All posts by noahwagner

Privatized, racialized citizenship

Future of Race Week 13

Perhaps the most striking element of our final discussion was the glimpse into the lens through which white Americans view their black peers, particularly in an era that these same whites proclaim to be race-blind. In the 2009 Race Cues, Attitudes, and Punitiveness survey that we discussed, for instance, white respondents expressed sentiments that reveal quite a bit about the consequences of post-racial rhetoric, at least when it is paired with misguided notions of citizenship and deserving.

When asked their opinion on the statement that black Americans should “[work] their way up…without any special favors,” white survey respondents frequently brought up their own family’s struggles and successes. They expressed what seems to be simultaneous pride and resentment at the fact that they did not receive handouts; as one put it, “No one GAVE us anything.” They contrast their own self-reliance with what they view as a tendency among black Americans to rely on the state, and to attribute inequalities to racial prejudice when (according to white respondents) they are actually the result of cultural or personal failings. One respondent even discusses the difficulty black Americans have in getting credit, only to dismiss claims of discrimination and attribute the disparity entirely to “lazy, non-working, welfare collecting African American[s].”

This line of thinking is predicated on a belief that the playing field is level and that opportunity is equally available to all. The logic goes, as Professor Bobo phrased it, “If people don’t succeed in the race-neutral [state or market], it’s on them.” To borrow from both Shapiro and Anderson, this mentality reflects a privatized and fragmented notion of citizenship, one that is fractured along racial lines. Whites such as these survey respondents do not view themselves as part of one cooperative, racially inclusive pool of citizens, who jointly pay into – and enjoy benefits from – a shared system. They, the hard-working and deserving whites they believe themselves to be, have signed no social contract with their black fellow citizens. Rather, they are in direct competition with black America in the marketplace of jobs, homes, and benefits that they view as race-neutral and ahistorical.

If this mindset affects as many whites as it appears to, the challenge for antiracist scholarship and policy is far greater than merely correcting disparities in education, income, or health. Herein lies the answer to the question Christian raises in his post: what is the value of political philosophy in studying racism? True progress, as Anderson points out, will require us to reevaluate our understanding of democracy and citizenship, and reframe racial equalitya s central to both.

Merit and inequality

Wealth Week 12

As Shapiro pointed out, and as we have frequently touched upon during our conversations in class, most accounts of racial inequality focus largely on factors that are at least nominally related to merit – education, occupation, and crime, to name a few. The slant of this discussion opens the door to conservative commentators who attribute inequality to individual choices and cultural shortcomings, rather than structural factors. Wilson rightly points out that liberals struggle to respond to these claims, and often choose to disregard behaviors of the disadvantaged or attribute them to circumstance. In doing so, they implicitly posit these individual and cultural factors as significant forces in perpetuating inequality, even if they are only intermediary.

However, Shapiro’s incisive findings reframe the discourse about inequality, helping us to understand it as largely inherited, and not as a product of merit. Especially when considering similar savings rates among white and black Americans, there is no intellectually honest way to understand the inheritance of white families, or the asset poverty of black families, through the lens of meritocracy. The next step in shifting the conversation is to demonstrate to the mainstream that our notion of deserving is misguided.

The insidious nature of elementary school racism

Black Community

Karoline Tyson noted that young children she interviewed rarely mentioned race, at least with adults in school settings. Conversations about race are seldom initiated in elementary school classrooms, and the researchers themselves avoided bringing up race with younger students unless the students they interviewed broached the subject. By and large, these students made no mention of race: one student described his classmates by “nearly every physical characteristic but race.” Until middle school or later, these students avoid discussing race.

I wondered what might result in this silence on the topic. Perhaps they are uncomfortable with the subject in general. Perhaps they view race as inappropriate for discussing with in-school authorities because they never see it discussed in this setting. Perhaps they lack the vocabulary to discuss it. Or perhaps, for some, neighborhoods and schools were so racially segregated that differences were rarely visible among students’ peers – as was the case at my elementary school.

Regardless of the cause, it seems that an unwillingness to even acknowledge racial differences (at least among teachers and school administrators, if they are fearful of starting conversations with young students) have prevented authorities from recognizing the biases inherent in the system and in their own judgments of students. Du Bois’s observations about the importance of recognizing unconscious prejudices are particularly salient here: the tacit perpetuation of racism in schools has serious consequences for students’ academic self-concepts and feelings of belonging or alienation in school, and ultimately contributes to racial achievement gaps.

Moral authority and critiques of black family life

The Black Family Week 10

 

Black public figures with significant political, financial, and sociocultural capital, such as Bill Cosby, President Obama, and the mayor of Philadelphia discussed in Black Citymakers, are often considered moral authorities for the black community. As such, their criticisms of absent fathers are widely heard and  are taken quite seriously. When they participate in a long tradition of condemning single black mothers and absent black fathers, their assent is often understood to legitimize these critiques.

But as Kara noted in her post, rhetoric that attributes black fathers’ absence to individualistic and cultural factors underemphasizes the impact of incarceration and violence in poor black communities. Thus, Obama’s speech chastising fathers who “sit in the house and watch SportsCenter all weekend long” disregards a number of key realities, including disproportionate mortality and incarceration rates for black men. It also leaves out the fact that, when compared to other fathers in similar living situations, black fathers are more involved in parenting. (In other words, black fathers who live with their children are more involved than other fathers who live with their children; the same is true when comparing fathers who do not live with their children).

In this context, the President’s limited discussion of structural factors appears even more inadequate than before, and it is all the more disheartening that this aspect of his speech was not even mentioned in mainstream media coverage – a parallel to the attention that Moynihan’s analysis of black culture drew, relative to his concerns about adult male unemployment. If there is any conclusion I can draw from this trend of internal critique, from President Obama to Mayor Nutter, it is that the left’s to William Julius Wilson’s criticisms may well have been overcompensation. Far from acknowledging the importance of culture and framing it in the context of structural factors, cultural arguments have either dominated the left’s rhetoric, or been the only element that their audience has been interested in hearing.

Discrimination in popular discourse: bringing in theories of structural inequality

Structural Racial Inequality Week 9

Our discussion in class made it clear that different realms of American discourse evaluate racial discrimination by remarkably disparate standards. While social theorists such as Reskin point to a complex set of systems responsible for producing and reinforcing discrimination and inequalities, the rule-makers of these systems – and those who must adhere to their rules – apply standards with little or no critical analysis of systemic racism.

Economists primarily conceive of “statistical discrimination”: they claim that employers use race as a proxy for likely schooling and other predictors of productivity. They rarely present concerns about combating disparities such as the achievement gap, and they offer little criticism of the resulting “statistical discrimination” except to say that it is unlikely to last. The textbook I have been assigned for my introductory economics course, for instance, notes that discrimination will probably not persist in the labor market. It suggests that undervaluing workers of color will lead competitors to hire these workers more cheaply, ultimately pushing up demand for workers of color until they are hired as readily and paid as well as white workers.

Similarly, as Avni mentions in her post, the Supreme Court demands that claims of discrimination be bolstered by proof of intent. This standard disregards the extreme difficulty of proving intent. It also fails to acknowledge that intent is not necessarily important to prove, given that disparities themselves are evidence of discriminatory systems.

These limited understandings of discrimination dominate the economy and the courts –sites where many people of color confront and combat racism. A push for racial equality, economically and legally, therefore requires a transformation in how discrimination is interpreted in these domains. Perspectives like the one Reskin offers in her race discrimination system could prove crucial to this effort, but we must first render these views accessible. In short, we must demand a nuanced, systemic understanding of racism and discrimination from other academic fields, and also from popular discourse.

Scientific racism: damaging and self-perpetuating

Health and Community Week 8

Professor Bobo noted in class that biology has become a virtually taboo realm for the social sciences to draw upon. Given that the hard sciences provide crucial means of explaining human activity, this appears to be a significant loss for the field of sociology and for the study of the African-American community. Such a loss can primarily be attributed, as our discussion suggested, to the suspicion generated by scientific racism.

Eugenics and Social Darwinism have made social scientists reluctant to account for biology in examining race, for fear that biological approaches have become inextricably tied to racism. Yet physiological factors account for universal human responses to stress and adversity; to recognize these responses as typical requires an understanding of biology that Social Darwinism has made difficult. Scientific racism, in other words, has held social scientists back from a comprehensive understanding of health in the communities they study.

It is also possible that the barriers scientific racism imposes are self-perpetuating. Sociologists’ unwillingness to include biological considerations in their analyses may have it difficult, for instance, to counter claims about a “culture of poverty” (often a racially coded term for African-American culture) that attribute poverty to individual decisions and cultural tendencies. Bringing in biological and psychological analysis would demonstrate that such a “culture” in fact consists of behaviors and health effects broadly observed when individuals of any background are confronted with scarcity. Because many social scientists hesitate to employ biology, it is difficult to meaningfully engage with these arguments, lending racist claims more power than they would wield absent the damaging legacy of scientific racism.

Intimacy and Understanding in On the Run

Policing the Carceral State Week 7

During our discussion of On the Run, many of us expressed concerns about the ethics and efficacy of Alice Goffman’s approach to fieldwork. As some of us noted, she may well have committed several serious crimes in the process of conducting fieldwork; she may have acted unethically in engaging as a roommate and date rather than simply as an observer. Ethics aside, Goffman might have altered the course of events simply through her presence, and likely offers an account that is rather biased towards the close friends she has made on 6th Street.

Goffman’s embedding in the social world she studies made it impossible for her to be an objective observer. However, I think that rather than undermining the ethnography, Goffman’s close ties to the community transformed it. The ways in which she is implicated and impacted in her fieldwork make it meaningful as a personal account (regarding her own life adjacent to the Black urban ghetto) and also as a broader sociological one. Goffman offers us a window into the mentality and survival instincts she acquired on 6th Street – mentioning, for example, that her time there has led her to enter Penn facilities with an eye towards TVs and computers that she could steal if in need of fast cash. The mentality of scarcity and self-preservation that Goffman develops around theft, police, and other matters is a testament to the ways in which life on the run, or even life proximate to people on the run, can transform an individual with an entirely different background.

In addition, Goffman’s ties to 6th Street may safeguard against bias at least as much as it generates it. Her deep emotional investment in Chuck, Mike, and others may have actually led to greater objectivity than another account offers: one in which the meaning of “snitching,” “riding,” and other phenomena previously alien to a white, middle-class college student are colored by profound personal understanding. If the alternative is the sort of distance – colored by racism – that led Goffman’s friend to quickly leave the party upon seeking Mike, Chuck, and Steve enter, then Goffman’s more intimately sympathetic approach is likely preferable.

Social dislocation in the age of integration

Ghetto Poverty Challenges for the Middle Class Week 5

Our conversations about hypersegregation (as Denton and Massey describe it) and social isolation (as William Julius Wilson has termed his phenomenon) have led me to wonder about the effects of integration and gentrification on predominantly black neighborhoods with highly concentrated poverty, and whether Wilson’s or Denton and Massey’s theories will hold amid these trends.

Massey and Denton argue that segregation on the basis of race, class, or both intensifies poverty during periods of economic decline. Integration, it is implied, is the solution. Similarly, Wilson suggests (and Pattillo disputes) that, among other factors, out-migration of a stable black middle class has left black urban ghettos without strong role models or institutions. If this is indeed the case, what impact will an influx of middle class residents have––particularly if those residents are not white? Wilson seems to think that social isolation is one of the primary factors in ghetto poverty, but as Pattillo shows, many poor black neighborhoods are, in fact, surrounded by relative economic stability.

Despite the strong cases for integration into a broader social context that Wilson, Denton and Massey make, there are factors at play that they fail to consider. Their arguments could be refined with an analysis of gentrification’s effects – specifically its tendency to push working-class and poor residents out of areas that were just affordable, suggesting that, as harmful as segregation can be, there are ways of integrating neighborhoods that are equally as harmful.

“If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down.”

Black Community, Black Middle Class Week 4

This sentence in The Talented Tenth offered two possible interpretations. It can serve as an expression of genuine concern and a call for the black elite to address the needs of their poor counterparts in order to advance as a race; alternatively, it can be read as a threat to white society – failure to improve the conditions of the black masses, it hints, will wreak havoc on the country more broadly and degrade the status of whites.

During our discussion, Professor Bobo noted that Du Bois probably intended an interpretation closer to the former. This left me wondering whether the importance of Du Bois’s words lay not only in their likely intent, but in their ambiguity and their reception. He begins this paragraph, “Men of America, the problem is before you.” This suggests simultaneous, and potentially different, messages for Americans both black and white. By inciting solidarity in blacks and fear in whites, Du Bois implies that “the Negro problem” is everyone’s problem, regardless of race or status. While condescension towards the black masses and treatment of them as a threat is an intrinsic part of his appeal, it is nevertheless an effective way to call the country to action.

Du Bois and the schools of thought on race

Black Community, Philadelphia Negro Week 3

As we discussed the three main schools of thought into which we can categorize analysis of race, I found myself wondering where Du Bois would have placed himself – and where we might retrospectively place him.

Du Bois is firmly realistic – albeit judgmental – about the state of black America as he finds it. Throughout The Philadelphia Negro and his other works, he focuses on black history as one of enslavement and oppression, and emphasizes the role that persistent discrimination still has on the black community. He notes that black occupations differ from white ones and have meaningful effects on income for black workers; he also writes that a significant number of black Philadelphians face poverty despite lack of involvement in “gross immorality or crime.” Du Bois also acknowledges that racial disparities cannot simply be overcome with industrial education and economic success; black America’s culture differs from white America’s, and barriers to political equality beyond income gaps remain at play. For this reason, it is unlikely that he would have subscribed to Nathan Glazer’s theory of the “American ethnic pattern” had he been alive to consider it; for black America, the United States has never been a nation of individuals open to inclusion without politically distinct ethnic groups, and blacks have repeatedly been expected to surrender their culture and assimilate to white bourgeois values of “respectability,” as even Du Bois suggests they should. Clearly, Du Bois does not have unlimited faith in the American creed of multipluralism.

But did Du Bois believe that racism is inexorable, a flaw permanently woven into the fabric of America? Probably not. In his recommendations for blacks and whites for addressing the problem, he suggests that white America maintain high standards, but stop holding blacks back. If the barriers that have prevented black progress are removed, he implies, there is hope for full equality. He believes that the two races should work side by side to realize “the ideals of the republic” and “make this truly a land of equal opportunity.” Perhaps, like Roger Smith, Du Bois saw two traditions in America, and felt that the tradition built on racism and exclusion was meaningful, but not without its expiration date.

Secondary Marginalization in Black Citymakers

Black Community, Philadelphia Negro Week 3

Throughout my reading of Black Citymakers, I was struck by the recurring theme of what Hunter deems “secondary marginalization.” In the struggle to find a voice for black Philadelphians in a political environment determined to silence them, black advocates at times found it expedient or necessary to make concessions and seek consensus at the expense of the community’s least privileged.

Often, secondary marginalization seems to manifest as a tradeoff between political representation and economic change, wherein the poorest black Philadelphians are denied basic reforms so that elite black leaders might gain election. Beginning with the housing reform efforts beginning in the 1930s, black leaders emphasized political enfranchisement over housing reform. Perhaps, at this time, prioritizing leadership was the only way for black interests to be heard; black advocates appeared to believe that the black vote would install an administration guided by black interests, ultimately bringing material change to housing and a myriad of other issues.

Yet as the decades wore on, the claim becomes less and less convincing. During the War on Poverty, for instance, Bowser and Evans employed a selective funding scheme to grant organizations inequitable amounts of backing from the Philadelphia Antipoverty Action Committee. The local Community Action Councils for which the PAAC had been created received relatively little funding, and ultimately faced their demise when the PAAC faced budget cuts and dismantling. Thirty years later, despite improvements for black enfranchisement and leadership, less powerful members of the black community faced continued marginalization, particularly along class lines.

If the 2010 flash mobs make anything clear, it is that some members of the community still see no place for their voices in politics. With black residents nearing fifty percent of the population in cities like Philadelphia, and with a shift from “middlemen to mainmen” occurring, perhaps consensus-seeking concessions will cease to be the norm, and a new openness to structural reform will shift the narrative for the underserved.

Noah Wagner – Introductions

Black Community

Hi, everyone! My name is Noah Wagner, I take they/them/theirs pronouns, and I am a sophomore in Quincy House concentrating in Social Studies.

Outside of the classroom, I spend much of my time engaging with activism and public service. I am a member of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), a group that stands in solidarity with workers within and beyond Harvard’s campus who are fighting for economic justice. In the same vein, I am an officer of the Phillips Brooks House Association, where I oversee and coordinate among Advocacy, Health and Housing Programs (including SLAM). I also serve on the board of the Harvard College Democrats and help direct RITE, a PBHA tutoring program for recent immigrants.

This past summer, I served as an intern with the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog group in Washington, D.C. There, I helped research and publish data about the role of dark money in campaign advertising. Issues around electoral reform, voting rights, and police brutality particularly drive my advocacy efforts outside of the classroom.

Like many others in this class, I am interested in studying the African-American experience with racial inequality, particularly the manipulation of race in U.S. politics around wedge issues such as poverty, welfare, and the War on Drugs. I hope that this class will lend me historical and modern-day perspectives on representations and realities of the black community as relate to these concerns and many others. This is my first time taking an African-American Studies course, and I look forward to exploring this department more in the coming semesters.