Im-Politic: On Racial Preferences, the Case for Just Keeping Quiet

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affirmative action, African American women, African Americans, Biden, discrimination, diversity, election 2020, equity, gender, identity politics, Im-Politic, quotas, race relations, racism, Supreme Court, women

It’s easy to understand why President Biden has decided not only to make his upcoming Supreme Court appointee the first African American woman nominated for this position, but to announce this decision in public. The African American South Carolina political leader whose support he desperately needed to keep alive his badly floundering 2020 Democatic presidential primary campaign “suggested” he do so. So Mr. Biden clearly had no choice politically speaking.

But the then-candidate’s promise, and his equally public move as President to keep that promise, raise questions about how identity politics considerations should influence these kinds of personnel decisions, and especially whether they can be handled in less controversial and even more unifying ways.

My answers: At least when it comes to big population/identity groups that are significantly under-represented in U.S. institutions of government, I see strong reasons to make sure that they become better represented, but also for the appointers simply to keep quiet about checking off race and ethnicity and gender and similar boxes.

Regarding the “affirmative action” issues involved here, as I’ve mentioned here, I’m generally supportive of (the wide variety of) such programs for African Americans. But for other major ethnic groups, who simply haven’t suffered comparable official and unofficial racism and discrimination for anywhere near as long, I regard the case as significantly weaker (though not entirely invalid for every single group).

For the purposes of this post, I’m not thinking of all the legitimate legal and historical complications involved. And race isn’t the only group of categories that need to be considered. Certainly women have been greatly under-represented in these positions for the entirety of American history (though they’ve certainly achieved great catch-up in politics and in lucrative, powerful professions like medicine and law).

Instead, I’m thinking this way: In 2021, would it really be acceptable if all Supreme Court Justices or the leadership of other government agencies or U.S. Senators or members of the House of Representatives were white men, even if they were all superbly qualified? It’s hard to imagine that any fair-minded person would be happy about that situation. It’s equally hard to imagine that such a person could have real confidence that bullet-proof considerations of merit (as opposed to reliance on credentialism, which is often very different) were 100 percent responsible for this kind of racial and gender monopoly. And there’s abundant evidence (as presented in the RealityChek post linked above) that the wide range of preferences created at the federal and state levels of government, and in academe and private business, deserve much credit for that racial monopoly fading to the impressive extent that it has.

So if it’s legitimate to want these important positions to be at least somewhat representative of the population at large in terms of major demographic groups, there shouldn’t be anything intrinsically wrong for an appointer to decide to give a preference to under-represented groups, especially as long as he or she makes clear (as Mr. Biden has), when he promised to name someone “with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity….”

But that’s where the President ideally would have stopped, and simply proceeded to identify those (in this case) African American women (of whom of course there is no shortage) who fit this description. Naturally, because he made the pledge during the campaign, the President had to repeat it. But it’s also where all future appointers should stop – with the possible exception of declaring an intent to make “an historic choice.”

Because stopping short of specifying the identity traits being sought would prevent any fair-minded person from reasonably and convincingly accusing an appointer of prioritizing race over merit. For challengers would be put in a position of insisting that, say, Leondra Kruger – and her service on the Supreme Court of the country’s largest state, and seven years as in senior U.S. Justice Department positions, and topflight education and judicial clerkships – lacks any qualifications to serve on the highest court in the land. In fact, these challengers would be put in the position of arguing that she’s less qualified than virtually everyone else who has sat on the Supreme Court of the United States, and especially all its white male members.

Clearly, some would still maintain that this kind of resume simply proves adroit use of racial preferences to rise through the nation’s legal ranks literally for decades, and that a (really) wide variety of individuals and institutions enabled her literally for decades. Let’s just say that I’m grateful that I don’t have to make that argument.

By having made and then repeating his African American women promise, however, the President has inevitably directed the spotlight toward race and given “reverse racism” ammunition to those looking for excuses to curb the place and role of minorities in American life – and who rarely expressed much concern about discrimination when the racial shoe was on the other foot. It also seems credible to me that, as some believe, Mr. Biden’s has unwittingly undermined public confidence in this and all of his future non-white male nominees.

But for politicians who don’t paint themselves into identity politics corners as Mr. Biden did, and who want to foster more progress for major demographic groups in places where they have been denied adequate opportunity, the best course of action is clear: Choose highly qualified members of these groups (as with African American women, they won’t be hard to find) and let their qualifications speak for themselves. And if asked whether identity affected the decision, they could reply something to the effect that “It’s great that past mindfulness to identity issues has done so much to bring such an unquestionably able and qualified individual to the fore.”

Now does this mean that firm quotas and targets should be set for appointing or hiring members of these groups? No – because nowadays, and especially for job and position categories that are relatively small (like “Supreme Court Justice”) such policies would deny appointers and hirers the flexibility and the consequent opportunity to exercise judgment upon which so many – even most – good decisions depend. Nor am I saying that whatever formal preferences have existed should be kept in place indefinitely, regardless of progress. When conditions change, policy and practice should, too.

And as implied by my references to “major demographic groups,” preferences simply can’t be extended sweepingly to every single category to which Americans belong or with which they identify. The numbers of these small groups are simply too high to enable them all to be accommodated – and again, especially for positions themselves that are relatively few in number.

Worse, trying to run such a system would inevitably ignite a fierce and unforgivably absurd competition among groups laying claims. Unless we really want to sponsor debates and fights (is this a forerunner?) over Muslim seats on the Supreme Court or Hindu seats or Tibetan seats or Venezuelan seats or LGBTQ seats or atheist seats? (For the record, this American Jew never supported the notion that there should be a “Jewish seat.”) When any such groups become big chunks of the U.S. population, and can credibly point to current or only recently ended discrimination, taking their members as such into account should become a significant (background) element of the process of choosing leaders.  But not until then.

If the above thinking and recommendations sound kind of muddled and fuzzy, that’s because in a sense they are. As known with anyone with any management experience, and as suggested above, sound personnel decisions can’t simply rely on hard-and-fast systems or formulae. When evaluating human beings, too many intangibles and other subjective factors that can’t readily be quantified – if at all – need to be assessed, too,

The same goes for expectations of decision-makers and efforts to judge them with neat and clean scorecards. Supporters of further progress toward more representation in top government and other leaders should therefore realize that these matters should be governed by the “less said, the better” principle, and that rather than impose on politicians and others involved in high profile appointments and hirings rigid identity politics-based standards, they should focus on ensuring that these decision-making slots are occupied by figures with long, proven records of expanding opportunity, and trust them to do the right thing.

Just as important, the less commotion raised about race, ethnicity, gender, and the like in these appointment and hiring episodes, the more confidence fair-minded Americans will be that sound judgments about merit really are in the driver’s seat. And isn’t that what most of even the staunchest backers of greater identity equity, along with their compatriots in general, have ultimately sought from the beginning?        

Im-Politic: Some Good News on the U.S. Race Relations Front

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African Americans, critical race theory, families, Im-Politic, interracial marriage, marriage, race relations, racism, seniors, society, South

With all the media commentary lately about how the United States has gone to pot (no, not literally) since the unity displayed right after the September 11 terrorist attacks (see, e.g., here), I couldn’t help but be struck by some undeniably great news reported recently by Gallup. According to this big polling company, nearly all Americans now are just fine with interracial marriage – and specifically those unions involving whites and African Americans.

Even better – the polarization along any number of lines revealed on so many issues by so many recent polls has all but vanished when it comes to interracial marriage.

Gallup’s new findings show that fully 94 percent of all Americans now approve of interracial marriages – up from four percent in 1958, when it first posed the question. Moreover, the trend line looks nearly as strong during this period as that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

 

 

Don’t look for an interracial gap in attitudes on interracial marriages, either. Back in 1968, it was 56 percent of non-whites approving, and only 17 percent of whites. Today it’s just 96 percent for the former and 93 percent for the latter.But maybe a generation gap persists? Nope, that’s basically gone, too. Gallup reports that in 1991, interracial marriage was approved by 64 percent of Americans aged 18-29, but only 27 percent of the over-fifties. The latest numbers? 98 percent and 91 percent, respectively.

Surely, though, the Old South, former home of Confederacy and Jim Crow laws and often violent resistance to the Civil Rights movement remains at least relatively unenthusiastic? (And yes, the North saw some violent resistance to integration, too. See, e.g., here and here.) Sorry – there’s no regional gap, either.

In 1991, only a third of southerners approved of such marriages, compared with 54 percent of easterners, half of midwesterners, and sixty percent of westerners. In 2021, southern approval was up to 93 percent – the same as the share of midwesterners, just a percentage point lower than northerners’, and a mere four percentage points lower than that for westerners.

Even though race relations in America seem to have gotten pretty rocky lately (or maybe race mongers are just receiving more attention?), these results are unmistakably good news – and especially because the trends are so strong and the majorities so overwhelming. After all, what could matter more to a genuine racist than the prospect of racial divisions fading away? For the same reason, they’re awfully hard to square with the claims of Critical Race Theory supporters – that long after the end even of legal segregation, white America is pervaded with all manner of informal racist practices and especially attitudes that continue holding African Americans back.

Many years ago, I traveled to Morocco (my first trip to the developing world, or the Arab world, or the Muslim world) and was astonished to find the spectrum of faces I saw on my way from Casablanca airport. The standard racial categories seemed like a sadly dated joke given the kaleidoscope of skin tones and physical features and combinations thereof I saw as I rode by.  It made me wonder whether the whole racial discrimination thing across the whole planet would eventually be brought to an end “in bed.” This Gallup survey is one sign indicating thats this outcome may come a good deal sooner than I expected.         

 

Im-Politic: Crime Derangement Syndrome

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African Americans, Chicago, cities, crime, District of Columbia, gaslighting, gentrification, homicide, Im-Politic, inner cities, law enforcement, Mainstream Media, minorities, murder, policing, race relations, racism, Washington Post, white fragility, whites

If you still doubt that Mainstream Media coverage of the last year-plus’ national crime wave – which inevitably affects how Americans overall think about this issue – has gone completely off the wall, check out last weekend’s long Washington Post piece about the contrasting views of Black and White residents of the District of Columbia about homicides in city neighborhoods where they make up majorities.

I should actually say “supposedly contrasting views,” because there’s no reason to think that the opinions reported amount to a representative sampling of any segment of the public. In fact, it’s far more likely that these selected views reveal how this premier newspaper’s journalists (including of course editors) regard these matters.

Specifically, the article makes painfully clear how they and the rest of a disturbingly woke national media are now regularly turning cognitive somersaults in order to pin the blame for urban violence – which takes place overwhelmingly in minority neighborhoods and claims overwhelmingly minority victims – on anyone except the criminals who overwhelmingly come from these same precincts. Heading this article’s list of the truly guilty are White Americans, who allegedly only care about such violent crime when it starts threatening them and their neighborhoods.

As written by authors Rachel Chason and Emily Davies (and approved by every editor with authority over the article):

“From the majority-Black neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River that have long been afflicted by gun violence to wealthier, Whiter parts of the city that have only sporadically experienced it, there is a sense that the issue is receiving more attention now in part because the violence is touching gentrified areas like 14th Street NW.”

Especially unhinged (or “less hinged”?) – the White residents so charged by the Post live in the District, which is one of the most Democratic Party-leaning areas of the country.

But don’t think for a minute that the Post believes this alleged hypocrisy is confined to the District. After all, this is a publication that since the May, 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis, Minnesota policeman has launched a big new news beat preachily called “Race and Reckoning.” And it’s no accident that this truly national newspaper, read assiduously throughout the D.C.-based federal government and broader national policy and political establishments – ran the article on the front page of its print edition.

The glaring irony should be lost on no one: There was actually no shortage of Americans who have been calling attention to the violence-prone nature of these minority neighborhoods and its causes for years before the Floyd murder, and who have continued to flag the issue since then. And whether they’ve been indisputably liberal or progressive (as was the case with former President Barack Obama) or, more recently, conservative, (see especially any number of episodes of the Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham talk shows on Fox News, or the years of studies by Manhattan Institute Fellow Heather MacDonald, or some of former President Donald Trump’s remarks), the reaction has been typically the same. They’re pilloried as fear-mongering racists. (See, e.g., here, here, and here.)

Another favorite response to decrying the so-called obsession with Black-on-Black crime: what can only be called gaslighting. My favorite example of such “Nothing to see here” claims came here in 2016, when an apologist for inner city crime (writing, not so coincidentally, in the Washington Post) went so far as to suggest that the idea of “war-torn” South Side Chicago was nothing but a myth.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that last week’s Post piece took gaslighting a big step further that was not only downright looney, but obviously racist – except to the hopelessly woke. It came in a description of a digital exchanges among residents of D.C.’s upper 14^th Street neighborhood (which has been rapidly gentrifying in recent years and recently was the scene of a shooting that stunned its newest, more affluent residents in particular) and the nearby Shaw district (in which gentrification has been slower). It’s worth quoting the Post‘s account of it in full:

In the conversation “about violence, rowdy behavior near bars, noise from ATVs, trash and illegal parking, [White 14th Street-er Jeffrey Willis wrote] ‘We have lost control of the streets here & apparently elsewhere’….

“Shortly after came a terse reply from a woman who said she grew up in Shaw and was angered by what she saw as a desire to over-police Black communities and a refusal to understand the Black culture long at the heart of Shaw.”

In other words, “violence, rowdy behavior near bars, noise from ATVs, trash and illegal parking” should now be seen as part of “Black culture.” In addition, it should be preserved against an onslaught of White Fragility. Now it’s always possible that this woman’s frustrations about inherently difficult changes in residential patterns momentarily overcame her common sense, and that she didn’t really mean to praise such behavior. It happens to everyone. But it’s still remarkable, and in my view revealing, that her claim went utterly without comment in the Post.

Although its origins are fuzzy, I’ve always thought that one of the most compelling ideas ever advanced is the contention that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Last week’s Post piece, and the overall direction of American thinking on race, racism, and crime, makes clear that the only thing necessary for the triumph of arrant, dangerous, and indeed racist claptrap to triumph is for sensible folks to respond just as passively.      

Im-Politic: Don’t Forget About All the Systemic Anti-Racism

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affirmative action, African Americans, critical race theory, government contracting, higher education, Ibram Xendi, Im-Politic, minorities, race relations, racial justice, set asides, Small Business Administration, systemic racism

There’s a big concept that’s been utterly and conspicuously missing in the floods of verbiage sloshing across the nation about systemic racism, and it’s badly distorting the picture of how bigoted America and all its institutions remain. Think of it as “systemic anti-racism.” So far, it seems as good a term as any for all the official and unofficial efforts launched and maintained over the course of decades to help victims of discrimination overcome its lingering effects. And they have been legion.

Oddly, the unofficial programs seem to be by far the best known. Surely they’ve been the highest profile, and the most prominent have been the affirmative action policies long in effect throughout American higher education. This post discusses a study indicating just how many minority students have been provided with opportunities to attend colleges and universities by revealing how significantly state government bans on these programs since the 1990s have reduced the shares of “underrepresented” youth in the student bodies of their public institutions.

And if these data don’t convince you, here’s the verdict on such programs from no less than Ibram Kendi, one of the nation’s leading propounders of critical race theory – which of course contends that systemic racism still defines much and even most of American life: “Affirmative action programs in education have been demonstrated to increase diversity and increase access specifically for underrepresented groups.” (There’s evidence, though, according to the aforementioned CBS News post, that such underrepresentation has worsened since the 1970s at the most selective colleges.)

Yet the reach of affirmative action and related initiatives has extended far beyond the campus. As this history of the idea puts it (all the while emphasizing how fuzzy and confusing it’s long been):

“The actual programs that come under the general heading of affirmative action are a diverse lot; they include policies affecting college and university admissions, private-sector employment, government contracting, disbursement of scholarships and grants, legislative districting, and jury selection. Numerous affirmative-action programs have been enacted into law at local, state, and federal levels. In addition to programs that have been mandated by law, many private corporations and universities have developed affirmative-action programs voluntarily.”

The federal government’s measures have been especially impressive. Since 1961, because of an executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy, Washington has not only required all companies doing business with Washington to end racial discrimination in their own hiring practices (a policy with roots in the immediate pre-World War II period), but to promote equal opportunity in employment actively, and to document such practices and their effects in detail. Penalties for non-compliance were severe.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson expanded these obligations with a directive that all federal contractors and subcontractors act to expand opportunities for minorities.

The Johnson years also saw the first small-scale federal efforts to use the Small Business Administration (SBA) “to award contracts to firms willing to locate in urban areas and hire unemployed individuals, largely African Americans, or sponsor minority-owned businesses by providing capital or management assistance.” These practices were strengthened and expanded during the 1970s until in 1978, Congress expressly authorized the agency to focus such activity on “socially and economically disadvantaged small business concerns” (as the statute states) or “on businesses that are least 51% owned by one or more socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and whose management and daily operations are controlled by such individual(s)” (according to a history prepared by the Library of Congress).

It’s important to note that the SBA has also used this authority to help such businesses win contracts throughout the federal bureaucracy. In addition, every federal agency that authorized to buy any product from the private sector is required to operate an Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization whose mandate includes ensuring that minority-owned small businesses “are treated fairly and that they have an opportunity to compete and be selected for a fair amount of the agency’s contract dollars.”

And don’t forget “set asides” – which means that a certain number of federal contracts are either reserved completely for minority-owned businesses or businesses “in historically underutilized business zones” (including in economically depressed areas with big minority populations), or that such businesses be given preferential pricing in the contracting process. To cite one example, since 2015, Congress has required the Transportation Department’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program (which exists separately from the above SBA operations) to award a specified percent of its contracts to companies defined as having dealt with “ongoing discrimination and the continuing effects of past discrimination in federally-assisted highway, transit, airport, and highway safety financial assistance transportation contracting markets nationwide.”

Nor is the federal government the only level of government in America offering such preferences. As of 2016, the National Council of State Legislatures reported that “At least 38 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico have state-level MBE development programs involving certification for participation in state government procurement….” And such policies are in place in many U.S. cities, too.

I don’t want to present an overly rosy view of the American race relations scene. As many of the sources above make clear, the scope for using racial preferences in higher education admissions and in government contracting has been steadily narrowed by the courts. Some of these government programs were underperforming even before these restrictions came into force. None of them seem to have made a satisfactory impact on the nation-wide racial wealth gap yet (especially lately). And prejudice continues to mar policing in many areas of the country. So race relations Nirvana is still a long way off.

Nor is my purpose in this column to make the case either for or against any of them. (For the record, I’m generally supportive.) And no one should come away from this post thinking that it’s examined or listed all of these preferential programs exhaustively. 

What I am emphasizing here is that these efforts to overcome historical racial injustice show that the inadequacy of progress hasn’t been for lack of trying -at least to a noteworthy extent. As a result, they call into question the extent to which American racism today is still actually systemic. As a result, any teaching of race relations in the schools, or government or private business efforts to raise employees’ awareness of racial issues, or even any discussions or press coverage of these subjects, would do well to include discussions of these systemic anti-racist policie. Otherwise, it would seem fair to criticize them as systemically biased.

Im-Politic: Race-Mongering and the Hell of No Intentions

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Asian-Americans, Biden, Capitol riots, critical race theory, Donald McNeil, hate crimes, Im-Politic, Jay Caspian Kang, Kamala Harris, race relations, racism, The New York Times, white privilege

It’s bad enough when self-appointed – and then government- and/or business- and university-endorsed – experts on racism spread the claim that intentions don’t matter at all when it comes to identifying the forms of bigotry that have harmed various American minorities throughout the country’s history, and that continue holding them back today.

It’s that much worse when they and the nation’s leaders casually throw around terms like “white privilege” – which insist, inter alia, that the very denial of bigoted beliefs is proof of their existence – and even turn them into firing offenses. And it’s worse still when the President and Vice President explicitly agree that actions should be treated as proof of racism in the absent any evidence of racial motivation.

That’s why the weekend comments on the recent Atlanta spa killings by President Biden and Vice President Harris are so dangerously divisive for a country that isn’t exactly short of dangerous divisions these days. I’m talking about the former’s statement that

“Whatever the motivation [for the Atlanta killings], we know this: Too many Asian Americans have been walking up and down the streets worrying. They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoated and harassed”;

and the latter’s more detailed declaration that

“Whatever the killer’s motive, these facts are clear. Six out of the eight people killed on Tuesday night were of Asian descent. Seven were women. The shootings took place in business owned by Asian-Americans. The shootings took place as violent hate crimes and discrimination against Asian-Americans has risen dramatically over the last year or more.”

The only possible silver lining could be their prompting of some serious national attention to the real relationship between intentions and events before the situation gets completely out of hand. So here’s an initial effort.

Let’s start off with what’s presumably still common ground. I trust that every thinking person understands that good intentions alone don’t guarantee results that would widely be recognized as positive, either in terms of public policy or private behavior. Well-meaning words or deeds can easily overreach or backfire in all sorts of ways, especially if not well-informed or carefully thought through. They can also easily – and often rightly – be deemed offensive, especially when the well-intentioned hold more power than the the objects of their supposed largesse. And let’s not forget that good intentions per se can be difficult to distinguish from cynical, narcissistic, or simply hollow virtue-signalling.

Every thinking person surely also agrees on condemning well-meaning words that clash with deeds – that is, hypocrisy. When public officials are guilty, that’s legitimate news and they should pay a price. In both the public and private sectors, the same goes for deeds that violate the law, whether they’re inconsistent with any words spoken or written by the perpetrator or not. And when public and influential private sector individuals may be involved, certainly journalistic or other investigation and presentation of any relevant information is warranted.

Nor should it be overly difficult to recognize what’s right and wrong in more complicated circumstances – like those involving insistence that significant and/or official racism has vanished in America because segregation laws have been eliminated, or because affirmative action programs have been in place for decades, or because an African-American has been elected President, and that ignore the lingering effects of government-produced or government-tolerated discrimination. (Basing public school funding heavily on property taxes is a glaring example of the former; housing red-lining is an example of the former turning into the latter.)

Whether such ignorance is willful or genuine, it’s certainly never admirable. At the same time, should such holding beliefs result in careers being damaged, or personal reputations being trashed in public – with innocent family members being victimized in the process? That strikes me as opening the door to the totalitarian practice of prosecuting thought crimes – which all too easily lead to conviction because by definition no tangible or visible evidence would be required to establish guilt. And who actually wants America to turn into a society that would, therefore, inevitably be dominated and psychologically paralyzed or worse by fear of indictment? And who actually wants to hand unscrupulous individuals such extraordinary power to intimidate and injure, an outcome that also seems entirely plausible. Unless you believe that all men and women are angels?

The Biden and Harris Atlanta comments go even further toward severing the link between words and thoughts on the one hand, and deeds and results on the other. And don’t underestimate the impact of presidential versions of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. In particular, they threaten to boost the likelihood that evidence-free claims will suffice to produce actionable findings of racism or other forms of bigotry, to make the sensibilities of even the most fragile personality or prejudice-mongering individual the determinant of guilt, and to trigger all the aforementioned consequences and increased fear and self-censorship.

If you’re skeptical, check out what happened to a veteran New York Times reporter who was forced to leave his job because students that he led on a Times-organized educational tour of Peru complained that he used both the N-word and other racially insensitive language in their presence. The reporter, Donald McNeil, claimed that the context of these comments revealed no bigoted tendencies whatever, and according to his detailed account of the episode – which hasn’t been challenged – he has the facts on his side.

But what’s most important is that when the paper announced McNeil’s departure to the staff, it specificied that these facts – including the context – didn’t matter. “We do not,” the Times said, “tolerate racist language regardless of intent.”  (See here for the full story.)

Such troubling disregard for the facts themselves – as opposed to how they bear on issues of intent – is also clear from the Biden and Harris remarks. In the first place, despite all the press coverage they’ve received, it’s far from clear that any surge in hate crimes against Asian-Americans has even taken place. As pointed out by – Asian-American writer – Jay Caspian Kang, an at-large contributor to the magazine section of that same New York Times, these claims

“largely rely on self-reported data from organizations like Stop AAPI Hate that popped up after the start of the pandemic. These resources are valuable, but they also use as their comparison point spotty and famously unreliable official hate crime statistics from law enforcement. If we cannot really tell how many hate crimes took place before, can we really argue that there has been a surge?

“There have also been reports that suggest that these attacks be placed within the context of rising crime nationwide, especially in large cities. What initially appears to be a crime wave targeting Asians might just be a few data points in a more raceless story.”

So it’s entirely reasonable to worry that the slighting of intent issues by the nation’s two top elected leaders could also encourage the rapid proliferation of all encompassing and never-ending searches for racial or other bigotry-related dimensions of any events involving different categories of people – even normal, every day life interactions.

I can’t imagine a more effective formula for encouraging much of the nation to walk on eggshells in understandable fear of retaliation from all manner of racial justice vigilantes armed with the unprecedented naming and shaming power of social media – and for stoking countervailing variants similar to those that reared their own ugly head on January 6. 

Im-Politic: A Chinese Link to Black Lives Matter?

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Alicia Garza, Black Futures Lab, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter Too, BLM, China, Chinese Progressive Association, election interference, Heritage Foundation, Im-Politic, race relations, racism, reparations, structural racism, systemic racism, The Federalist, wealth gap, white fragility

Our times are so racially fraught that even I (someone who rarely feels defensive about my views) feel the need to start out this post by specifying that I am not a systemic or structural racist or even an unwitting example of white fragility. Indeed, I’m so woke on the issue of continuing racial discrimination in America that I’ve come out for reparations to remedy what I see as one recent example of open-and-shut racial injustice whose victims would be relatively easy to identify and compensate. And I’ve called attention to the still yawning racial wealth gap. 

I don’t even have significant problems with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) – although I like “Black Lives Matter, Too” because it avoids the possibility of either-or interpretations while making clear that there’s a still a racial gap that must be eliminated.

But the various organizations and coalitions invoking this phrase that have sprung up lately? I’m not so sure about many of them, especially since their proclaimed agendas often go far beyond securing racial justice. (See, e.g., here.) And just yesterday I found out about another potential problem with these groups that seems to support a point I made in a recent article about the massive and under-reported scale of Chinese interference in American public life – signs of close connections between a key BLM organization the Chinese government.

As reported in The Federalist, a conservative publication, based on research by the equally conservative Heritage Foundation, an outfit called Black Futures Lab (BFL) is funded mainly by an organization called the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA). The Lab’s own website, moreover, confirms this finding.

It’s true that BFL is only one group in the BLM constellation. But it’s no ordinary group. Its “Principal” is Alicia Garza, who describes herself, and is credited in news reports, as a founder of the BLM movement.

It’s also true that the CPA isn’t officially affiliated with the Chinese government. But Beijing is certainly a fan of what’s been described as its Boston chapter, as this article (cited in the Heritage Foundation report) from its official mouthpiece demonstrates. One charge I could not independently corroborate – the claim that the Chinese flag-raising event the article mentions was “hosted by the Consulate General of China in New York.”

Consulate officials clearly attended the other event – a flag-raiser – and spoke. But unike the aforementioned Boston passport-focused event, I was unable to find evidence that they played any organizing role.

So maybe the cooperation doesn’t go any further than attending (and sometimes organizing) the kinds of celebrations that might simply be ethnic solidarity events. But according to this study (an undergraduate thesis, but one from Stanford University by a student with clearly progressive sympathies), the admiration between CPA and the Chinese government is decidedly mutual:

“The CPA began as a Leftist, pro-People’s Republic of China [PRC] organization, promoting awareness of mainland China’s revolutionary thought and workers rights, and dedicated to self-determination, community control, and ‘serving the people’.

Further, although “Its activities were independent of the Communist Party of China or the US,” it “worked with other pro-PRC groups within the US and San Francisco Bay Area.”

Again, the prospect can’t be ruled out that Beijing is content simply to admire CPA’s efforts to improve social services for Chinese Americans or even help organize Chinese American events with the group. But given the influence I thoroughly documented in the aforementioned magazine article that China has gained over major American institutions; and given the unusual interest displayed by a group like CPA, which is exclusively focused on Chinese Americans (as it makes clear) in an organization that says it’s exclusively focused on African Americans (especially since serious problem of poverty and discrimination still clearly dog Chinese Americans, according to CPA), grounds for further investigation don’t exactly seem to be lacking.

Indeed, as known by anyone with legal or law enforcement experience, or most fans of detective stories, showing that defendants have had “motive, opportunity and means” is a venerable framework for investigating and determining wrongdoing. When it comes to fomenting racial tensions in the United States, the Chinese government surely has all three. So let’s hope that the federal government (both the Exective and Congress), as well as the supposed watchdogs of our democracy, the news media, look into China’s involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement as aggressively as it’s looked into other charges of improper foreign interference in America’s politics.

Im-Politic: More Evidence That Trump Should Really be Trump

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2018 elections, African Americans, Democrats, election 2020, establishment Republicans, Im-Politic, Immigration, impeachment, Jacob Blake, Joe Biden, Joseph Simonson, Kamala Harris, Kenosha, law enforcement, Mickey Kaus, Obamacare, Open Borders, police shooting, race relations, regulations, Republican National Committee, Republicans, riots, RNC, Rust Belt, tax cuts, trade policy, Trump, Washington Examiner, white working class

Since the early months of Donald Trump’s presidency, I and many of those who backed his election have been frustrated by his frequent support for and even prioritizing of issues and positions championed by orthodox Republicans and conseratives. After all, there was little reason to believe that he won the Republican nomination, much less the White House, because he was focused laser-like on cutting taxes and regulations or eliminating Obamacare. If that’s what either Republican or overall voters wanted, then you’d think that an orthodox Republican would have wound up running against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton – and triumphing.

One reason I came up with to explain the early burst of conservative traditionalism from Mr Trump (highlighted by a failed effort at healthcare reform and a successful full court press waged to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017) was his need to make sure that the establishment wing of his party stayed with him if he faced an impeachment.

His gambit worked, but even though the impeachment threat is gone, I still hear the President talking up the tax cuts and regulation thing way too much for my tastes. So it’s more than a little interesting to have just learned that, at least according to a report last week in the Washington [D.C.] Examiner, I haven’t been alone. (Or, more accurately, I and a handful of nationalist-populist analysts like Mickey Kaus haven’t been alone.) In this article, Examiner correspondent Joseph Simonson contends that some folks connected with the Republican National Committee (RNC) came to the same conclusion in the late summer and early fall of 2018. And just as important – their analysis came just before the GOP suffered major setbacks in that year’s Congressional elections after doubling down on conventional Republicanism.

Among the highlights of the report (whose existence the RNC denies):

>”Voter data from areas such as Kenosha County, Wisconsin, [we’ll return to this astonishing coincidence below] and other exurban communities, the individual said, showed a troubling trend. Although voters there very narrowly backed Trump in 2016, President Barack Obama’s margins were in the double digits in 2008 and 2012.”

>”Unlike members of Trump’s base, who can be trusted to vote for just about any Republican candidate, these voters feel no strong affinity toward the GOP. Moreover, the interests of those who live in communities such as Kenosha differ greatly from those who live in the Philadelphia suburbs in Pennsylvania.

“These Rust Belt voters favor stronger social safety nets and hawkishness on trade, rather than typical GOP orthodoxies such as lower tax rates and an easier regulatory environment for businesses. That is not to say these voters oppose those things, but the rhetorical obsession from GOP donors and members of the party do little to excite one-time Trump voters.”

>“Back in 2018 the general response to the report from others who worked at the RNC, said one individual, was, ‘well, we have socialism’ as an attack against Democrats and boasts about their new digital voter turnout apparatus.’”

>”Steve Bannon, the former aide to the president who was indicted last week on fraud charges, had viewed the same report a year ago and concluded that the upcoming election against Biden looked like a “blow out” in the former vice president’s favor.”

But let’s get back to the Kenosha point – which of course is unusually interesting and important given the race- and police-shooting-related violence that just convulsed the small city recently. It’s also interesting and important because the alleged report’s treatment of racial issues indicates that the authors weren’t completely prescient.

Specifically, they faulted the RNC for wasting time and resources on a  “coalition building” effort aimed at “enlisting the support from black, Hispanic, and Asian voters who make only a marginal difference in the Midwest and [that] can prove potentially damaging if more likely Republicans are neglected.”

Explained one person quoted by Simonson (and possibly one of the authors): “Lots of these people at the RNC are in a state of denial. The base of the GOP are white people, and that gives the party an advantage in national elections. You could not have a voter operation in California whatsoever, and it wouldn’t make any difference, but the RNC does because they don’t want to admit those states are lost forever.” .

Yet even before the eruption of violence in Kenosha (and too many other communities), this analysis overlooked a crucial reality: There was never any reason to assume that, in the Midwest Rust Belt states so crucial to the President’s 2016 victory and yet won so narrowly, that significant portions of the African American vote couldn’t be attracted without alienating the white working class. For both blacks and whites alike in industrial communities have been harmed by the same pre-Trump trade policies strongly supported by his chief November rival Joe Biden and many other Democrats. (For one example of the impact on African Americans, see this post.) Moreover, among the biggest losers from the Open Borders-friendly immigration policies now openly championed, instead of stealthily fostered, by the Democratic Party mainstream, have been African Americans.

It’s not that the President and Republicans had to convince massive numbers of African Americans with these arguments. A few dozen thousand could be more than enough to make a big difference this fall. And there’s some polling data indicating that the strategy was working even before the opening of a Republican convention that featured numerous African American speakers.

Now of course we’re post-the Jacob Blake shooting by Kenosha police and the subsequent rioting and vigilantism. We’re also post-the Biden choice of woman-of-color Kamala Harris as his running mate. Will those developments sink the Trump outreach effort to African Americans and validate the 2018 memo’s arguments?

Certainly the Harris choice doesn’t look like a game-changer. The California Senator, you’ll remember, was decisively rejected by African American voters during the Democratic primaries. I’m less certain about the Kenosha Effect. On the one hand, Mr. Trump has expressed precious little empathy for black victims of police shootings. On the other hand, he has villified the rioting and looting that are destroying the businesses – including African-American-owned – relied on by many urban black neighborhoods in cities that have long stagnated, at best, under Democratic Mayors. And this poll I highlighted a few weeks ago presents significant evidence that most African Americans have no interest in fewer police on the streets where they live.

It’s not hard to imagine a Trump campaign message developing over the next two months that strikes a much better balance. And an early test case looks set for tomorrow with the President’s planned visit to Kenosha. Somewhat harder to imagine is Mr. Trump significantly downplaying issues like tax and regulatory cuts, and ending Obamacare. As for his priorities if he wins reelection? At this point, the evidence is so mixed that I feel clueless. So stay tuned!

Im-Politic: You Bet the Mainstream Media Has Become Troublingly Woke – & It Matters

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FredBauerBlog, Im-Politic, Mainstream Media, media bias, MSM, race relations, racism, Tablet, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, wokeness, Zach Goldberg

As RealityChek regulars know, I’ve long been strongly critical of the American Mainstream Media (MSM), and presented any number of examples of its brazen bias – including, and in fact especially, in ostensible straight news reports. My main focus has the pronounced slant of these big, influential news organizations’ in favor of interventionist U.S. foreign policy globalism, supportive of Open Borders-like immigration policies, against any departures from jobs- and growth-killing trade agreements, and unremittingly hostile to anything said or done by President Trump.

But I’ve also paid attention to media bias on largely domestic issues, and in particular on the adoption (notably by The New York Times) of a clear perspective endorsing – and often embodying – the emergence of a highly intolerant strain of progressivism and in American life, and a view of the country’s society, politics, and history stressing the central role of what’s called systemic racism.

At the same time, even though I’ve cited numerous examples of all the above developments, there still aren’t enough to prove a trend. Recently, however, exhaustive evidence has emerged on the systemic racism front, and we can thank a political science student named Zach Goldberg who’s conducted wide-ranging research on the subject for his Ph.D. and just published in the on-line magazine Tablet.

Goldberg has performed the kind of content analysis that’s only become possible with new information technology tools, literally counting the number of times The Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal in particular have used words describing what he calls “wokeness”: “a prevailing new political morality on questions of race and justice that has taken power at The Times and Post—a worldview sometimes abbreviated as “wokeness” that combines the sensibilities of highly educated and hyperliberal white professionals with elements of Black nationalism and academic critical race theory.”

His main finding: this racial wokeness’ takeover of The Times and the Post in particular preceded the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police by several years; that it’s completely unrelated to any change in levels of racism in the United States; and that it at the very least correlates – and may have played a big role in triggering – a significant rise in the numbers of Americans who agree with the woke/systemic racism claims.

This graphic shows the skyrocketing increase in the use of wokeist race relations terms by these publications. The absolute percentages are of course tiny. But keep in mind that they represent shares of all the words in these publications, and that recent years haven’t exactly been devoid of major developments in countless other fields.

This graphic, when combined with the first, indicates how robustly American perceptions of racism’s pervasiveness has risen in tandem with the Mainstream Media’s treatment of the phenonemon. And the strongest effect has been among white liberals.

Indeed, although the graphic below covers a somewhat different timeframe, it makes clear that not only did white Democrats’ views on the power of American racism increase as the Mainstream Media became much more racially woke, but minority Democrats’ views of this subject actually decreased during the December, 2006-June, 2015 period. That’s compelling evidence that these news organizations became woke racially even though the racism-in-America situation might actually have improved.

Although I clearly disagree with most of what I see as the fundamentals of woke thinking, like Voltaire, I would resolutely defend anyone’s right to express them. And that includes Mainstream Media reporters and pundits and editorial writers alike. All I (and others like me) would insist upon is that news writing clearly be labeled newswriting, and opinion clearly be labeled opinion. Goldberg’s research makes a powerful case that way too much of what Americans have always regarded as reporting of the facts that at least tries to be objective has turned into propagandizing, and that the nation is a much more polarized and angrier place as a result.

P.S. Thanks to Fred Bauer, whose FredBauerBlog always makes excellent, important reading, for calling my attention to Goldberg’s work.  

 

Im-Politic: About That Systemic Police Racism Charge

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African Americans, Gallup, Im-Politic, Pew Research Center, police, polls, race relations, racism, systemic racism

For the longest time, it’s been widely noted that polls tend to send two unusually strange and related messages: First, Americans’ views of their own personal situations, and of the national situation, often differ tremendously; and second, the first is much brighter than the second.

So for instance, poll respondents can dismiss Congress as a bunch of incompetent crooks, yet voters keep reelecting their own representatives – in the most important poll of all. They can condemn America’s healthcare system as a mess, but make clear how much they like their own coverage.

But familiar as I am with this pattern, I was stunned to see it appear in a Thursday Gallup poll about African Americans and their encounters with the police.

Taken on their own, the findings seemed narrative-busting enough. The Gallup headline was pretty par for the recent course: “For Black Americans, 41% of Police Encounters Not Positive.” That’s hardly confirmation of the apparently emerging conventional wisdom that American law enforcement is plagued by systemic racism.

After all, even the downbeat wording of the header suggests that 59 percent of these encounters have been positive for African Americans. The actual results are even more surprising, given how systemic the systemic charge has become. Specifically, 73 percent of African Americans polled reported that during their “interactions with police,” they were “treated with respect.” And 74 percent said they were “treated fairly.”

To be sure, these percentages are lower than for whites (by 20 percentage points for the overall positive/non-positive assessment, by 17 percentage points when it comes to respect, and by 19 percentage points when it comes to fairness). But although these gaps are hardly trivial, all the readings are well into majority positivity, respect, and fairness territories. And even the finding that provides the most support for the systemic racism charge is kind of suspect when you think about it. After all, let’s say that any driver is stopped by a police car and (justly) ticketed for speeding. Whatever his or her race, what driver is likely to feel great about the experience?

And these findings also fit the broader polling pattern of individuals assessing their own personal situations as being better than relevant broader situations. For example, in early 2019 (i.e., not so long ago), Gallup  reported that 77 percent of African Americans reported believing that “blacks in their community” are “treated less fairly than whites” in “dealing with the police, such as traffic incidents.” FYI, the questions were asked in 2018.

Moreover, not only does that finding clash pretty loudly with the results from this past Thursday about African Americans’ own personal experiences. It also clashes pretty loudly with the results from that same 2019 poll’s findings on African Americans’ own personal experiences. When asked “Can you think of any occasion in the last 30 days when you felt you were treated unfairly in the following places because you were black?”, only 21 percent of blacks answered “Yes.” Maybe the limited timeframe held down the “yes” responses for individuals. But if police racism really is systemic, you’d think that for the African American respondents as a whole, the time interval problem would fade away.

And here’s an interesting kicker: The 21 percent figure isn’t the all-time high recorded by Gallup. That came in 2004 – during George W. Bush’s Presidency.

Nor is Gallup the only polling organization to report a large gap between African Americans’ views on police racism generally, and on their own experiences with police. An April, 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that 84 percent of African Americans believe that “in general in our country these days, blacks are treated less fairly than whites in dealing with police.” But only 44 percent said they had been unfairly stopped by police.

None of this is to say that there are no racial issues in American law enforcement. After all, that 44 percent Pew figure doesn’t translate into “most,” but it’s still disturbingly high. My own personal conversations with black friends have helped convince me (despite my deep mistrust of the evidentiary value of anecdotes) that there is a tendency on the part of a non-negligible number of police officers across the country to view African American men in particular with special suspicion, and to act on these suspicions. South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott’s alleged experiences in this respect carry weight with me, too.

But recognizing the importance of these instances is a far cry from proving that  American law enforcement as a whole is afflicted with systemic racism, however you define the term. And the Gallup and Pew results represent two more reasons for caution about this conclusion.

Im-Politic: An Immigration and Racism Link Deserving Much More Attention

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African Americans, Chicago, CNBC, H-1B visa, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, inequality, Jim Reynolds, minorities, Norman Matloff, race relations, racism, STEM workers, tech jobs, unemployment

“H-1B” and “racial injustice” probably aren’t terms most people would believe have much to do with each other. That’s why a recent CNBC interview with a leading African American financier deserves your attention even if it is two weeks old. Because he shows not only that they’re intimately connected, but that even someone who is focusing on the link needs to think much more about how exactly it works, and what needs to be done about it.

For those who don’t follow immigration issues closely, “H-1B” is the name of the category of visa that the federal government allots business for foreigners they supposedly need to employ because their “specialty” skills can’t be found in the domestic workforce. The skills cover a wide range, but according to this organization (which loves the program) most of the visas requested by U.S. companies are for science and technology occupations, and indeed their prevalence in these fields is responsible for most of the controversy they’ve generated.

For evidence abounds that, contrary to their claims, the tech companies that seek these foreign workers so ardently aren’t using them because they’re geniuses, but because they’re cheap – and because they need to remain tied to the company that sponsored them if they have any hope of getting permanent legal residence in the United States. (My go-to source on this issue is University of California-Davis computer scientist and immigration authority Norman Matloff, whose work can be found at this terrific blog.)

As a result, H-1B opponents argue that their use undercuts American pay levels in science and technology fields, and severely undercuts the argument that gaining these skills is one of the best guarantees available to young Americans of prospering in the turbulent economy of recent decades. But the program damages the economy in a way less often noted by opponents: It guts the incentives American business might develop to invest in American workers’ skills generally, or to press government to get the country’s education act together so as to make sure that the skills they need are available domestically.

And this is where the racial injustice and related economic inequality issues come into play – along with that CNBC interview. The subject, Jim Reynolds, is an inspiring African American success story who’s long been active in civic affairs in a city with one of the nation’s biggest African American populations – his native Chicago. (See this profile.) CNBC brought him on the air on July 2 to talk about racial diversity on Wall Street.

The conversation proceeded along these lines till it was about two thirds of the way through, when Reynolds made this totally unprompted and stunning pivot. Its worth quoting in full, and came in response to a question on whether he thinks Wall Street is genuinely committed to hiring more minorities in the wake of the George Floyd killing and ensuing tsunami of nationwide calls to end racism and related economic injustices.  (I also need to present it because this point didn’t make it into the CNBC news story accompanying the interview video that’s linked above.)   

“You ask if I think this is real…. I was at an Economics Club dinner a couple of years ago…and one of the top CEOs in the city [Chicago], actually, one of the top CEOS in the country – a Fortune 100 company – spoke to the group, and what he said to the group that one of his most frustrating experiences is working with H-1B programs, and why they won’t let his company recruit more of the talent that they need in the tech space….[H]e said that in the middle of downtown Chicago, where we have African American and Hispanic youth in the city, ten minutes from where he was standing, that have…let’s call it 40, 50, 60 percent unemployment, that go to schools that don’t really…teach them this sort of thing, and I wondered why he didn’t even think about this. Sure, you can go to China, and you can go to India, and recruit that talent. And that talent – and I’ve spent a lot of time in China – that talent started getting developed in middle school When they come here, and they go to the quants on Wall Street and the quants in Silicon Valley – and they do dominate that space – they started studying this stuff like when they were eight years old, nine years old. And I’ve started thinking about and talking about and I’m working with our wonderful Mayor Lori Lightfoot about, let’s get these corporations thinking about – and this time is great – investing in these black and Hispanic schools. Now. Let’s grab our young black and Hispanic kids in middle school. Let’s have a Facebook program in the school, Microsoft program, Alphabet program, Apple program in these schools. I think that’s an opportunity.”

I couldn’t have done a better job of making the H-1B-racial injustice connection. But as I suggested above, Reynold is still missing a piece of the puzzle: The CEO he mentions, and others like him, simply aren’t going to make those investments because they don’t have to. And they don’t have to precisely because they have a cheaper alternative – and one that doesn’t require them to deal with the kinds of workforce training challenges they’ve never faced: the H-1B program.

So if Reynolds really wants to expand opportunity for disadvantaged minority youth (and other young Americans) all over the country, he’ll start pressing for the elimination of the H-1B program, and for broader immigration policies that deny businesses in all sectors the easy option of hiring low-cost foreigners – and in the process, creating even more power over workers and thereby intensifying the downward pressure they can keep exerting on their wages and benefits.

Reynolds, moreover, is in a particularly good position to lobby for these changes effectively because, as made clear in the profile linked above, his close friends include a fellow named Barack Obama – who has more than a little influence on the liberals and progressives who have emerged (along with Corporate America) as among the stubbornest opponents of immigration policies that put American workers – including of course minority workers – first.