The Persistence of Folk Wisdom--Memes?

The current effort to vaccinate for Covid-19 has run into resistance, particularly among black Americans.  The conventional wisdom explains this by the past history of science mistreating blacks, in particular the Tuskegee experiment.

The participants in the study are all dead now, the last one dying 15 years ago.  The study itself ended in 1972.

Assuming the conventional wisdom is correct, the extent to which people have become aware of it, and the duration of the time since the ending is striking. I wonder if sociologists have studied the factors which account for this penetration of the public consciousness, particularly in comparison with other memes.

{Here's further discussion of the issue--perhaps the meme lives longer in the minds of the intellectuals than the lay person?]

Pan-African Identity

 Henry L. Gates on PBS points out there were 50 ethnic groups in the enslaved people brought to US.

From other reading I know Africa has more ethnic diversity than the other continents; I believe much more than the other continents put together.  That means if history had worked out differently we might now be discussing 10 races, 8 of which were African and 2 of which covered the rest of the world. 

I think ethnic diversity maps to some genetic diversity, although not on a one to one basis. But the key for most discussions is what I'd call "social diversity", meaning the way one's culture/society identifies ethnic/identity groups.  For example, in the US we lump Hispanics/Latinos together, sometimes differentiating white as a separate group, but lumping in groups which are relatively unchanged since before Columbus.

We're now in the process of redefining "Orientals" as "Asians".  (Meanwhile, in Britain "Pakistanis" seem to be a separate ethnic group.)  

In the colonies and early national period enslavers knew different African ethnicities, and thought there were cultural differences (perhaps physical as well). Some were valued more than others.  We--the US--created "African-Americans", partly by the process of intermarriage among African ethnicities and mostly because that's the way we deal with diversity--we can't handle a multitude so we stereotype until we get down to a manageable number.

The "Original Sin" of the U.S.

 CNN has an opinion piece by James Goodman "It's time to stop calling slavery America's 'original sin.'"

It turns out his problem is with "original sin" as a metaphor.  As I read his analysis I realized it really doesn't have that much to do with the religious doctrine. Instead it's a way of saying something really bad was done in the past, while the doctrine says humans are fated to do bad now.  

Goodman makes a point towards the end, with which I do agree: the first "sin" in the creation of America was the dispossession of Native Americans. 

On Prohibition, a Reconsideration

 Politico has a long piece on Black Prohibitionism by a political science prof, Mark Lawrence Schrad.

My mother was death on alcohol.  I never quite understood it.  As I've gotten older I wonder whether someone in the family was a drunk.  I don't know of any likely candidate, but her vehemence makes me wonder.  

Anyhow, the piece puts prohibition back into the context of Progressive Era ideas to improve human life.  Some of those ideas are still considered good (secret ballot), some are now considered bad (eugenics), some have seen their reputation vary over the years (referendums, city managers, experts). 

I'm not sure on prohibition.  We're in the process of legalizing marijuana, partially on the grounds it's less dangerous than alcohol. I've still enough puritan in me to believe that life is hard and one should not try to round off the corners.  Some of the critics of prohibition see it as reflecting WASP prejudice against recent immigrants who frequented saloons.  But then I read Samantha Powers memoir which deals with the alcoholism of her father (very interesting).

My current bottom line is it's good to have people on both sides of the issue--not good for one side to have it all their own way.

Ebbs and Flows

One thing which seems to occur and recur is a pattern of ebbs and flows.  In this case I'm thinking about race. In the 1950's the emphasis was on integration, the idea that our American problems would be cured by ensuring that all legal barriers to full participation.  Hence, the emphasis on civil rights.  This was building on the program of the NAACP.  The Black Muslims, the Nation of Islam, was separatist.

In the 1960s and 70's with Stokely Carmichael  and other leaders the Black Power movement emerged, with Malcolm X contesting with Martin Luther King.  As I remember it the issue was partly at least whether whites could be trusted, or wehther blacks would do better by strengthening the black community.  It may have been a reaction to what happened to black teachers and other professionals during integration.

While these lines of division seem to an outsider like me to have blurred over the 50 years since, I think we can still see those impulses working today. And this post at Boston 1775 shows them working then--black Congregationalists establishing their own church.

Black Farmers in the Biden Administration

 There's been a number of pieces relating to black farmers recently.  Some are keyed to the new administration and controversy over whether Vilsack is a good appointment. Several quote statements from different black farmer organizations.  There seems to be more these days than there were when the original Pigford suit was filed. 

I found this Politico piece interesting, especially including this paragraph:

Horne said her data shows there was a 57 percent decline in the number of Black farmers in North Carolina from 1954 to 1969, with the number dropping from 22,625 to 9,687. During the same period, farms operated by white farmers dropped from 201,819 to 106,275 — a 47 percent decline.

 It's the first time I've seen a direct comparison of this kind.  Maybe somewhere there's an economist who has gone a bit deeper into the statistics. What I'd particularly like to see is a breakdown by farm size.  I suspect the distribution of black farms was proportionally weighted towards smaller farmers, and I suspect the farms which survived were proportionally weighted towards the larger farmers.  If that was true, what should one conclude?  

The Racism Behind the Decline of Black-Owned Record Stores?

I have a problem with some descriptions of the decline of black-owned farms over the last 100 years.

My problem can perhaps be illustrated by developments in another industry: record stores.  This article describes the growth of black-owned record stores.  But they are no more.  Why?  I agree that black-owned stores were more likely to fail than white-owned ones.  The owners were probably less wealthy to start with, and faced bias in getting capital for their operation. To the extent they were focused on a niche market they may also have been more vulnerable. (I'm not sure that's right--it seems that independent booksellers often have survived in niches where the Border chain went under,but for the sake of argument I'll include that factor.

But a major factor in the decline of black-owned record stores is the change in demand--people don't want vinyl or CDs these days, or not enough do to sustain a lot of stores. I'd make the same observation about the type (and size) of farm operations black farmers were mostly engaged in during the last century.

Lloyd Wright in Fortune

 Mr. Wright has a Fortune magazine piece on black farmers and USDA discrimination in loans. 

"Even today, plainly racist policies at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) frequently deny Black farmers the resources they need to keep their businesses afloat.

Creating a more equitable agriculture system will be impossible unless Black farmers have control over their own financial destinies. That goal will require a new credit and financing institution, owned and controlled by Black farmers and aimed squarely at supporting Black farmers, landowners, and their cooperatively owned businesses.

He asks that Congress waive loan repayments by farmers who got Pigford settlements and establish the new financing institution.  

Blacks as Central to American Popular Culture?

 Prof. Appiah writes a NYTimes review of Isabel Wilkerson's new book: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” I'll read the book because the concept is interesting, but I was struck in the review by this:

 The place of Black workers in the American economy is surely part of the racial story, and it’s notable that the word “capitalism” doesn’t appear in Wilkerson’s book. Low-status jobs are generally low-income jobs; both income and status matter. Nor can we turn to the caste model in explaining the centrality of Black people to American popular culture.

I'm working on a post on the differences in American society between 1950's of my youth and the 2020's of my old age, but I hadn't yet touched on that. 

It's true--I could probably count on both hands the number of blacks in the culture who seemed significant to me:

Jackie Robinson

James Baldwin

Nat King Cole

Thurgood Marshall 

By the end of the decade MLKing but not Malcolm X.

Sidney Poitier

no singers that I remember.

I expect an 18 year old me in today's world would have a much longer list of singers, actors, writers. etc.  

Part of the difference between then and now is blacks coming to the fore.  But it's also true that part of the difference is the decline of hierarchy/or the multiplication of niches. 

 

 

 

Diversity Now and Then

I was struck by this tweet the other day:

The suburbs are actually a lot more diverse than NIMBY-in-Chief Trump seems to realize. NIMBYism is still partly about racism, but to an increasing degree it's about classism too.https://t.co/yxOeDJIpW7

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) July 29, 2020

Back in the 1950's and 60's suburbs were often seen as white, because the narrative was evil realtors were using "block-busting" tactics to get whites to sell their city homes for low dollars and flee to the suburbs while they turned around and sold the homes to blacks for high dollars.

With that narrative, anyone moving to the suburbs was "white", regardless of whether they were moving from a formerly Italian, Polish, Jewish, Irish, or whatever neighborhood.  With a different narrative we could have seen the suburbs as diversifying since they were, I believe, the site of mixing of ethnicities into "white Americans". 

But suburbs weren't "integrated", in the terms used then.  A number of prominent blacks have in their history the memory of being the "first" black family on the block. 

These days we say the suburbs aren't "diverse", by which we tend to mean they're segregated by class--typically a subdivision has only a limited range of prices, meaning it is affordable to a group of families limited by their income.  I think in most areas the middle income suburbs are integrated--they've a small number of "minority" families living in them, but not a great diversity.  At least in the DC area, that description might apply to the black-majority neighborhoods in Prince Georges, or the smaller Hispanic, Korean, or other ethnicity areas scattered around the Beltway.

The rule seems to be, if you have the money, groups with the greater feeling of identity (often more recent immigrants) will tend to buy in the same area, while a minority will go elsewhere. If you don't have any feeling of ethnic/racial identity, you buy wherever, usually based on the school system if you have or are going to have children.

Capitalizing "Black" and "White"

The Post announced today it would capitalize "white". This follows on the Times and AP deciding to capitalize "black". 

My gut reaction is opposed to both changes, particularly the "white".  But I'm not sure I've a rational basis for my objection.  Our designations for other racial groupings are capitalized: Asian-Americans, Latino/Hispanic Americans, African Americans; Pacific Islander Americans, Native Americans.  To be consistent in my opposition don't I have to come up with substitutes for those groupings.

I'm not sure, top of my head, of the difference between African-American and black--I know there's a perceived problem in distinguishing between immigrant African-Americans and antebellum African-Americans but does the black/African-American terminology handle that distinction?  (Personally I think the perceived differential might point to an important dimension in American culture, but that's an issue for another post.)

I guess my reaction, as shown in a tweet this morning, is concern over reifying differences.  To me "black versus white" is different than "White versus Black".  A George Floyd demonstration which includes "Blacks" and "Whites" feels different than a "black and white" demonstration (though I suppose a careful writer might say "biracial protesters" or something similar, which leads to the possibly that forcing writers to capitalize "Whites" will drive some to avoid the racial designation entirely.

Another part of my reaction might be discomfort at being forced to consider myself as part of a racial group, rather than assume membership in the majority culture (at least as U.S. is currently constituted).

Race Is a Social Construct?

Political correctness these days claims that race is socially constructed; perhaps it goes further to say there is no objective, independent basis for race.

I tend to bristle at such claims because I believe groups of humans can be grouped by common genetics.  But regardless of that, things like this Tweet remind me that society does construct "races". 

Sketches used by USSR police to identify suspects based on “race” pic.twitter.com/f9qtnrYwdS

— Soner Cagaptay (@SonerCagaptay) July 1, 2020

Sketches used by USSR police to identify suspects based on “race” pic.twitter.com/f9qtnrYwdS

— Soner Cagaptay (@SonerCagaptay) July 1, 2020

What Will Change After Pandemic and BLM and Election?

I think we may err in expecting a lot of change after 2020 ends. My sketchy thoughts:

• yes, if Biden wins  there will be a lot of change in government, but mostly it will be reversion to the norm.  Even if Biden carries in a solid majority in the Senate, I don't expect changes on order of LBJ's Great Society in 1965-68.  Or even Reagan's changes.  I'd add a qualifier--there may be a lot of changes on the international front, which will force more changes than we can see now.
• full recovery from the pandemic will take years. I'd expect the major changes to be the result of people getting more used to online everything. But otherwise I'd expect reversion to the norm generally.
• the current BLM protests will result in some moderately important changes in law, justice, and policing, but not much more.

The theme here is, I think, the power of old habits and the past.  I hope to live long enough to see how wrong I am.

A Sad Photo of Joyous Wedding

The Post had a picture of a wedding today, which I can't find online.  It was illustrating a Lisa Bonos story on a convergence of BLM and the wedding in Philadelphia.  All very joyous and feel-good, except when you look closely at the one photo of the wedding celebrants.

If I counted correctly there were 18 women and 7 men in the party.  I can make assumptions about the cause of the apparent gender imbalance, but whatever the reasons IMHO it casts a shadow on the event.

Children Born Racist?

CNN says they aren't.  I disagree.

Children are born human.  As such they have both the capacity to fear and flee from the unknown, and to know and love the known.   The family and social structures they're born into will guide them to things to know, and how to fear the things they don't.  Racism evolves from the interplay of the human abilities and the environment.  It's inevitable.

Satisfaction With 911 Calls

What's surprising in this survey is the uniformity in responses across ethnic and gender lines.  Though  that's good, what isn't the percent saying the police improved the situation.  (Might be because the situation had dissolved by the time the police got there, at least in part.)

The Police: Now and 1968

Lots of comparisons between the protests/riots of today and those of 1968. Lots of concerns about police.

IIRC in 1968 white liberals thought that integrating the police and establishing civilian review boards would solve the problems with the police.  With hindsight, civilian review boards, where established, have not done well.  The problem is likely the entrenched political power of police unions. Not only do police generally have a positive aura,but, like the NRA, they've the power of fierce unity.

And the police have been integrated, perhaps not as thoroughly and at all ranks in some places as they should be, but we know  now that police who are minorities themselves can be authoritarian and abusive.

There have been gains in 52 years.  The number of people killed now as opposed to 1968 is witness to that.  I suspect, but don't know, that the property damage has been of an order of magnitude less.  Part of that is learning from experience (though it seems we've forgotten a lot of the lessons of 1968) but much of it IMHO results from social trends.

Again, in IMHO, I think the problems we see with police today reflect continuing forces in society and economy.  It's inevitable when you ask people to risk their lives, whether military, firefighters, police, or Doctors without Borders they're likely to develop esprit de  corps, and an us versus them mentality.  It's inevitable in crisis situations police get lots of attention, much unfavorable, which further aggravates the us versus them.  When you add minorities to the mix, they'll often feel forced to do better, to go one step further in order to "prove" themselves.   It's inevitable that public attention will fade as memories fade, meaning that police unions, based on the esprit de corps, will gain leverage over the political process.  If you're willing to increase pay, you can chip away at union-enforced procedural rights.  If you aren't willing, as most publics won't be most of the time, you'll allow polices to gain job security in lieu of more money.

Tom Friedman in NYTimes

Last week Friedman had a doom and gloom op-ed in the Times, rather surprising given his past optimism.  He argues three trends have made the world more fragile:

Over the past 20 years, we’ve been steadily removing man-made and natural buffers, redundancies, regulations and norms that provide resilience and protection when big systems — be they ecological, geopolitical or financial — get stressed. We’ve been recklessly removing these buffers out of an obsession with short-term efficiency and growth, or without thinking at all.

At the same time, we’ve been behaving in extreme ways — pushing against, and breaching, common-sense political, financial and planetary boundaries.

And, all the while, we’ve taken the world technologically from connected to interconnected to interdependent — by removing more friction and installing more grease in global markets, telecommunications systems, the internet and travel. In doing so, we’ve made globalization faster, deeper, cheaper and tighter than ever before. Who knew that there were regular direct flights from Wuhan, China, to America?

Today he returns with an even more gloomy one, at least by title:

"I am not at all certain we will be able to conduct a free and fair election in November or have a peaceful transition of presidential power in January. We are edging toward a cultural civil war, only this time we are not lucky: Abraham Lincoln is not the president.

He goes on to segue into praise of local leaders, since he's given up on national leadership/Republicans.

The "doom and gloom" phrase dates back to the 1950's, when Ike attacked Democrats for spreading doom and gloom.  It's a hint that I think Friedman is unreasonable in his fears.   For example, the current pandemic will, I think, kill many fewer people than the 1918-20 one.  Why? Mostly because of our advanced science and communications.  The world is fighting it together, not as together as it could be, but much more so than in 1918.

Another example: the current riots are much less serious than in 1964-68--they don't reflect a racial division nearly as serious as then, mostly because conditions have improved greatly since then. 

1968 and Now--a Subtle Difference

I remember 1968 well, so well I've tried to avoid most coverage of the riots over the past few days.

There is one subtle difference I notice between then and now: the rioters are integrated.  In 1968 the rioters were all black.  Now they seem to be the majority but there's some whites (and perhaps Latinos and Asians, but I don't know that) shown as well.

I think that's a significant detail showing the distance between then and now.

Some Thoughts on the 1619 Project

One of the major items is the idea that the preservation of slavery played a big part in the American Revolution;  The best evidence appears to be

•  the southern reaction to Gov. Dunmore's offer of freedom to slaves who would fight for/work for the British.  
• fears that the Somerset decision, outlawing slavery in the UK, was a harbinger of changes in the colonies.

I'm a failed historian and I'm a WASP so my judgments are suspect, but here goes:

• the Dunmore issue is valid, but the timing makes it less relevant. As I learned in school, the run-up to the revolution took years, going back to the Stamp Act protests.  It comes in November 1775, after  the April Concord/Lexington fighting and months after the siege of Boston began.  It might have swayed Southern planters who were on the fence to decide to support independence.
• because slavery in the  British colonies in Canada and the Caribbean continued for years after the Revolution, people should not have had major concerns over the effect of Somerset.  But humans are able to worry about things without having a solid basis for it.  I'd like to see an analysis of discussion of Somerset in America between 1772 and 1776.