Race and the Transformative Agenda

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Race and the Transformative Agenda

• john a. powell
• Williams Chair in Civil Rights Civil Liberties,
  Moritz College of Law.
• Executive Director, Kirwan Institute
• April 28, 2007

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Overview

• Race and Racism
• Institutional Racism
• Structural Racism
• Race and Class
• Transformative Race

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Race
Categories
Assignment
Meaning
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Our Narratives
Deserving Moral Hardworking
Disloyal
Lazy Undeserving Immoral
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The Self

• We are taught to label ourselves and one another.
  This process of categorization makes it easier
  to dismiss the suffering of others because this
  process of categorization creates the other.
  If I identify as male then those who are not
  male are then other.
• Whiteness
• The Hobbesian Self
• Organized around Fear
• Bowling for Columbine Clip

Thomas Hobbes
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The White Self

• Whiteness illuminates everything but itself.
  

Blackness
Whiteness
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Individual Racism

• Discrimination Model
• Victim/perpetrator
• Prejudice (bad actor/ bad apple)
• Intent (purpose or motive)

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Institutional Racism

• Recognized that racism need not be individualist
  or intentional.
• Institutional and cultural practices can
  perpetuate race inequality without relying on
  racist actors.
• Duke Power Plant (Duke v. Griggs)
• Disparate Impact Theory law is concerned with
  consequences of neutral practices that have
  racist effects. It was used to combat
  institutional racism in Duke.

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Model for Disparate Outcomes
Historically
Today
Biased Structures
De Jure Neutral Structures
What is occurring here to replicate the outcomes
today?
Disparate Outcomes
Disparate Outcomes
Individuals/ Culture
Structures/ Opportunity
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Structural Racism

• Often the interaction of institutions that
  generates racial group disparities
• Can develop more effective responses since we are
  able to see multiple, intersecting, and often
  mutually reinforcing disadvantages
• Structural Racism analysis allows for view of
  cumulative and saturating effects of
  institutional arrangements

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Cumulative

• Efforts to identify causation at a decision-point
  within a specific domain understate the
  cumulative impact of discrimination.
• Example Labor economist analysis of
  discrimination in the labor market controlling
  for background characteristics and educational
  preparation of labor market participants ignores
  the previous discrimination in education,
  housing, and health markets.

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Mutual Institutional Interaction
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Cumulative and MutualCycle of Segregation
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Structural Racism Analysis Applied

• Mainstream dialogue around Hurricane Katrina
  centered on individual actors
• Flood risk in New Orleans was not equitably
  distributed and followed historical patterns of
  segregation in the City

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Hurricane Katrina

• Failed to acknowledge how racialized space, such
  as the Lower Ninth Ward, came into being

After levee breaks, the Ninth ward rapidly floods
in New Orleans. Photo by Ted Jackson/NEWHOUSE
NEWS SERVICE)
Evacuees sit stranded in the streets outside the
Convention Center of New Orleans in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina September 3, 2005.
REUTERS/SHANNON STAPLETON
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Disinvestment in Critical Infrastructure for
Urban Areas

• Katrina directly illustrated the national trend
  of disinvestment in critical infrastructure for
  urban areas
• Poorly maintained levy systems
• Insufficient public transportation

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Changing Mainstream Talk

• By shifting the discourse from blame and guilt,
  we can begin to see how race continues to sort
  opportunity through structures
• Racialized poverty came to the fore during the
  time of the Hurricane, and how we act can
  transform the region into an area that is
  physically, economically and politically just for
  all

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Race or Class?

• As related sociological phenomena, race and class
  analyses are strongest when employed together
• Race and class are mutually constitutive
• Differential treatment of indentured servants and
  Black slaves led to barriers in collective
  organization
• Led to racial distinction middle class
  individualism and the Black underclass as
  unworthy

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Race and Class (cont)

• Race left a heavy footprint on class
• Entrenched racial divide continues today
• White face on the suburban middle class, allowed
  for stereotyping of the Black welfare queen
  which prevented the development of a welfare
  state similar to Europe or Canada
• Racial associations made with certain occupations
  example of class and race interacting

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Connecting Race and Class

• Class may be understood even less than race, but
  it is important to recognize it as equally a
  cultural and economic formation
• Transformative potential lies in realizing the
  link between race and class apply the knowledge
  of the limitations of middle-class merit thinking
  with the best scholarship on race

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Using A Structural Racism Analysis to Make Change

• When we use race properly, we can show how
  structural dynamics and failings hurt everyone
• Begin to analyze how housing, education,
  employment, transportation, health care and other
  systems create racialized outcomes for different
  groups

The Miners Canary
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Sustainable Change

• As we transform structural arrangements, we
  transform ourselves as well

Interconnectedness, mutuality, linked fate
Fear, Disconnectedness, Sense of Lack
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What About Individual Responsibility?

• We must talk about individual responsibility, but
  in such a way that we break through separations
  of the public and the private, as well as the
  individual and collective
• Social connection model these boundaries are
  rapidly shifting in a ever-increasingly
  globalizing world
• We must begin to accept that our deeds and
  omissions support processes and arrangements that
  produce unjust outcomes

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Overcoming the Challenges

• We can use moments like Katrina to soften racial
  boundaries by engaging in an intentional dialogue
• Often, the attitudes and interests of groups are
  not set in stone, but rather are the product of
  institutional arrangements, lack of inter-group
  contact, and lack of leadership

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Conclusions

• Must be willing to talk about race
• Can use structural racism approach as an
  effective diagnostic tool
• Can see how macro factors have micro impacts for
  all Americans
• In order to thrive, we cannot continue to support
  institutions that reinforce social hierarchy

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Questions or Comments?