sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2006-12-04 09:41 pm
sophiaserpentia) wrote2006-12-04 09:41 pm
Entry tags:
the bizarro-world of misappropriation
How is it that programs designed to address racial disparity, like court-mandated integration of public schools and affirmative action, have come under fire as perpetuating disparity and racial stereotypes?
Put simply, the opponents of these programs have misappropriated the language of dissent. Misappropriation is easy: a lie is stated, and because it appeals to the pro-racist, pro-sexist "common sense," it catches like fire and takes on a life of its own. This tactic works because the defenders of the status quo far outnumber activists and so can easily wear them down in a basic numbers game.
In the bizarro world of misappropriation of dissenting language, activists can then even be blamed for perpetuating the same stereotypes they are working against.
In the case of affirmative action the charge goes like this: "Activists want a color-blind society, right? So doesn't affirmative action actually make it harder for us to be color-blind and therefore perpetuate racial stereotypes by requiring employers and schools to take race into account?"
This is a classic straw-man, but this argument has been taking hold, and in fact drives the opponents of racial consideration who today argued before the US Supreme Court that any sort of consideration of race in assigning students to schools in a given district is un-constitutional.
Part of the problem comes from the phrase "color-blind society" and the assumptions behind this. What the heck does this mean? Popular parlance describes it as a society where people are judged on their own merits and abilities regardless of their race and gender and income background.
But this is problematic for many, many reasons. It presumes that the ideal non-sexist, non-racist society has some sort of "level playing field." On a "level playing field," it 'wouldn't matter' whether the person performing a job was male or female, black or white, Christian or otherwise.
It does matter, though, and it always will. Each of us brings something unique and special to any situation. The solution one person proposes will differ from the solution another person proposes because they are different people with different ways of thinking and different sets of experiences. And they shouldn't be homogenous. Diversity is to our advantage.
What defenders of the status quo want instead is for women admitted to act just like men, and for black people admitted to act just like white people. If a black woman competes with a white man on the "level playing field," who sets the standards by which their performance will be judged? Of the two, who was more likely better prepared to give the performance more likely to win the approval of the people who now sit at the top [PDF; see in particular page 14 of 39, about racial bias in the development of standardized tests] -- considering the possible affects of childhood nutritional deprivation, the trauma of discrimination and its subsequent disadvantages, and other forms of conditioning? The different solutions or strategies more likely to arise from the perspective of being able to bear children or from being a stranger in one's own society are not truly welcome.
And yet it can be said, and repeated, and believed by many, that activists who advocate affirmative action are the ones responsible for perpetuating racial disparity -- and, to boot, they are discriminatory themselves, for promoting so-called "reverse racism."
Never mind that even after several decades of affirmative action in the United States, there is still disturbing racial disparity in income and education level. If anything, this tells us that efforts to give people of color better access to educational and workplace environments need to be intensified, not dropped altogether.
I can't say with absolute certainty that affirmative action is the best possible solution. But what else do we have to work with? Wishing the problem away doesn't work.
Put simply, the opponents of these programs have misappropriated the language of dissent. Misappropriation is easy: a lie is stated, and because it appeals to the pro-racist, pro-sexist "common sense," it catches like fire and takes on a life of its own. This tactic works because the defenders of the status quo far outnumber activists and so can easily wear them down in a basic numbers game.
In the bizarro world of misappropriation of dissenting language, activists can then even be blamed for perpetuating the same stereotypes they are working against.
In the case of affirmative action the charge goes like this: "Activists want a color-blind society, right? So doesn't affirmative action actually make it harder for us to be color-blind and therefore perpetuate racial stereotypes by requiring employers and schools to take race into account?"
This is a classic straw-man, but this argument has been taking hold, and in fact drives the opponents of racial consideration who today argued before the US Supreme Court that any sort of consideration of race in assigning students to schools in a given district is un-constitutional.
Part of the problem comes from the phrase "color-blind society" and the assumptions behind this. What the heck does this mean? Popular parlance describes it as a society where people are judged on their own merits and abilities regardless of their race and gender and income background.
But this is problematic for many, many reasons. It presumes that the ideal non-sexist, non-racist society has some sort of "level playing field." On a "level playing field," it 'wouldn't matter' whether the person performing a job was male or female, black or white, Christian or otherwise.
It does matter, though, and it always will. Each of us brings something unique and special to any situation. The solution one person proposes will differ from the solution another person proposes because they are different people with different ways of thinking and different sets of experiences. And they shouldn't be homogenous. Diversity is to our advantage.
What defenders of the status quo want instead is for women admitted to act just like men, and for black people admitted to act just like white people. If a black woman competes with a white man on the "level playing field," who sets the standards by which their performance will be judged? Of the two, who was more likely better prepared to give the performance more likely to win the approval of the people who now sit at the top [PDF; see in particular page 14 of 39, about racial bias in the development of standardized tests] -- considering the possible affects of childhood nutritional deprivation, the trauma of discrimination and its subsequent disadvantages, and other forms of conditioning? The different solutions or strategies more likely to arise from the perspective of being able to bear children or from being a stranger in one's own society are not truly welcome.
And yet it can be said, and repeated, and believed by many, that activists who advocate affirmative action are the ones responsible for perpetuating racial disparity -- and, to boot, they are discriminatory themselves, for promoting so-called "reverse racism."
Never mind that even after several decades of affirmative action in the United States, there is still disturbing racial disparity in income and education level. If anything, this tells us that efforts to give people of color better access to educational and workplace environments need to be intensified, not dropped altogether.
I can't say with absolute certainty that affirmative action is the best possible solution. But what else do we have to work with? Wishing the problem away doesn't work.
no subject
Oh, yeah, i definitely don't believe there is any such thing, nor do i believe it is possible, or necessarily desireable.
I'm not at all surprised the "level playing field" myth persists
I'm not either -- this myth suits the purposes of the privileged just fine. It lets them keep their privilege without ever questioning the nature of it, or why they have it when others don't.