John McWhorter gave an extensive answer to that question in a recent interview with Bill Moyer on PBS.
When I originally posted this, I was using just a YouTube clip that McWhorter had posted to his own blog. I typed up my own transcription because I didn't know there was any existing transcript. Since then, the YouTube clip has been taken down, but the video and transcript are on PBS's website.
Here's the video. The relevant discussion starts at about 10:15.
Here's PBS's full transcript. But for the sake of posterity, I've kept my own abridged transcript from the original post:
MOYER: To what extent do you think those realities you just mentioned can be traced to racism?
McWHORTER: Ooh, that's a good question.
MOYER: . . . By far disproportionate number of black kids in prison.
McWHORTER: Hideous, yeah.
MOYER: Disproportionate number of black people living in poverty. When we talk about those realities, do we have to talk about race anymore, or is that behind us?
McWHORTER: There is certainly what's called "societal racism" and "institutional racism." "White privilege" is the way sometimes it's more provocatively put. And those things are there. But my question is whether or not we can eliminate those things within any timespan that is . . . logical. So, yes, I know there are arguments that there is "institutional racism." But in terms of helping people who need help, it seems that there are very practical, hands-on strategies that we can use, and that we can teach people to use, that have a more interesting effect to me than crusading against the fact that society isn't fair.
Basically, I can't imagine the playing field ever being completely level. I don't know how you can create that.
And this is the crucial thing: I think that descendants of African slaves in the United States are the only group in human history who have insisted that we can only achieve under perfect or near-perfect conditions.
Now, for me to have said that in 1950, now that would have been pushing it. But in terms of the way it is now? Life is never fair.
And I want to stress once again: I know there is racism in the United States. Tulia, Texas . . . anyone can Google that.
But the fact of the matter is that when you look at the problems that the black community has, tracing them to racism has gotten so abstract that, really, I don't see, and maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how we could convince a significant proportion of the American population that racism was the main issue anymore.
And more to the point, if you could take away racism right now . . . Racism's gone! The problems we are talking about would still be there. So I think that racism is important, but not as important in 2009 as helping people who need help. . . .
Sometimes I think we have to learn not only from history 100 years ago, but from history a few news cycles ago. The common wisdom . . . not long ago was that Barack Obama couldn't win. That there was still enough racism "out there" that these people in diners talking about how they would never vote for a black man were going to tip the election. And you know, they didn't, and they didn't even come close. We have to learn from that in thinking about what's "out there," as it's often put.
And what's most important? Not what's "out there." We all know what's "out there." You can find it. Look for it, and you'll find it. It might be next door to you. . . . Does it matter in 2009? And I'm suggesting that these days, it's not one of our larger problems. . . .
Were we ever thinking that there was going to be an America where there was nothing that you could call racism? Because, we are homo sapiens, and we're wired in certain ways. The idea that we could never have any biases, that we would never process people according to group, that there would never be some people who are more troglodytic on this thing than others -- I don't think that that corresponds to any kind of reality. We have made amazing strides. But the idea that we can ever have none? I don't know, we'd have to be a different species. . . .
The black president was elected. That settles it. Many people don't like that.
MOYER: With a lot of white votes, by the way.
McWHORTER: With a lot of white votes. And so many people don't like that that really settles the position in the middle. But that's where the conversation is always going to be.
4 comments:
"The black president was elected. That settles it."
Wow! So because the president is black, we ignore racism?
It seems that what McWhorter is saying is that we should stop trying to make the race situation better because we'll never be 100% successful. Does this mean we should also stop making schools better because we won't ever get all students to be geniuses, we should stop trying to cure diseases, because we'll never cure them all, we should stop fighting pollution because we'll never have a perfectly clean environment?
I don't think racism is something you tell people to get over. It's something you fight. Of course it will never go away if all we do is cover it up or ignore it, trying to go on as if it doesn't exist and refusing to challenge it.
i agree with kevin.
It seems that what McWhorter is saying is that we should stop trying to make the race situation better because we'll never be 100% successful. Does this mean we should also stop making schools better because we won't ever get all students to be geniuses, we should stop trying to cure diseases, because we'll never cure them all, we should stop fighting pollution because we'll never have a perfectly clean environment?
When you frame it as "the race situation," I think that becomes broader than "racism." I don't think McWhorter would agree that we "we should stop trying to make the race situation better."
He just thinks that trying to ferret out racism isn't going to be as effective as certain other approaches, like prison re-entry programs (which is what I linked to on "there are very practical, hands-on strategies that we can use, and that we can teach people to use, that have a more interesting effect to me").
Surely you don't deny the possibility of improving "the race situation" through means other than directly confronting racism, don't you? For instance, if you passed laws that led to more equal access to education and health care across the board, for all races, that would be race-neutral (it wouldn't require hunting down racism and defeating it), but I think it would improve the aggregate well-being of blacks in American society.
And, of course, McWhorter doesn't counsel that we "ignore racism" because the election of Obama has somehow solved everything. He's simply pointing out that Obama's being elected is itself evidence that racism is less prominent than those who recently took the position that "Americans would never elect a black president!" thought it was.
John,
I completely agree that we should be looking toward programs like the ones you described. I would say that, if done properly, these programs do address racism directly, because they acknowledge the role it plays in society. A good prison re-entry program acknowledges the role race and racism play in the criminal justice system (this doesn't mean that they serve only race-related goals or cater to only minorities, just that they are relevant to the context in which they exist). We should be looking to expand these programs and to understand what factors make ex-cons less likely to take advantage of them. This process inevitably will deal with the issue of race.
The same can be said for other areas, such as education or health-care. Again, this does not mean that addressing these areas has a purely racial goal. However, if you are serious about dealing with these issues, you will have to confront racism at some point.
So, I agree with you that we need these programs and initiatives, which serve all races. I guess I disagree with the notion that they could ever be "race neutral" because I think race permeates so much of our society.
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