Understanding the unconscious side of racism - By john a. powell
Something precious is missing - By Kira Hudson Banks, Ph.D.
Will the Senate forget to discuss health care AND race? - By Cliff Albright
Understanding the unconscious side of racism - By john a. powell
The New York Times reported on December 1 that even educated blacks may suffer racial discrimination in the job market. Although the article focuses on the job market, it just as easily could have been about the credit market, the housing market or any of the various other markets and institutions in our society. When these stories appear – and it indeed is a good thing that they do appear – there is always an element of surprise and a dearth of information on what, if anything, can or should be done as a result.
The revelations in the New York Times story are punctuated by the happy surprise that we have an African American in the White House. But together these two factors create dissonance and even confusion. How can it be that we have an African American president, yet even Yale black graduates still face discrimination? And what about all the progress we have made?
Some of this confusion would go away if we had a more sophisticated understanding of race. We mainly talk about race and racial discrimination in terms of explicit, conscious attitudes; in this domain there is much to suggest we have made progress. But this is far from the whole story. Race occupies many domains, not just what is in our explicit, conscious mind. There are two other important areas on which to focus. One is what is in our unconscious mind, also referred to as implicit mind. The second is the effect of our institutional and cultural interactions in our society.
There is a good deal of work in the field of mind science about out conscious and unconscious. By some account, only about 2% of our cognitive and emotional processes are conscious and that 2% is impacted by what is going on in the other 98%. Movements over the last 30 years have given us better ways to both understand and measure what is going on in the unconscious.
Any given employer, or landlord, might look at an African American candidate, refuse to hire her or rent to her, and honestly say that race was not a consideration. But that response is only reporting information that is available in the conscious 2% of the mind. The processes in the other 98% may be harboring racial resentments and stereotypes that impact choices made.
Does this mean that the employer or landlord is unconsciously racist? Not necessarily. We often have conflicting feelings and thoughts and our explicit or conscious thoughts may differ from our implicit or unconscious ones. As a society, we are more likely to have racial fairness as a conscious value. One of the ways to make sure this value is not tripped up by our unconscious processes is to resolve to talk about race deliberately and constructively. This is not the prescribed norm for dealing with the issue of race. The racially enlightened are told not to talk about race or even to notice. That does not acknowledge the way our unconscious works.
Even if we could control the way we think of race, this would not give us reason to believe we are racially objective. Our lives are not simply a result of our conscious intentions. We must also pay attention to the ways our institutions interact and help shape our lives. We increasingly support integrated schools but send our children to increasingly segregated schools. This is not just a failure of living our values but a failure of aligning the work of our institutions with our stated values. The more complex society becomes, the more we rely on institutional arrangements to do work for us. Yet, seldom do we look at the work these institutions are doing to promote or constrain our stated values. If we are to understand race or any other important issue in our society we must expand our vision beyond the 2% of conscious process that is intentional. We must also look at our implicit processes and at how our institutions are structured.
The election of Barack Obama may indeed tell us much about shifts that are happening in the intentional conscious, but alone it is woefully inadequate to understand our world. If we are serious about racial fairness we must expand our scope.
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Something precious is missing - By Kira Hudson Banks, Ph.D.
A "Precious" Reaction Teaser – This Friday a Race-Talk Special Edition
***SPOILER ALERT***
Living outside of a major metropolitan area can put a damper on being a moviegoer, but I finally saw Precious. From all the reviews, I had a hunch the essence of the book would be lost in translation. In many ways, the film captures the basic elements of interpersonal abuse and perseverance.
What is missing from the film is the bigger picture.
The institutional dynamics of mistreatment, what stood out most to me in the novel, were essentially missing from the film. Focusing solely on interpersonal transgressions allows us to be saddened and outraged while distancing ourselves from the abuse Precious experienced. It happened to her. Other people were the perpetrators. Had the institutional, systemic examples of oppression been included in the movie, we would have been pushed to go beyond what Precious’ parents did to her and would have been made more aware of how our very own systems played a role in failing her. Push revealed, through the lens of Precious and her classmates, how institutions were failing young people in 1980s Harlem. Perhaps some of that depth was lost through the singular focus on Precious in the film version, whereas the novel allowed us to get to know the intricate stories of the classmates.
The most compelling example of this omission of institutional dynamics is that in the novel, Precious tells the nurses who tend to her- after the birth of her first child at the age of 12- that her own father was also the father of her baby. In that instant, Precious’ life should have changed. I am not naïve enough to say that it would have been all roses, but someone should have intervened. The same tragedy occurred after the birth of Precious’ second child. She reported, at the age of 16, that her father was the father of her baby. To the best of my knowledge, registered nurses are mandated reporters required to report abuse of a minor. Furthermore, the novel describes how Precious’ seeks help from the hospital when she returns after being discharged that day.
The fight with her mother leads her back, but she is met with neglect and told to go to a shelter. A minor, still bleeding from delivery, and her several-day-old baby are directed towards a shelter in the dead of winter. I am not suggesting that any of these individuals has something against Precious’ personally. I am also not suggesting that these institutions- the hospital or social services- should have poured all of their resources into this one situation. But I can’t help but think that something more could have been done. Why do we have these institutions if not to serve us in some way? More specifically, if not to serve the least of us- children?
The film not only omits some of these key pieces of information, but it also distorts them to suggest that Precious does not want help. When talking to her principal before being suspended from school, the film dialogue includes an inquiry about what is going on in the home after which Precious becomes belligerent. No such inquiry exists in the book. While the principal suggested she might visit the home to talk to Precious’ mother (as she also does in the film) that is far from a genuine interest in trying to understand how home life contributed to Precious’ second pregnancy and below grade level academic performance. In the novel, this example was not the first time that the education system failed Precious.
A child who is seven and sits in the back of the classroom all day- literally- and urinates on herself would be a red flag for an intervention of some kind, right? A parent teacher conference, a referral to a social worker, and possibly a subsequent Independent Education Plan might be in order. However when this example occurred in the novel, and Precious’ mother did not respond to the school, the principal concluded that the teacher should focus on students who want to learn. What does it say about our supposed equalizer called the public education system when a child who is clearly troubled is neglected so blatantly? I understand that then and now schools, disproportionately those who serve black and brown children, are under-resourced and lack funding. However, those responses in and of themselves are excuses for these institutional failings. They do not explain away what happened to Precious, they actually strengthen the argument that children are being left behind and the institution of education is not doing enough to meet their needs.
Some might argue that it is not the schools place to fix what is broken in the home. I am not suggesting that the schools re-parent. However, I am suggesting that perhaps the education system working in collaboration with social services could have intervened in a situation like Precious’ to allow her more of an opportunity to learn and thrive. Call me a dreamer. That’s what I thought civilized societies attempted to do- set up institutions to foster individual growth for the larger betterment and common good. At least that is what we have implicitly and explicitly attempted to do through the existence of entities such as the foster care system, mandated reporting or national programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters.
The film saddened me not only because it highlights the atrocities of abuse but also because it shines a light on how little we valued Precious’ life. I say "we," because people make up institutions. There was something about the systems that Precious came in contact with that did not see or value her enough to truly serve her. To my knowledge, we cannot choose our parents. It is our hope that parents foster growth in their children in a positive way, but we cannot mandate such behavior. However, we do have control over the institutions in our society- their aims, scopes and resources. We are the engines that keep institutions thriving and set their course. It’s convenient for us to acknowledge institutional failings when they cause tragedies such as the Clemmons’ police shooting and Huckabee’s commutation of his sentence. However, it would behoove us to be aware of institutional dynamics in proactive rather than reactive ways.
Precious was abused by her parents and abused by her society. I like the analogy used by Crossroads that institutional racism is the systems that kick the butts of people of color. Precious was struck down by the systems of education, social service, and the media. The systemic media oppression came in the form of colorism and the reification of Western ideals of beauty. Precious’ parents’ transgressions were personal, but the others were systemic. Taking care to understand the distinctions between various levels of oppression can help focus energy to combat such transgressions.
We Americans love a rugged-individual-triumphs-over-adversity story. I understand why this aspect of the novel shone through. My hunch is that had the institutional dynamics been highlighted in the movie, indicting all of our societal institutions and us, the film would have received even more scathing reviews. Yet, in my opinion, when you leave out the bigger picture, there is no accountability. Sure, you feel sorry for Precious and victims of abuse perhaps spurring gratitude for your own blessings. But that response remains purely individual.
My reaction after reading the book was that I needed to work for systemic change to mitigate the chances that other children could fall through the cracks. I considered increasing my volunteer work and thinking how I could leverage my community involvement to support institutional growth and change. My hope was that the film would engender a similar reaction in others perhaps creating a swell of activism. While it drew attention to the realities of abuse, as is often the case with books-turned-film, it fell short of living up to the depth present in the novel.
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Will the Senate forget to discuss health care AND race? - By Cliff Albright
As the battle over health care reform hits the Senate floor for debate, I’m wondering how long it’s going to take for the issue of race to pop up.
Oh, it won’t show itself as blatantly as it has at town hall meetings and conservative rallies. I hardly expect one of the Senators to set up an easel with one of those pictures of President Obama dressed as a witch doctor. No, it will be far more subtle than that. Instead of shouted, race is likely to be whispered and alluded to in the form of comments about "those people" who take advantage of big government and who make it harder for the good, tax paying Americans. You know "those people"—they’re the same ones who hang out with the welfare queens, standing on the corner eating candy bars that they purchased with their fraudulently obtained food stamps.
Possibly, race may show up in a slightly more direct way, perhaps in relationship to health coverage for immigrants. Remember, that’s the same issue that propelled Rep. Joe Wilson into stardom after he called the president a liar.
Honestly, I’m not exactly sure how race will show up, but I promise you, it will. The only question is whether or not we’ll have the courage to actually talk about it. Judging from the reaction to Jimmy Carter’s comments—comments that correctly pointed out the role of race in the vitriolic opposition to health care reform—my guess is we’ll be neither willing nor able to discuss the issue.
Of course, I’ve been saying Carter was correct ever since he made the comments, but until recently I haven’t had any actual data to support that belief, other than the common sense that God gave me. But thanks to professors Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler, that’s no longer the case. The two professors recently analyzed a survey which documented people’s attitudes towards health care reform as well as their attitudes towards Black people. According to their Washington Post article:
We find an extraordinarily strong correlation between racial resentment of blacks and opposition to health care reform. Among whites with above average racial resentment, only 19 percent favored fundamental health care reforms and 57 percent favored the present system. Among those who have below average racial resentment, more than twice as many (45 percent) favored government run health care and less than half as many (25 percent) favored the status quo.
Interestingly, the professors state that there was no such racial correlation during President Clinton’s health care reform efforts.
I wonder why.
Anyway, while some of the racial resentment directed towards health care reform stems from attitudes about President Obama, I have no doubt that some of the resentment is more ambiguous. Instead of being focused on one person, the racial attitudes have more to do with perceptions of who will benefit from health care reform.
Research shows that when asked about the racial makeup of assistance programs, most people assume far higher percentages of people of color than is actually the case, and these perceptions impact political support. In short, when White people that think "others" will benefit disproportionately from government programs, many of them simply aren’t as likely to support those programs.
Well, right now I don’t know who will end up benefiting the most from health care reform, but it’s pretty clear who needs it the most, and that’s people of color.
One government report on Health Disparities documents how people of color have higher rates of disease but reduced access to care. Another report, Unequal Lives, produced by the coalition Health Care for America Now, also documents the differences in insurance coverage. However, the most troubling findings involve outright discrimination; the findings apply even when people of color have similar coverage and income as Whites. The report shows that even in those scenarios, people of color still have less access to standard tests, less access to life-extending high-tech procedures and a higher likelihood of undesirable (and avoidable) treatments (such as amputations).
Now, having presented these statistics, let me be clear, my point is NOT that it’s okay for White people to be without health care. I happen to believe that health care is a human right and that in the richest country in the world, no one should be without proper health care. I despise all poverty, and I agree with Dr. Martin Luther King that at some point we need to stop feeling good about giving beggars some change and start changing structures that SYSTEMATICALLY produce beggars.
Some say that such change requires universal solutions, such as social security, FHA loans and the G.I. bill. But we often forget that these universal solutions were far from race neutral, they actually broadened the gap between Black and White. Similarly, generic health care reform that fails to address the racial disparities listed above could very well have the same effect.
With that in mind, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Hispanic Congressional Caucus and the Asian Pacific American Caucus worked hard to make sure that the House bill included programs and funding to address the racial disparities. According to an article at politico.com, the House bill "calls for a $12 billion increase over the next five years in funding for community health centers." The bill also includes funding for community health workers, school-based health care clinics and cultural/language training for health care providers.
While the House bill is a step in the right direction, the question remains whether the targeted funding will exist in the Senate version. More importantly, will there even be a Senate version? If these questions are to be answered in the affirmative, then Black, Latino and other marginalized communities are going to have to step up our involvement.
A coalition of organizations, including the NAACP National Voter Fund, the National Council of La Raza, PowerPAC.org and others, has come together to sponsor an ad campaign aimed at mobilizing communities of color. The ads are focused on states with large populations of people of color AND which have Senators on the fence regarding the Senate bill. Senators Lincoln (Arkansas) and Landrieu (Louisiana), the last two holdouts on bringing the bill to the Senate floor for debate, are covered by the campaign.
At the end of the day, the ads may need to be expanded to other states, so that a wider audience of people of color can be mobilized. Although they may not be able to influence the targeted Senators with potential votes, their potential campaign contributions flowing towards a more progressive challenger may be motivation enough. Either way, the time has come for us to act like our lives are on the line... Because in reality, they are.