PowerPoint Presentation - Renewing Beloved community ...

john a. powell
Executive Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Moritz College of Law
Lassiter Conference on Structural Racialization
UK School of Law
February 25, 2011

• Racial possibilities in the age of Obama
• Structural Racialization
• Arrangement of structures
• Public/Private?
• Corporate Prerogative and race
• Mind Science
• Challenging our biases
2

• Why does race continue to play
such a critical role in determining
societal outcomes?
• Haven’t we entered a post‐racial
moment with the election of
Barack Obama?
• While significant, Obama’s
victory does not erase the
persistent inequalities that
hinder the life chances for
marginalized groups 3

• Black and Latino children are much more likely than
white children to attend high‐poverty schools
• A white man with a criminal record is three times
more likely than a black man with a record to receive
consideration for a job
• Minority home‐seekers with good credit scores
steered to high‐cost, sub‐prime mortgages thus
devastating their communities in light of the
foreclosure crisis
By prematurely proclaiming a post-racial status, we
ignore the distance we have yet to travel to make this
country truly a land of equal opportunity for all,
regardless of racial identity.
4

• President Obama’s election “suggests that a sea change in
race relations has already occurred”
• However, his “exceptional racial background” and the fact he
was elected in the midst of national crises indicates “race
hasn’t been overcome so much as temporarily superseded.”
• These crises could worsen racial resentment
• “race forms a basis for the exploitation and hoarding of
material, political, and cultural resources; in turn, the same
processes that facilitate racial stratification continually
reconstitute race.”
Source: Lopez, Ian Haney. Post‐Racial Racism: Crime Control and Racial Stratification in the Age of Obama
5

• We have fluidity in terms of racial identities
▪ Situations affect who you are, how you identify.
▪ For example, it may not be until you’re in a room
with full of people of a different race that you
become truly aware of your own race.
▪ The British did not become “white” until Africans
became “black.”
• In order to notice race, society has to create this
category/idea of race. After it is created, individuals can
negotiate it using the social tools created by society.
6

• Although racial attitudes are improving, racial
disparities persist on every level.
• Inequity arises as disenfranchised groups are left
out of the democratic process.
Source: www.cartoonstock.com
7

Membership, the most important
good that we distribute to one
another in human community
(Michael Walzer)
◦ Prior in importance even to freedom
◦ Citizenship, a precondition to
freedom
◦ Membership, a precondition to
citizenship
Distribution of membership
Cost to not belong
8

• The cost of membership in a democratic society
• Current estimate for family of four: $48,778*
▪ Over three times as many families fall below family
budget thresholds as fall below the official poverty line
• How far do you fall (children in extreme poverty,
skyrocketing bankruptcy rates, family homelessness)?
• Are all neighborhoods are neighborhoods of
sustainable opportunity?
Source: James Lin and Jared Bernstein, What we need to get by. October 29, 2008 |
EPI Briefing Paper #224
9

Categorization
Conscious and
Unconscious (i.e.
implicit bias)
Pattern
recognition and
generalization
Hoarding and
Exploitation
Inequalit
y
Emulation
and
Adaptation
This may
change over
time, but the
whole
structure is
highly inert
ource: Douglas Massey. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2007.
10

Implicit
Bias
Structural
Racialization
11

• How race works today
• There are still practices, cultural norms and
institutional arrangements that help create and
maintain (disparate) racialized outcomes
• Structural racialization addresses interinstitutional
arrangements and interactions
• It refers to the ways in which the joint operation
of institutions produce racialized outcomes
▪ In this analysis, outcomes matter more than intent
12

Context: The Dominant Consensus on Race
National values
Contemporary culture
Current Manifestations: Social and Institutional Dynamics
Processes that maintain racial
hierarchies
Racialized public policies and
institutional practices
Racial inequalities in current levels of
well‐being
Outcomes: Racial Disparities
Capacity for individual and community
improvement is undermined
Ongoing Racial Inequalities
Adapted from the Aspen Roundtable on Community Change. “Structural Racism and Community Building.” June 2004
13

• One variable can explain
why differential outcomes.
…to a multi‐dimensional understanding….
• Structural Inequality
– Example: a Bird in a cage.
Examining one bar cannot
explain why a bird cannot fly.
But multiple bars, arranged
in specific ways, reinforce
each other and trap the bird.
14

• Understanding the
relationships among
these multiple
dimensions, and how
these complex intraactions
change
processes
• Relationships are
neither static nor
discrete
15

Physical
Social
Cultural
Outcomes
These structures interact in ways that produce racialized outcomes for
different groups…
16

Racialized…
•In 1960, African‐
American families in
poverty were 3.8 times
more likely to be
concentrated in highpoverty
neighborhoods
than poor whites.
•In 2000, they were 7.3
times more likely.
Spatialized…
• marginalized people
of color and the very
poor have been
spatially isolated
from opportunity via
reservations, Jim
Crow, Appalachian
mountains, ghettos,
barrios, and the
culture of
incarceration.
Globalized…
• Economic
globalization
• Climate change
•the Credit and
Foreclosure crisis
17

LOW OPPORTUNITY
• Less than 25% of students in
Detroit finish high school
• More than 60% of the men
will spend time in jail
• There may soon be no bus
service in some areas
• It is difficult to attract jobs or
private capital
• Not safe; very few parks
• Difficult to get fresh food
HIGH OPPORTUNITY
• The year my step daughter
finished high school, 100% of
the students graduated and
100% went to college
• Most will not even drive by a
jail
• Free bus service
• Relatively easy to attract
capital
• Very safe; great parks
• Easy to get fresh food
18

Which community would you choose?
19

How can we be sensitive to
inter‐ and intra‐group
differences?
How do the ladders or
pathways of opportunities
differ for different people?
Every institution has built in
assumptions, i.e. “stairways”
are a pathway – but not for
people in wheelchairs, baby
strollers.
20

…Some people ride the
“Up” escalator to reach
opportunity
…Others have to run up
the “Down” escalator to
get there
21

People are “differentially situated”
Not only are
people situated
differently with
regard to
institutions,
people are
situated
differently with
regard to
infrastructure
People are
impacted by the
relationships
between
institutions and
systems…
…but people
also impact
these
relationships
and can change
the structure of
the system.
22

• We come from different places. Illuminating people’s
different and shared experiences of oppression
encourages collective action with others whose
experiences may be slightly different.
• Young’s 5 Faces of Oppression: Different
groups/people experience one or more of these
faces throughout their lives
• Exploitation
• Marginalization
• Powerlessness
• Cultural Dominance
• Violence
Source: Grassroots Policy Project. “Faces of Oppression.” http://www.grassrootspolicy.org/node/85
23

Segregation impacts a number of life‐opportunities
Impacts on Health
School Segregation
Impacts on Educational Achievement
Neighborhood
Segregation
Exposure to crime; arrest
Transportation limitations and other
inequitable public services
Job segregation
Racial stigma, other psychological
impacts
Source: Barbara Reskin (http://faculty.washington.edu/reskin/)
Impacts on community power and
individual assets
24

• Zoning laws prevent affordable housing
development in many suburbs
• Municipalities subsidize the relocation of
businesses out of the city
• Transportation spending favors highways,
metropolitan expansion and urban sprawl
• Court decisions prevent metropolitan school
desegregation
• School funding is tied to property taxes
25

• How we arrange structures matters
• The order of the structures
• The timing of the interaction between them
• The relationships that exist between them
• We must be aware of how structures are arranged
in order to fully understand social phenomena
26

• One cannot have a just society unless the
arrangement of institutions are just.
• John Rawls
27

• The government plays a central role in the
arrangement of space and opportunities
• These arrangements are not “neutral” or
“natural” or “colorblind”
• Social and racial inequities are geographically
inscribed
• There is a polarization between the rich and
the poor that is directly related to the areas in
which they live
28

• Racialized policies and structures:
• Promoted sprawl
• Concentrated subsidized housing
• Led to disparities between schools
▪ Achievement gap
▪ Discipline rates
▪ Funding disparities
▪ Economic segregation
▪ Graduation rates
▪ Racial segregation
29

Photo source: (Madoff) AP
30

Today…
Institutions and structures
continue to support, not
dismantle, the status quo.
This is why we continue to
see racially inequitable
outcomes even if there is
good intent behind policies,
or an absence of racist
actors. (i.e. structural
racialization)
31

• A series of mutually reinforcing federal
policies across multiple domains have
contributed to the disparities we see today
• School Desegregation
• Homeownership/Suburbanization
• Urban Renewal
• Public Housing
• Transportation
32

• Distinction blurred
Examples:
• Private colleges
• Housing as a private good
complemented by
government policies
• GI Bill
• Expansion of highway system
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
33

• Civil Rights Act of 1875 –equal treatment in
“public accommodations”
• Citizenship clause and membership in political
community
• Overturned by Supreme Court eight years later
• “The wrongful act of an individual, unsupported by
any such authority, is simply a private wrong, or a
crime of that individual”
34

• Private vs. public
discrimination
• Tension between addressing
state action vs. de facto
conditions produced by
“private” decisions
Source: CSUN Daily Sundial Newspaper
35

“What the nation, through Congress,
has sought to accomplish in reference
to that race is, what had already been
done in every state in the Union for the
white race, to secure and protect rights
belonging to them as freemen and
citizens; nothing more. The one
underlying purpose of congressional
legislation has been to enable the black
race to take the rank of mere citizens.”
36

"The distinction between government
and private action, furthermore, can
be amorphous both as a historical
matter and as a matter of present‐day
finding of fact. Laws arise from a
culture and vice versa. Neither can
assign to the other all responsibility for
persisting injustices.”
37

• Misidentifying the
situation, not
public vs. private
• Expansion of
corporate
prerogative
Public Private
Private
Domains
Corporate
• Corporate space
diminishes public
& private space
Non‐pubic
Corporate
38

• Corporations under control of state for much of US
history –serving a public function
• Natural entity theory:
corporations as
separate juridical
entities with separate
rights
• Fourteenth
amendment and
corporate
personhood
Source: Terrence Nowicki Jr. ThisIsHistoricTimes.com
39

• Taney Court: states’ rights, anti‐elitism and
denial of citizenship to blacks
• “provided a coherent defense of both corporations
and slavery in a rapidly democratizing union”
(Austin Allen)
• Corporate dominance connected to whiteness
• “middle‐stratum identity” (Martinot)
• Citizens United: expansion of corporate rights
and reduction of civil rights
Source: powell, j. and C. Watt.“Corporate Prerogative, Race, and Identity Under the Fourteenth
Amendment.” Cardoza Law Review Vol. 32:3.
40

• Capitalist Welfare State
• Property Owning Democracy
• John Rawls: Justice as Fairness
41

CORNEL WEST: “…I don’t think President
Bush individually hates black people. His
policies were racist in effect and consequence,
and especially classist in terms of generating
misery among poor and working people,
disproportionately black and brown…And I
would say that even about the Obama
administration.” (Democracy Now!)
42

• The twentieth century has been
characterized by three developments of
political importance;
• 1)the growth of democracy;
• 2)the growth of corporate power; and
• 3)the growth of propaganda as a means of
protecting corporate power against
democracy. Alex Carey
43

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5_7Ap0gWMQ
44

• Treasury report February 2011: “Reforming
America’s Housing Finance Market”
• Does not mention role of segregation in housing and
credit markets in subprime crisis
• Three options laid out: variations of privatization
• Potentially
mortgage costs, down payments,
fees/costs for FHA loans
• Disproportionate impact on people of color and lowincome
communities
45

Universal
Programs
Targeted
Programs
Targeted
Universalism
46

• Targeted Universalism recognizes racial
disparities and the importance of eradicating
them, while acknowledging their presence
within a larger inequitable, institutional
framework
• Targeted universalism is a common framework
through which to pursue justice.
• A model which recognizes our linked fate
• A model where we all grow together
• A model where we embrace collective
solutions
47

Only 2% of emotional
cognition is available to us
consciously
Racial bias tends to reside in
the unconscious network
Messages can be framed to
speak to our unconscious
51

• Racial attitudes operate in our “unconscious” (also
called “subconscious”) mind
• Usually invisible to us but significantly influences
our positions on critical issues
• Negative unconscious attitudes about race are
called “implicit bias” or “symbolic racism.”
52

How
messages are
framed
affects how
they are
perceived.
53

When scientists showed a similar sketch to people from East Africa ‐ a culture
containing few angular visual cues ‐ the family is seen sitting under a tree. The
woman is balancing an item on her head.
Westerners are accustomed to the corners and box‐like shapes of architecture. They
are more likely to place the family indoors and to interpret the rectangle above the
woman's head as a window through which shrubbery can be seen.
56

• Race is a social reality.
• While we are hardwired to categorize ingroup
vs. out‐group, we are “softwired” for
the content of those categories.
• Softwiring is social.
• Racial categories and meaning
can be constantly be reconfigured.
57

High
Pitied
Out‐Group
Esteemed
In‐Group
Warmth
Low
Despised
Out‐Group
Envied
Out‐Group
Low
Competence
High
Source: Douglas Massey. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2007.
58

High
Warmth
Pity :
women,
elderly,
disabled
Esteemed:
Your own group,
who you identify
with
Low
Despised:
African
Americans,
Undocumented
immigrants
Envied:
Competent, but
don’t really like
them: Asians
Low
Competence
High
Source: Douglas Massey. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2007.
59

• Unconscious biases are reflected in institutional
arrangements.
• Prejudice leads to outcomes, and the outcomes
reinforce the stereotypes / prejudice.
• Ex: Females aren’t good at math.
Many females don’t take math classes.
60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrqrkihlw‐s
61

• Our environment affects our unconscious
networks
• Priming activates mental associations
• Telling someone a scary story activates a frame of fear
• Claude Steele’s “stereotype threat”:
• For example, tell students about to take a test that
Asian students tend to do better than whites, and the
whites will perform significantly worse than if they had
not been primed to think of themselves as less capable
than Asians.
Source: http://www.eaop.ucla.edu/0405/Ed185%20‐Spring05/Week_6_May9_2005.pdf
62

• Experiment with 7 th graders; ~50% white & 50% Black
• Given a list of values
▪ Experimental group: Choose the values that are most important to
you and write why they are important
▪ Control group: Choose the values that are the least important to
you and explain why
• End of semester – While Black students still did not do as
well as whites, the Black students in the experimental
group showed a 40% reduction in the racial achievement
gap.
• Experiment was repeated with a group of college
students and yielded a 50% reduction in the racial
achievement gap.
Source: Cohen, Geoffrey L.., Julio Garcia, Nancy Apfel, and Allison Master. (2006). “Reducing the Racial Achievement Gap: A
Social‐Psychological Intervention.” Science 313(5791): 1307‐1310,
63

• Be aware of implicit bias in your life. We are
constantly being primed.
• Debias by presenting positive alternatives.
• Consider your conscious messaging & language.
• Affirmative action support varies based on whether it’s
presented as “assistance” or “preference.”
• Engage in proactive affirmative efforts –not only
on the cultural level but also the structural level.
64

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