The REAL Downside of the 'Systemic' Fixation
Teaching People to Languish and Externalize is the Opposite of Social Justice; Lowering Expectations and Ignoring Problems Will NEVER Lead to Improvement, for Anyone...
Disclaimers:
FIRST - I understand that 90% of public education continues to function normally. I understand that separate disciplinary standards for ‘POC’ students and the drive to ‘decolonize’ classrooms, by abolishing homework and effectuating other nonsensical changes, are still fairly rare. If I were to draw a trendline, though, I could predict with a high degree of certainty that bad ideas like these and other strange corollaries of the Critical Education approach of Paulo Freire will continue to increase in frequency and intensity, because they have completely captured the teachers’ colleges. Just as many of our institutions have often gone from structures operating with equal standards and meritocratic selectors to jargon-filled critical laboratories-embracing counter-productive and chaotic values of equity-in less than a decade, our schools are getting worse. It won’t be the students with concerned parents or tutors or designated homework hours every evening who will suffer. It will be a huge cohort of disproportionately disabled, poor, black, and emotionally struggling students and we saw how low their welfare ultimately is on the priority list for many teachers and especially their unions. I’m not trying to be alarmist but I think there’s a clear trendline and it’s steeply angled downwards.
SECOND - I understand that speaking about social pathology or struggles with schoolwork or family fragmentation in the context of generalizations about black Americans is unfashionable and will make some people a little anxious. These problems exist in every group but they are disproportionately severe in certain communities. The hesitation I often encounter (only from richer white folks, interestingly), that infantile squeamishness, is part of the reason that our dialogue about race has become so absurd and bizarre. A lot of black students in our public schools are struggling. About 20,000 black men (teenagers, mostly) will end their lives forever this year because of murders if we stay around the same rate as we saw last year… and none of those individual tragedies will have any involvement with police or white people. MORE THAN 75% of black households only contain a single parent, and the secondary effects (especially for boys) of that statistic is catastrophic, in the aggregate. If you think that these problems are going to be fixed by ‘liking’ things on Instagram or supporting racial admissions policies at Yale I suggest you think a little harder. These are grave social problems for the United States, the country I love, and the suffering they occasion ripples outwards and affects everyone. If it makes you uncomfortable thinking about these things and speaking about them (yes, with black folks too) then you probably just need some exposure therapy. Your social anxiety is less than irrelevant in the face of this holocaust, and if you think we’re going to solve problems of this magnitude without a lot of earnest conversations and collective effort then I daresay you probably need to think about these issues especially hard. Chances are you don’t think that. If you don’t want to talk about social dysfunction it’s probably just because you are insulated from it. Unfortunately you’ll get none of the warm and fuzzy hits of self-righteousness , like you do when you castigate our police forces. Keep in mind that these problems are literally 1,000 times more severe than the issue of police reform.
I read (and posted) a great article in Quillette yesterday, about Glenn Loury and the ongoing social science debate between those (like Glenn) who focus on the agency and capabilities of individuals within communities, and those who focus, rather, on systemic factors.
Quillette: Glenn Loury and the Great Partisan Divide
The author is a young political scientist and I found his piece cogent and interesting. I do have one criticism to make though: Aaron uses a debate between two intellectuals to structure his review of the perspectives on the issues of merit, choice, success, social mobility, and intergenerational poverty. His progressive (Briahna) tends to downplay the factor of individual choice and agency but the dialogue seems layered and cordial: two smart people separated by different values and assumptions, perhaps, having a lively and informed exchange.
I wish I believed that the social science of today was always this reasoned and collegial. The progressives I encounter almost entirely refuse to discuss out-of-wedlock births or family stability or culture or role models. Those important social roles and structures which have comprised over a century of social science are now (in many circles) worse than irrelevant: they’re reactionary.
Instead of two positions (the only two common positions until around 15 years ago), we could now envision the range of ideas on these subjects as points along a linear continuum, a spectrum. On the far right we have the considerations of Andrew and his conservative and libertarian peers (and, mostly, Glenn): family stability, cultural values, socialization, individual responsibility, and learned ambitions. Towards the leftward end we have Briahna, with a range of paternalistic dial-fiddling: free community college, an increased minimum wage, drug decriminalization. This is the familiar statist/American liberal starting place.
Now, however, there is a spot on the spectrum which is even further to the Left of Briahna. This position says that everything that Andrew mentions AND every social program Briahna wants to calibrate (in order to bring suburban wealth and idyll to our inner cities) is thoroughly saturated by racism. Rather than conducting factor analysis on population groups or ascertaining the precise benefit of a high school diploma or a male adult in the household, THIS worldview says that all of the above: high schools, diplomas, nuclear families, jobs, community colleges, are racist. I know it must seem like I’m being unfair to the ideology or picking from its most unhinged founder but this kind of blanket condemnation is entirely consistent with their ideas. Here are some additional ideas from this school of thought, recounted accurately: all instances of group disparity are sufficient and complete indications of systemic racism or other structural injustice. Past discrimination can only be amended with present discrimination.
What can I say about these absurdities? I could puncture the first rule with a dozen counterexamples. Social scientists should never feel comfortable qualifying or categorizing all instances of anything. The second statement betrays an ignorance of human nature and of history so complete that it’s almost impressive. When confronted with the advocates for a de novo regime of racial discrimination in the U.S. I defer to wisdom of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr and observe that such policies violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a monument of progress which took 30 years of blood and national struggle to establish. Hell. No.
I spend a lot of time grappling with ideas which seem comically insubstantial and I frankly worry about the effect they might be having on my mental health. I think the people I interact with on these issues may sometimes be mistaken regarding my motivations and the source of my passion. In the Manichean landscape they imagine American society to be they have positioned themselves as ‘good’, which necessarily locates all opponents somewhere close to ‘bad’. The reasoning proceeds thusly: America has a sordid history of oppression, and the oppression persists today. WE are trying to address the oppression. Anyone who opposes us must be blind to the oppression or a supporter of it.
This is simplistic, and because the root issues (the intersections of cultural and economic disadvantages, the ripple effects preceding us and spreading the injustices of previous generations forward, the retardation of ambition and drive and business acumen from centuries of marginalization) are complicated, the simplification is wrong. It’s worse than wrong - it’s patronizing, and its application is toxic.
I don’t promote patriotism and oppose anti-Americanism so strongly because I’m a nationalist. I’m not. I simply know enough about conditions elsewhere and I understand the uniquely progressive course of history of our country in the past 50 years (probably unprecedented in all of human history) and I feel lucky to live here. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the blessings of life In the United States is either ignorant about what much of the rest of the world is like, or they are being disingenuous. In some cases they’re so fixated on the promise of radical change that having to acknowledge the health and freedom and prosperity of our society is something that they truly resent. My patriotism is rooted in the virtue of gratitude: all perspective and mature contentment starts with the willingness to admit how good you have it, in so many ways. America is an unusually wonderful country in which to be white. America is an unusually wonderful country in which to be black. America is an unusually wonderful country in which to be poor. America is an unusually wonderful country in which to be gay. I don’t have to live any life but my own to know this because I’ve seen the rest of the world and I’ve spoken to many others who have as well.
I don’t promote personal agency and responsibility and I don’t fight the dictates of equity because I oppose a redistribution of benefits and advantages to the marginalized. I absolutely support such a levelling. My north star in political ethics is John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice which is radically egalitarian and communitarian.
However: you cannot simply redistribute privilege through committee. Privilege isn’t formed in bureaucratic agencies or faculty meetings and it can’t be apportioned in them either. The only way to increase the happiness and wealth and social capital of groups is to incentivize them and give them opportunities and let them seize those blessings for themselves.
Let’s use an example… academic achievement. There is a large (and growing) gap between mean black and white students in the U.S. Asian students spend BY FAR the most time per day (on average) doing school work. Their performance is very high. White students spend less time (and because this group is the largest there is much more variability). Black students spend (on average) the least. Many black students essentially don’t do homework, or do it rarely.
We can argue over the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and ‘redlining’ (which overwhelmingly affected buildings owned by white Americans, but never mind) but- when discussing academic performance-can anyone really claim that the historical echoes felt in the lives of black students in 2023 could ever hope to equate to the power of a daily habit of study? This isn’t about placing blame or justifying inequities. Inequities exist and students, as children, are essentially blameless. This is about solutions.
We have a grave racial achievement gap, and the modern Left says: don’t test these students; don’t measure their relative skills; don’t try to improve the performance of back students (neither through publicly funded tutors nor teacher assessments nor improving study habits, nor anything). Instead, let these students continue to drift and languish, and when they complete grade school push them toward the front of the pack. It’s a massive exercise of pretending that there aren’t serious issues in the focus and discipline of many black students and that there aren’t serious issues in many public schools. I honestly wonder how much of the current Leftist proposals are simply a function of a dialogue dominated by upper-class and well-educated people who are too alienated and uncomfortable to ever acknowledge that most black people actually have the freedom and resources in the modern U.S. to greatly improve their lives. To many of these privileged grown-up children that sounds… racist. The entire exercise of pretending that blacks (or the poor, or addicts, or the obese…) are sanctified victims of social injustice, redeemed by their struggles, wise and insightful and holy… but totally incapable of advancing in what might be the most opportunity-laden civilization ever. I oppose equity because it infantilizes its supposed beneficiaries.
And let’s stay with our grade school example (we could use college admissions or employment or criminals justice statistics - similar dynamics and condescending Leftist ideas exist for every area of society now). How do you improve the performance and the confidence and the education of a student? Do you tell her that she’s laboring under the weight of a vastly unfair system? Do you explain that her failures and the failures of people who look like her are really the intended outcome of the entire society? Do you communicate a strong implication that maximum effort won’t yield reward, and that she’s rightfully aggrieved before even beginning?
How do you increase the opportunities and initiative of people? Do you tell them that their lives are just casualties of an oppressive structure? Do you treat them like fragile and wounded creatures, given special considerations and advantages at every turn, on every test, after every disciplinary infraction? This is LITERALLY the ethic which the modern Left has now begun to advocate and it is being implemented (by preliminary and piecemeal degrees) in HUNDREDS of schools.
If I believed that black Americans were invalids or children or fitting objects of condescension I would probably lean toward these kinds of insulting set-asides too. Instead, I believe that EVERY racial gap in our society can close under the administration of a liberal, color-blind system, with the strengthening of black families and communities and the drastic improvement of the public schools that many black students are condemned to attend. Education is the alpha and omega of personal and political liberation and he most important factor for positive social mobility. Our public schools were often execrable before COVID, and now they’re worse and the Teachers’ Unions bear a hefty share of the blame.
The ideas of the Left (for students, for researchers, for actors, for employees, for artists, etc.) are NOT going to grow the capabilities and social capital of black America. Those areas of endeavor might grow and improve despite their ideas but certainly not because of them.
I will leave you with these questions (and if you don’t know much about the man and his ideas I strongly urge you to read his speeches and essays): do you think Reverend King would want the grandchildren of his people to be coddled and falsely rewarded? Do you think he would want their failing grades and academic suspensions (or bankruptcies or domestic violence charges or instances of parental neglect) to be quietly erased and never acknowledged? Does anyone improve when the negative consequences of their choices are systematically whitewashed? I certainly have not! Humans generally don’t. Do you think it was his dream that black children in 2023 be taught to see themselves as ‘black bodies’ in this society, before seeing themselves as humans or americans or students? Would he have wanted them to be instructed that they were all (individually and as a uniform mass) victims of invisible and burdensome evil, and qualitatively different from all of their fellows?
Or would he want the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the moral giants he marched and organized with to be treated fairly, equally, respectfully? Wouldn’t he want those children to be working toward the same goals under the same rules with the same expectations and rewards as everyone else?
There are tens of millions of Americans who now believe that we have to introduce artificial and drastically unequal rewards and penalties on the basis of race, in the interest of equality. This creepy and patronizing infantilizing might salve the consciences of a lot of rich white folks but its condemning a non-negligible number of young black Americans to mediocrity and a lifetime of cultivated greivance… rather than success.
Pessimism is often more realistic and it’s a useful bulwark against disappointment… but optimism is a far better outlook if you seek achievement. Do we not believe that acheivement is possible for black Americans? If so, why not? If we do… then why are we shackling the minds of millions with the opposite message?
They can improve, individually and collectively. Our society can help. If you don’t believe that because you think there’s simply too much racism out there then please step away from your phone and fucking do something about that… because I’m getting pretty tired of this ceaseless refrain of pessimissm and injustice from the richest and most indolent group of people the world has ever known.
Below I’ve collected a brief selection of the oratory of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was an unbelievably wise and learned man. His strategic vision was accompanied by a deep insight into human psychology and an almost unimaginable capacity for love and forgiveness. Anyone who speaks about racial justice in the United States and doesn’t center the words and ideas of this man in every conversation is probably a fool, or a viper.
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““There are some things in our society and some things in our world for which I am proud to be maladjusted. And I call upon all men of goodwill to be maladjusted to these things until the good society is realized. I must honestly say to you that I never intend to adjust myself to racial segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to religious bigotry.”
(delivered at Southern Methodist University, 1966)
We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often.
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Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.
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All we say to America is to be true to what you said on paper…Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights.”
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We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails
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You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?" And I was looking down writing, and I said, "Yes." And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, your drowned in your own blood -- that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had merely sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what that letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply,
"Dear Dr. King,
I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School."
And she said,
"While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I'm a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."
And I want to say tonight -- I want to say tonight that I too am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
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Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"
And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ (delivered at the Church of God in Christ Headquarters; Memphis, Tennessee, 1968)
“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
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But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
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Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
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And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
‘I Have a Dream’ (Delivered at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., 1963)
I’ve read and listened to his words 100 times and they still give me chills. Thanks for reading.
