Proper Representation II

 When I was young "representation" wasn't an issue. Instead you had "mobility", the idea that immigrants climbed the ladder from poverty to middle class with some striking it rich.  Actually there were different ladders--Jews were noted boxers and basketball players before they became doctors and lawyers. Mobility was often about "firsts". We noted the "firsts"--the first Jewish SCOTUS justice, the first Polish cabinet secretary, even the first black cabinet secretary.

Emphasizing the firsts obscured our view of the many, or perhaps was just a way to avoid looking at the many.   But "firsts" are still important; they show what is possible, what isn't prohibited.  Similarly the extreme cases, like Muggsy Bogues, may be outliers but they too show what's possible.

Somehow this discussion ties into "intersectionality" to me.  But that's for another day.

What Is Proper Representation?

The conventional wisdom now seems to be that groups, whether ethnic, racial, gender, ideological, deserve to have representation in every walk of life that matches their presence in society.  

For example, I've noted articles on the dwindling presence of American blacks in major league baseball; the absence of blacks in management positions in the NFL, the lack of conservative professors in higher education, etc

My first reaction is to go slowly--the first consideration is whether there are legal barriers to such representation. Those I presume are almost always wrong. 

A second consideration is that under-representation of one group necessarily means over-representation of other group(s).  For example, the over-representation of Asian students in top educational institutions (i.e., Harvard, Thomas Jefferson High School) is the other side of the under-representation of other minorities. 

A third consideration is the under-representation  of a group in one area means the over-representation in other area(s).  For example, the over-representation of blacks in pro football and basketball seems to be the counterpart to their under-representation in pro baseball.

A fourth consideration is trajectory through history.  For example, blacks seem to have created and still dominate areas of music (about which I know nothing), like hip hop and rap.  Jews seem to be prominent in Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

A final consideration (some would put it first) is whether the differential representation indicates a barrier to advancement of some kind. One rule of advancement is usually--it depends on who you know--meaning the greater the representation the easier it is to advance.

Unbelievable--So Much for White Superiority

The other day the Times had an article discussing the composition of the cabinet selected by PM Truss, which notably had no white males in the top four positions. Rather buried in the depths of the article was this fact: 

In part, the gains in government by people of color reflect social change and advances through education. On average, ethnic minority pupils have outperformed white Britons at school in recent years. In every year from 2007 to 2021, white pupils had the lowest entry rate into higher education.

I'm used to looking at the various breakdowns of statistics about our society and seeing what I might call the "usual suspects"--that is, Euro-Americans or Asian-Americans at the top, if the statistic relates to something good (wealth, income, etc.) and Afro-Americans and Hispanic-Americans at the bottom. The positions reversed if the statistic relates to crime, helath, life expectancy, etc.

We see that so often we, at least I,  start thinking it's the expected order, which is just a step away from being "natural". 

But this statistic from the UK upsets those expectations. And it raises the key question: what the hell is going on; why the difference in societies? 

Racism and Sex

 The Times had a graphic 3 years ago showing the results of analyzing the earnings of black and white men and women.  The top graphic compared the results for lifetime earnings of men who grew up in the top 20 percent considering parental wealth and neighborhoods.  It showed that such black men were about half as likely to maintain their status.

"Black boys raised in America, even in the wealthiest families and living in some of the most well-to-do neighborhoods, still earn less in adulthood than white boys with similar backgrounds, according to a sweeping new study that traced the lives of millions of children."

What's strangely interesting is that black women maintain their status, doing as well as white women.  That simple fact undermines explanations on both the left and right:

• the right can't argue that blacks are less intelligent when black women do as well as white women
• the left can't argue that simple racism, prejudice against blacks, is the cause.

I hasten to add a couple points:

• black men have always been seen as more threatening than black women, so it makes sense that prejudice against them is stronger.  That's just one factor to consider.
• While the study matched the black and white samples on money and neighborhood, that doesn't mean they weren't comparing apples and oranges. Some things to consider--how many generations of wealth did the whites have behind them, as opposed to the blacks.  They might have compared nouveaux riche to established wealth. They also might have compared the children of black professionals who thrived in the old segregated society but who had to compete in the integrated society following the civil rights movement. 

I Forgot "Colorism"

 I added "colorism" to my post of two days ago. 

Bottom line is humans are built with emotional responses to the different and strange. We learn to manage/overcome such responses sometimes; in many cases it's individual, in some cases it becomes woven into society and our history.

Why We're Prejudiced--We Love Our Kids

 That's my take-away from this research at the Post's Monkey Cage.

Parents seem to regard decisions that affect their children as the most important they make and to use "common sense" to decide, rather than rational values.   This, together with the existence of vicious cycles of feedback results in what looks like racism.

The Pull of the Familiar, the Push of the Foreign

Both the Post and Times  had Sunday articles discussing the Asian American community in Atlanta. The Post had a map showing its recent growth, which was concentrated in certain areas.

What struck me was the likelihood that the concentration mostly reflected the choice of the immigrants, the desire to live in areas with people with whom you might share something.  (Since "Asian-American" covers some 20 countries or so, you might not be able to speak your neighbor's language, but presumably you might have neighbors more accepting of you than in a 95 percent white, or 95 percent black, community.)  

It's always hard to untangle the factors behind residential concentrations (I almost wrote "segregation" but concentration is the better term.)  All other things being equal, a person might decide where to live based on the likelihood of finding people with similar backgrounds, tastes, opinions, values, or based on the fear of having to deal with strangers. 

Then moving from the viewpoint of the person moving into a residence to the viewpoints of the potential neighbors you bring up other factors.  I'd venture that in most cases in today's America the weight of the emotion involved is heavier on the side of the mover, than on the side of the neighbors.

Back in the day we had "lily-white" areas, so someone moving in of a different race could cause the potential neighbors to have a lot of emotion.  I don't think we have "lily-white" areas much these days, so there's less emotion.  Where you get emotion is NIMBYism, questions of zoning in particular.

Why We're Polarized

In the process of reading this book by Ezra Klein.  One researcher he cites is Henri Tajfel, who found that once we humans categorize things, assign labels to them whether it's groups of people, symbols, or whatever, we start acting on it.  With respect to people this led to:

"They proposed that people have an inbuilt tendency to categorize themselves into one or more "ingroups", building a part of their identity on the basis of membership of that group and enforcing boundaries with other groups.

Social identity theory suggests that people identify with groups in such a way as to maximize positive distinctiveness. Groups offer both identity (they tell us who we are) and self-esteem (they make us feel good about ourselves). The theory of social identity has had a very substantial impact on many areas of social psychology, including group dynamics, intergroup relations, prejudice and stereotyping, and organizational psychology."

Klein notes the dynamics of sports fans, where the objective differences among teams are trivial, but the fanaticism can be large.