Really good article on the negative impacts of current reactionary race initiatives and some good suggestions on better ways to go about dealing this the problem. Best article I've read all day.
Does it, though? Because the two suggestions it offers are 1) Pass the buck to K12 ("But the inequalities arise long before high school, and they won’t disappear in college until we close the gaps in the entire K-12 system") 2) Don't change a thing until it's been proven to work ("Because the current evidence about diversity programs is so inconclusive, universities and their social-science faculties also should take the lead in designing experiments—true experiments, with control conditions and random assignment of students—to evaluate existing efforts and proposed new ones. Given the frequency with which well-intentioned programs backfire, no program should be implemented widely until it has first been rigorously tested") Which, really, says "this whole integration experiment has failed, back to the clubhouse, boys." Wait - you mean back when James Meredith needed US Marshals to escort him to class because of the riots? Oops. That was '62. So 54 years. Funny thing, though - we're a month out from the 50th anniversary of him getting shot for going to college. Air Force veteran, by the way. Nine years. Served in Korea. That half century? The "hard truth" about race on campus is that inequality is uncomfortable to confront and painful to change. I'm no fan of the term "microaggressions" either but I also know that even though "the policies and programs that universities have pursued over the past half-century don’t seem to be working", the world is my oyster so I should maybe STFU a little bit. 'cuz you know what? 40 years ago, these women at West Point raised their fists in support of African American empowerment and were investigated for violating Army rules. Oops. Not 40 years ago. LAST WEEK. Silly me. 40 years ago West Point had just started letting in women. Those ladies above? They represent 16 of 17 black female graduates out of a class of 1000 this year. Presume the article is correct - our policies "don't seem to be working." Based on the photo, and what led up to it, should we give up? Or try harder?some good suggestions on better ways to go about dealing this the problem.
The policies and programs that universities have pursued over the past half-century don’t seem to be working, at least as judged by the recent campus unrest, so reflexively expanding them probably isn’t the answer.
I'm a bit more optimistic on the article. I see it less as "we're failing, so let's start over" and more as "we need to step back and look at the successes and failures so we can continue and enhance the things that work." I see the article as saying some things to work and some not only don't work but make it worse. We can do better by understanding this, and like you said, try harder.
mmmmyeah, not so sure. http://heterodoxacademy.org/about-us/ It's not that they don't support diversity or affirmative action... it's that they think it ought to be applied to conservative white professors. Which does nothing to validate or invalidate their position. BUT they legitimately present zero real-world solutions other than "stop." I mean... This is a couple academics saying that colleges, which charge tuition, should emulate the changes made by a military force in the wake of the end of the draft. Where you can be thrown in prison for breaking the rules, rather than expelled. Where the money goes the other way, which is what primarily drives enlistment amongst the poor, as opposed to college, where its mostly the rich. The thing detractors love to miss in these discussions is that affirmative action is designed to change demographics for the next generation. You want to make it easier for the disadvantaged to get in so that by the time their kids are ready, they're no longer disadvantaged. We're four generations from this: Now is not the time to wring our hands and decry our failures.Dr. Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Dr. Jussim is a professor and a former chair of the department of psychology at Rutgers University. They are founding members of HeterodoxAcademy.org.
In their book “All That We Can Be” (1996), the sociologists Charles Moskos and John Sibley Butler describe how the U.S. Army escaped from the racial dysfunction of the 1970s to become a model of integration and near-equality by the time of the 1991 Gulf War.
Universities should consider a similar approach. Race would become less powerful as a social cue if schools shifted their attention away from the raw numbers of students in each category and focused instead on eliminating the gaps between the races, as the Army did.
I made that long post yesterday about this exact thing (and might roll it into something else to be posted on here), and this is exactly right. There are few things currently more irritating to me than the attitude that since something isn't immediately effective it's not worth doing. Incrementalism is a thing, and making the daily small changes and call-outs culturally, economically, environmentally, etc. while coupling those acts with larger acts of experimentation, social protest and dissent, is how change is made. To say "stop - this isn't working right now so it's not worth doing / we need to blow this up and completely alter this from scratch" is completely asinine most of the time. But, you know, we live in this now now now world so what the fuck do I know, but at least I can admit to the privilege of being a white male and don't take for granted the fact that we're even having these more nuanced conversations about race, education, and economics. ...guess this article was more frustrating to me than I thought...The thing detractors love to miss in these discussions is that affirmative action is designed to change demographics for the next generation.
"It's not that they don't support diversity or affirmative action... it's that they think it ought to be applied to conservative white professors." I don't really follow. What about their "about" page suggests this? They even have a link to a post on this topic on that page, which I don't see a problem with: http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/02/24/krugman-is-wrong-we-are-not-conservative/
"Professors moved left since 1990s, the rest of the country did not" "Why are liberals so condescending?" "It may be harder than we thought, but political diversity will (still) improve social psychological science" "Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University" "Liberal privilege in academia" Did you miss all of those?I don't really follow. What about their "about" page suggests this?
This comment is in two parts. The first presents some implications of Inbar and Lammers’ (2012, this issue) findings by making salient many of the advantages and privileges enjoyed by scientists when they extol the moral and intellectual superiority of liberals, liberal beliefs, liberal attitudes, and liberal policy preferences over conservatives, conservative beliefs, conservative attitudes, and conservative policy preferences. The second part of this comment refutes (or, at least, vigorously contests) some of the most common arguments that have attempted to defend social psychology from charges of unscientific and distorting liberal biases.
I mean, I saw titles of individual publications by these individuals and they obviously do think it should be applied to conservative professors, but I don't see anything about race and it seemed like you were implying they believed it should be applied to conservative white professors to the exclusion of any other group in any other context (which I'm still not getting). I haven't had time to go through and familiarize myself with these people or their general dispositions, outlooks, and beliefs, maybe that's the problem.
This article is such bullshit. Arguing that increased consciousness of racial disparity undermines the goal of equality makes little sense, as though we'll somehow creep up on improved racial relations by encouraging ignorance and complacency instead of educating people on the histories of racial minorities. ...so, the solution is integration with an emphasis on turning a blind eye to 'racial consciousness and conflict'? God forbid people be aware of the very real racial disparities that people face every day in this country, the so-called 'racial consciousness and conflict' that is tangible in the daily lives of many. Because it makes you uncomfortable that people may become more aware of the ways in which they are systematically oppressed? Because you think it will lead to aggression--but not the kind you are used to, i.e. the kind that enforces the agendas of these 'elite' institutions--but rather the aggression of racial minorities, who, ideally , wouldn't be educated enough to challenge their agendas anyway? fuck. off.On a campus, this means that increasing the number of black students and professors could, in theory, improve race relations, but such benefits are unlikely when accompanied by microaggression training and other measures that magnify racial consciousness and conflict.
The argument is that creating classes and lessons that explicitly point out and "otherise" a race will cause any groups being told about this to discriminate and hold biases against said race more often not less often. The main issues of race today, outside of the issues of continued poverty and fundamentally flawed laws concerning safety nets, public spending, and so on, is the fact that people make thousands of subconscious judgments every day based on race. Nobody is "racist" anymore, but everyone is a little more willing to believe a black person is a criminal based on what they have learned. Everyone is a little more willing to judge a job applicant as being less ready if the applicant has a black sounding name. People behave based on the environment they are in. If the ultimate goal is to reduce the above state of mind, to reduce those subconscious biases, then the methods in use for the last 50 years are not going to succeed, and will in fact backfire. The argument is that future policy should focus not on education about the differences or hardships that black people face, but instead to focus on "integrating" all races and focusing on making all people view one another, subconsciously, as peers. To focus these students to think as a united group, rather than as multiple groups. It isn't that teaching people about the things other races face is a bad thing, it's just that doing so will end up in the result that black people will face more discrimination and more judgment from the general population as a result. Even as we all accept black people accept more hardships, we will still continue to look at them as if they are different, as if they are a group not a part of the national whole. The people being made aware of racial disparities in a class aren't going to ever be part of the solution to fixing those issues. While it is a noble goal, it will ultimately fail. It is the people who have zero issue treating the black person next to them as they would any other person, and learning firsthand what that person faces which will ultimately inspire the empathy and passion needed to drive forward progress of race in the US. Lessons about micro-aggressions will only make tensions worse and subconscious biases stronger.
Nobody is "racist" anymore...
Nobody, in this case, refers to the general attitudes of the population. Personally, even when living in the south, people who hold views like the Charleston shooter are rare and disliked. I don't think that literally nobody is racist, but I think the number of people who are is so low that their power to act and create change on society or culture is nonexistent, and growing weaker every day. The point is that the main driver of the issues minorities today face are not with these people.
Okay, and that was an earnest question on my end to clear that point up. I was hoping the topic of racism would go in this direction. I think that racism still exists but carries such a social stigma that those who are racist are rendered powerless, which is effectively the same thing you said.
I think that this is a rather unrealistic view. There certainly is social stigma towards racism in some circles, but there are plenty of wealthy, powerful people who have racist beliefs. They may not express those beliefs openly in public (though some do), but their racism certainly influences who they hire, fire, vote for, give money to, harass, imprison, and speak for and against (among other things).I think that racism still exists but carries such a social stigma that those who are racist are rendered powerless, which is effectively the same thing you said.
'Classes and lessons' are not the things creating racial biases or causing society to marginalize racial minorities in this country. In order to move past something, you confront it. You deconstruct, and analyze, and make art about it and shit. Anyone who has gone through anything mildly traumatic will tell you that. You don't bury it and hope that with time, it will disappear. To apply this dead logic to something as complex and nuanced as racial relations in this country is...beyond stupid Why the hell not? We are going to deny reality in lieu of preaching the false notion that we all look around and view one another as peers on equal standing? Minimize the hardships black people face in order to make more room for perpetuating a lie that says society is set up in a way that favors them as much as their white neighbor? ...this is kind of the point. You don't change that disparity by denying it. You confront it.The argument is that future policy should focus not on education about the differences or hardships that black people face
Even as we all accept black people accept more hardships, we will still continue to look at them as if they are different, as if they are a group not a part of the national whole.
Classes and lessons are not currently creating racial biases in common culture, because these classes do not yet exist on a large scale. However, we see references all throughout culture and media as black people being "the other", they are portrayed different than white people, they are portrayed as this out-group that is not part of the common goals of the nation, but rather of their own separate goals depending on the context of the media. That should be confronted, analyzed, broken down, and countered. However, classes in schools that create more of the biases this media creates are not going to fix anything. Things need to be managed in a very careful and cautious way. Universities and other groups making these classes are not doing this, and in their hast to "educate" about how black people are treated they are making the situation worse. I explain why policy should focus on making us think as a collective whole rather than focusing on teaching groups of the difficulties black people face. It is to reduce the biases that are the primary drivers of the hardships black people face. Black people already know they face hardships. White people, however, are not innately aware of this, and often do need to learn through various means. However, when this is done in a classroom it results in people dismissing the issues black people face more not less. The only way to accomplish this is to have natural exposure. To have a white person talk to and consider a black person as a friend, to have them as part of the same group/niche/culture, and have them communicate as peers. That doesn't happen when environments are set up to make white and black people feel more isolated and separated from one another.
This article isn't suggesting we deny or ignore anything. "Universities also need to steer discourse about these issues in a positive and cooperative way. Leaders should remind students constantly that diversity is challenging and that bringing people together from so many backgrounds and countries guarantees that there will be frequent misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Handling diversity well thus requires generosity of spirit and an attitude of humility. Instead of focusing on microaggressions, our campuses might talk about blunders, misconceptions and self-righteousness—and about civility and forgiveness. As Martin Luther King Jr., put it in 1957: “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
They shouldn't promote more attendance by letting in people with lower test scores. Besides the social effects prescribed in the article, it is inherently unfair and goes against the spirit of 'non-discrimination by race.' Instead what they should do is provide more support to those students of color who are unable to attend college for financial reasons. If there is systematic oppression going on then this has manifested in the fact that people of color don't have the same financial resources as other races. By addressing poverty we address the real issue and we fix the problem by bringing up one side instead of pushing the other down.
I wish we could just let the students themselves decide. I hate how when it comes to these types of situations, in which America's youth is divided, we feel that it may only be solved by higher powers. I understand that it is good to have supervision and an ultimate "boss" that foresees everything (President, parent(s), etc.), but why do we feel it is necessary to get higher powers involved? It's 11:30 PM right now and I'm very tired so please excuse this ranty blabber, but I just hate it when this happens. I wish we would just listen to the students themselves. Let the students solve their own problems. Let them think and work together. If things get too out of hand, THEN we involved higher powers. But I dont understand why the first move made is always by higher power (such as a University president) In my mind, and correct me if I am wrong, the best solution is to just confront individuals themselves. Are you being racist or discriminatory on our campus? You're out. Set up a system that makes it easier than ever to report hate crimes or racial actions. Invoke the hardest punishments possible on racist students. No tolerance. In that way, it should set up an example for future generations of students. They can see that if you say something bad here, you're out, no questions asked. Once again, sorry a lot of this is just pointless midnight blabber. This is actually my first comment ever on Hubski. Cheers!
Im not sure you really thought this one though. Who decides what racism is? What is hate speech? There is a real big trend out there to try to subdue "wrong" speech but who gets to decide what wrong speech is? Is being against illegal immigration racist? Some people like to claim it is. Is advocating for weight loss hate speech? Some might argue it is. Many argue that advocating for mens rights is sexist. Should we ban all those people from universities? Even in extremes lets say someone comes from a real hole in the wall area and hates blacks and gays. If you ban that person from the university that person well never have a chance to change their views and become enlightened. Banning that person will only strengthen their hatred and in my mind is counter productive. Its better to have that person speak their mind and be corrected than it is to have them keep the quite hate in.In my mind, and correct me if I am wrong, the best solution is to just confront individuals themselves. Are you being racist or discriminatory on our campus? You're out. Set up a system that makes it easier than ever to report hate crimes or racial actions. Invoke the hardest punishments possible on racist students. No tolerance. In that way, it should set up an example for future generations of students. They can see that if you say something bad here, you're out, no questions asked.
Do you actually know what the word reactionary means or are you completely delusional.