
For every Black or Brown person screwed over by racism, there are as many white folks being ground up, too, except they're smiling at their "privilege" that comes from being ground up right behind the people of color. Bank fees, consumerism, data collection, drug addiction, and other appliances of oppression have trickled down to afflict white people harshly, so I can't accept the premise that Affirmative Action and DEI have made things worse for some white folks.
The longer the leash we give racist policies, the more rope there is remaining to use on white folks. Only if we flat out ignore just how close behind people of color the white folks walk through the slaughter house of racism and all of its myriad legacy oppressions can we argue that more equitable anti-racist policies are hurting any vulnerable or marginally-qualified white people.
I hope white people can recognize how Black people fighting against racism is a fight for white prosperity and white upward economic mobility because there's more than a little bit of irony in having white people in 2024 sipping tea on the sidelines as Black folks work hard to improve the condition of white folks.
Thank you for your considered response, Jim. You have studied the issue in depth, and I would be very happy to accept your premise, acceptance of which would unify people. I will continue to work on it (lagging behind not out of any disrespect for your informed position, but because I'm still stuck on some intuitive reservations). I can certainly see that any belief system that pits Black, Brown, and White people against one another can work to the disadvantage of all but those who would oppress.
Illuminates powerful arguments and data. Thank you! This is golden, especially for people like me, who would agree that of course racism is a "choice," but I wonder if you'd want to expand the audience to those who need more persuasion, given the enormous historical and cultural weight of racism. Also, at the individual level, there are people who have come out worse-off post Affirmative Action and DEI, e.g., Whites who are less well qualified but would have done just fine in the bad old days. But maybe that is not your project here--to spark the debate and leave it to others to work out the details?
I disagree that marginally-qualified white folks would do better today but for anti-racism. It sure looks that way. And it may feel that way. I contend that the number of individual white people adversely impacted by anti-racism is negligible - approaching 0.
The unspoken feature of white supremacy and mastery culture is that it is designed to screw over vulnerable white folks - including all those not in line to succeed to oligarchies. What we see in this Econometrica paper is how America has been fed a lie - and how we've internalized it - in which white supremacy improves the lot of white people. In fact, its veins run like ice, coldly indifferent to who gets ground up and spat out by the machinery of oppression.
This is why the massive collateral damage of racism hits white people hard. It can do that as long as white people believe that at least they're better off than they would be in a color-blind society. Racism puts a target on all people who can be exploited. It offers no safe harbor for white folks - at least not for those who are vulnerable enough to be hopeful of finding a safe harbor.
Access to higher education is a case in point. The racist pushback to it threw up barriers. Yes, more white people can get a college education now, but at what cost? The value of a degree has diminished and being "better off" ignores the massive debt people carry (or, if not debt, than the toll exacted from working one's self through college must be calculated).
For every Black or Brown person screwed over by racism, there are as many white folks being ground up, too, except they're smiling at their "privilege" that comes from being ground up right behind the people of color. Bank fees, consumerism, data collection, drug addiction, and other appliances of oppression have trickled down to afflict white people harshly, so I can't accept the premise that Affirmative Action and DEI have made things worse for some white folks.
The longer the leash we give racist policies, the more rope there is remaining to use on white folks. Only if we flat out ignore just how close behind people of color the white folks walk through the slaughter house of racism and all of its myriad legacy oppressions can we argue that more equitable anti-racist policies are hurting any vulnerable or marginally-qualified white people.
I hope white people can recognize how Black people fighting against racism is a fight for white prosperity and white upward economic mobility because there's more than a little bit of irony in having white people in 2024 sipping tea on the sidelines as Black folks work hard to improve the condition of white folks.
Thank you for your considered response, Jim. You have studied the issue in depth, and I would be very happy to accept your premise, acceptance of which would unify people. I will continue to work on it (lagging behind not out of any disrespect for your informed position, but because I'm still stuck on some intuitive reservations). I can certainly see that any belief system that pits Black, Brown, and White people against one another can work to the disadvantage of all but those who would oppress.